Head to head
Contentsquare vs Hotjar
The same company, two different products. Scored on ten weighted measures, with every price read on the same day.
Contentsquare
5.7/10
No. 24 of 30
Hotjar
5.6/10
No. 26 of 30
This comparison is slightly absurd and worth doing anyway, because a lot of people are making it without knowing the answer: Contentsquare acquired Hotjar in 2021, and hotjar.com now redirects to Contentsquare's pricing page. They are the same company, and the Hotjar free tier appears there as the Free plan.
What remains is a real question about which product in the portfolio you are actually buying.
The verdict
Hotjar, for anybody who is not an enterprise, and the reason is that you are buying the same free tier either way and the upsell path differs.
Both routes give you 200,000 monthly sessions free on one project, with replays, heatmaps, funnels and basic surveys. That is generous and it is the same allowance. Where they diverge is above it: the Hotjar-branded path leads to a $39 a month Growth plan aimed at a marketing team, and the Contentsquare path leads to enterprise experience analytics with zone-based heatmaps, journey analysis and revenue impact quantification, priced by quote.
Contentsquare's enterprise capability is real and is the right answer for a large retailer trying to work out why a journey leaks money. Zone-based heatmaps that attach revenue to page areas answer a better question than a click map does.
For everybody else, buy the simpler product, and go in knowing that the roadmap and the pricing are Contentsquare's decisions either way. Worth asking before committing: which components share a data model, and which merely share an invoice. A portfolio assembled from three acquisitions takes time to become one product.
Side by side
| Contentsquare | Hotjar | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall score | 5.7 / 10 | 5.6 / 10 |
| Rank on this list | No. 24 of 30 | No. 26 of 30 |
| From | Free then from $39 | Free then from $39 |
| What that buys | Free at 200,000 monthly sessions; Growth from $39 billed yearly; Pro is quoted | Now sold through Contentsquare: a free tier at 200,000 monthly sessions, Growth from $39 billed yearly |
| Free tier | Yes, 200,000 monthly sessions on one project | Yes, 200,000 monthly sessions on one project |
| Cookies | Yes | Yes |
| Script size | Large | Tens of kilobytes |
| Hosting | EU | EU |
| Trading since | 2012 | 2014 |
| Relationship | Parent company | Acquired by Contentsquare in 2021 |
| Free tier | 200k monthly sessions, 1 project | The same 200k monthly sessions |
| Paid entry | Growth from $39/mo billed yearly | Growth from $39/mo billed yearly |
| Upper tiers | Enterprise, quoted | Routed to Contentsquare's enterprise tiers |
| Zone-based heatmaps | Yes, with revenue attached | Standard click, scroll and move maps |
| On-page surveys | Basic | The stronger of the two |
| Aimed at | Enterprise ecommerce and financial services | Marketing and UX teams |
The ten measures, scored
| Measure | Contentsquare | Hotjar |
|---|---|---|
| Insight quality | 7 | 7 |
| Privacy architecture | 4 | 3 |
| Value for money | 6 | 6 |
| Setup and time to data | 5 | 7 |
| Script weight | 2 | 2 |
| Analytical depth | 8 | 6 |
| Behaviour tooling | 9 | 10 |
| Data ownership | 6 | 5 |
| Accuracy | 6 | 6 |
| Vendor conduct | 5 | 5 |
| Weighted overall | 5.7 | 5.6 |
Higher is better. The overall figure is the weighted mean, relative to the 30 tools on this list. How this works.
Which one should you pick
Choose Hotjar if
You are a marketing or UX team that wants recordings, heatmaps and on-page surveys without an enterprise conversation.
Choose Contentsquare if
You are an enterprise retailer or bank needing journey analysis with revenue attached, and you have procurement to satisfy.
Common questions
Is Hotjar part of Contentsquare?
Yes. Contentsquare acquired Hotjar in 2021, and hotjar.com now redirects to Contentsquare's pricing page. Contentsquare also acquired Heap in 2023.
Is there any difference between the Hotjar and Contentsquare free plans?
Not materially. Both give 200,000 monthly sessions on one project with replays, heatmaps, funnels and basic surveys. The difference is the upsell path above the free tier.
What are zone-based heatmaps?
Rather than colouring individual pixels, they measure engagement by page zone and attach revenue to each, so you can say what a carousel is worth rather than that people clicked on it. For an ecommerce team with a conversion target that is a better question than a click map answers.
Should I worry that these products were acquired?
It is worth asking which components genuinely share a data model and which share an invoice, because a portfolio assembled from three acquisitions takes time to integrate. It is also worth knowing that the roadmap is set by the parent either way.
Both entries above are desk reviews written from published evidence, and every judgement is my opinion rather than a statement of fact. Read the full reviews for Contentsquare and Hotjar, or tell me where I have got something wrong.