PulseTrack vs Hotjar
Hotjar showed everyone what a heatmap is for. Since 1 July 2025 it is part of Contentsquare, and its plans are now Free, Growth, Pro and Enterprise. It remains a behaviour tool you add next to your analytics; PulseTrack is both in one place, without cookies.
One tool instead of two
Hotjar shows behaviour; your traffic and revenue live somewhere else. PulseTrack puts pages, sources, revenue, heatmaps and replay in the same account.
No cookies, and a much lighter page
Hotjar's recording module writes _hj cookies and weighs about 62 KB on a recorded page. Our script is 3.7 KB, and replay only loads where you enabled it.
Where Hotjar wins
Its free plan covers 200,000 sessions a month, and it has surveys, feedback widgets and usability testing — none of which we offer.
Side by side
| Criterion | PulseTrack | Hotjar |
|---|---|---|
| Works without cookies | No cookie, no local storage: a daily-rotating anonymous identifier computed on the server | The recording module writes cookies on the visitor's device, under _hj names |
| Traffic analytics: pages, sources, devices | A full analytics dashboard: pageviews, visitors, channels, campaigns, countries and devices | Experience Analytics is built around sessions and pages; funnels and journey analysis are included, acquisition reporting is not its purpose |
| Heatmaps | Click, scroll and rage-click maps (Starter plan and above) | Heatmaps on every plan; zone-based heatmaps from the Growth plan |
| Session replay | Recorded sessions with every input masked (Starter plan and above) | Replays on every plan; the free plan captures 5% of sessions, up to 10,000, kept one month |
| Surveys, feedback widgets, usability testing | Not offered | Voice of Customer: free up to 100 responses a month, then $99 a month |
| Funnels | Multi-step funnels with drop-off, time to convert and revenue lost per step | Funnels included from the free plan |
| A/B tests and feature flags | Experiments with a significance verdict, and percentage rollouts | Not offered; A/B testing tools are connected through integrations |
| Revenue per traffic source from Stripe | A read-only Stripe key; every payment is attributed to the session and channel that brought it (Growth plan and above) | Revenue goals and tracking from the Pro plan, whose price is on quote |
| Free plan | 1 site, 5,000 events a month, 1 funnel, 30 days of history | 200,000 sessions a month, 1 project, replays, heatmaps and funnels — far larger than ours |
| Price published up to the top of the range | Every plan has a public price, from the free plan to the top one | Free and Growth are public ($49 a month, billed annually); Pro and Enterprise are on quote |
| History kept | 30 days on the free plan, up to 12 months depending on plan | 1 month of analytics access on the free plan, 13 months from Growth; replays kept 1 month, 2 from Growth |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Hosted, OAuth sign-in, read-only by default, and no cap on the number of questions | Included on every plan, metered: up to 300 tool calls a month on the free plan |
| Base script weight | 3.7 KB gzipped; replay loads extra code only on the pages where you enabled it | 6 KB loader, then a 56 KB recording module — about 62 KB compressed on a recorded page, measured on 18 September 2026 |
Choose PulseTrack if…
- You would rather have traffic, revenue and behaviour on one screen than in two tools.
- You do not want a cookie on your visitors' devices.
- You care what the script costs your pages — 3.7 KB against about 62 KB once recording starts.
- You want to know the price of the top plan without asking for a quote.
Choose Hotjar if…
- You need surveys, feedback widgets and usability testing alongside the recordings.
- You have a high-traffic site and the 200,000 free sessions a month decide it.
- You already have an analytics tool you are happy with, and only want the behaviour layer.
What the Contentsquare merger changed
Hotjar Ltd, the Maltese company, merged into the Contentsquare group on 1 July 2025. The tools are the same — heatmaps, recordings, surveys — but they are sold inside Contentsquare's range, and the old Basic, Plus, Business and Scale plans were replaced by Free, Growth, Pro and Enterprise. If you are comparing against a Hotjar quote older than that, it is worth re-reading.
What 5% of sessions means for a replay
On the free plan, replays are captured on 5% of sessions, up to 10,000 a month. That is a sampling choice, not a bug: it keeps the free tier affordable at 200,000 sessions. It does mean the specific session a customer complained about is unlikely to be in there. Our free plan records nothing at all, and from €9 a month records up to 500 sessions — a smaller number, but not sampled, so a funnel drop-off you filter for is actually findable.
Two scripts, two costs
Hotjar's tag is a 6 KB loader that fetches a 56 KB recording module, so a page being recorded pays around 62 KB compressed. Ours is 3.7 KB, and the replay code — which is comparable in size, because recording a DOM costs what it costs — is only fetched on the pages where you turned replay on. The difference is not our code being cleverer; it is when it loads.
Frequently asked
Do I still need Google Analytics next to PulseTrack?+
No, and that is the main difference with Hotjar: traffic, channels, campaigns and revenue are in the same dashboard as the heatmaps and the replays.
Are your heatmaps as detailed as Hotjar's?+
For clicks, scroll depth and rage clicks, yes. Contentsquare's zone-based heatmaps, which attribute engagement and revenue to a page zone, go further and are on their paid plans.
Can I import my Hotjar recordings?+
No. Recordings cannot be moved between tools, so PulseTrack starts recording from the day you enable it.
Sources, checked on 18 September 2026
- Contentsquare Help Center — Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare: plans and pricing (merger date, plan names)
- Contentsquare — Pricing (Free and Growth allowances, replay capture rate, MCP)
- static.hotjar.com tag and script.hotjar.com modules, measured and read by PulseTrack (size, cookies)
Products change: something looks out of date? It was accurate on the date above, and we correct it as soon as it is reported. Hotjar is a trademark of its owner, not affiliated with PulseTrack.