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Hotjar’s pricing model

We’re updating our pricing model to better align our pricing with the value that Hotjar provides. We don’t take changes like this lightly and transparency is one of our core values, so we’d like to share our thinking behind the update, and outline exactly what’s changing.

Last updated

27 Mar 2023

Reading time

6 min

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Screenshot of Observe and Ask pricing models.

Note: the content of this post reflects our pricing at the time of its publication. It may have changed since then. Check our pricing page for current plans and pricing.

The essential details

  • Our Surveys and Feedback tools are grouped into a product called Hotjar Ask that’s priced based on the number of responses you want to collect in those tools.

  • Our Heatmaps and Recordings tools are grouped into another product called Hotjar Observe that’s priced based on the number of sessions you want to capture, exactly as Hotjar is priced today.

  • Observe and Ask have Basic (free), Plus, Business, and Scale plans.

  • We’ve introduced Hotjar Engage to our platform. This new user interview tool is available on four plans: Pay as you go, Basic (free), Plus, and Business.

How we think about value and pricing

We’re both humbled and grateful for the 1.2M sites (across 180 countries) who use Hotjar to improve their product experiences. Nothing makes us happier than hearing the success stories our customers share with us about how they use Hotjar to understand their users and ultimately provide a better experience.

We’ve evolved a lot since our days as a plucky start-up back in 2014, and we’re now a team of 350+ Hotjarians working hard every day to serve you better. Of course, that work is never done and there’s always room for improvement. But one thing we’ve had to learn over the years is to not undervalue our product and the contribution it makes to hundreds of thousands of Hotjar users all over the world.

Even though our customers have been telling us for years how much Hotjar helps them make better decisions on both their products and their businesses, we're a humble bunch by nature and we've historically struggled to evolve our pricing in a way that reflects our product improvements.

From day one, we offered as much as possible in our free forever plan (it’s not going anywhere—don’t worry), like market-leading data capture allowances and retention periods, unlimited users, and unlimited feedback responses across all of our plans, free and paid.

How our pricing has evolved

In the early days, this approach allowed us to get up and running quickly. We could get Hotjar into as many hands as possible, without worrying about the complexities of making our pricing match the value we were providing. We told ourselves we’d revisit our pricing model “someday,” but aside from a few small iterations, our plans have remained largely unchanged since Hotjar was founded back in 2014.

We’ve come to realize that this lack of evolution in how we charge for our service is problematic for us as a business and for our customers, because it ultimately prevents us from making the investment necessary to achieve our vision.

So, like any good product team would do, we spoke with our customers, dug into the data, and analyzed the wider market. We also reevaluated how our product releases (like Hotjar Engage and Funnels) fit into our pricing model.

The result? Plans that better reflect our multi-product offering.

Quote: "I don't like to get emails from Hotjar saying 'Here's another Survey response' because it means someone has canceled! But it's vital information, and I read every single one." Luke Calton, Product Lead, Hussle

What’s changing in our pricing model

Hotjar customers can pick the right plan to match their usage of each Hotjar product—Observe, Ask, and Engage:

  • Observe includes Heatmaps and Recordings, and plans are based on the number of sessions you want to capture in those tools. The session allowances for each Observe plan are the same as they were before: 35 sessions/day on Basic, 100 sessions/day on Plus, starting from 500 sessions/day on Business, and unlimited sessions on Scale.

  • Ask includes Surveys and Feedback, and plans are based on the number of responses you want to collect in those tools. Each plan has a monthly allowance of responses across both tools: 20 responses/month on Basic, 250 responses/month on Plus, starting from 500 responses/month on Business, and unlimited responses on Scale. 

  • Engage is a bit different, as you can either Pay as you go, or choose from one of three plans: Basic (free) with 2 user interviews/month, Plus with 5 interviews/month, or Business for 10 interviews per month.

Some more changes:

  • Paying yearly rather than monthly saves you 20%

  • You can choose both an Observe and an Ask plan. A 20% discount will be applied if you choose paid plans for both products.

  • Observe, Ask, and Engage can be upgraded or downgraded separately based on each customer’s requirements, so you don’t need to be on the same plan for both products. 

The packages in more detail

The first questions that are likely to occur to new and existing Hotjar customers are “what’s the monthly allowance of responses in each Ask plan?”, and “how much will it cost?” Here’s a breakdown of the new plans and pricing.

Hotjar Observe: plans, pricing, and packages

Hotjar Observe is available for free for up to 35 daily sessions and unlimited heatmaps. Paid plans start at €32/month:

  • Plus (€32/month): up to 100 daily sessions, everything in Basic, and access to filters and segments, as well as our Events API to track custom user actions

  • Business (from €80/month): from 500 daily sessions, everything in Plus, and access to our integrations, our Identify API to track customer user attributes, as well as Frustration and confusion signals (like rage clicks)

  • Scale (from €171/month): from 500 daily sessions, everything in Business, and access to Funnels, Trends, Console tracking to spot errors, and more

Hotjar Ask is available for free for up to 20 monthly responses with 3 surveys and 3 feedback widgets. Paid plans start at €48/month:

  • Plus (€48/month): up to 250 monthly responses, everything in Basic, and unlimited surveys and feedback widgets, as well as our Events API to target surveys and widgets by custom user actions

  • Business (from €64/month): from 500 monthly responses, everything in Plus, and access to our integrations, our Identify API to track customer user attributes, as well as the ability to remove Hotjar branding and analyze survey performance

  • Scale (talk to us): everything in Business, and a dedicated customer success manager assigned to you, with full access to every feature

Hotjar Engage: plans, pricing, and packages

Hotjar Engage is available for free for up to 2 interviews per month:

  • Basic (free): up to 2 interviews of max 30 minutes per month, automated scheduling, customer screener questions, and built-in video calling 

  • Plus (€72/month): up to 5 interviews/month, everything in Basic, and an additional observer/interview, automatic transcription and highlights, as well as video clippings and downloads, and a 2-year recording retention

  • Business (€112/month): up to 10 interviews of max 60 minutes/month, everything in Plus, and up to 4 observers and 1 extra moderator/interview

  • Pay as you go (€90/credit): recruit from Hotjar’s pool of 175,000+ participants from around the world, with 1 observer/interview, and most of the Plus plan features

What’s next?

You've probably already started to see more improvements and new features pop up in our multi-product platform 

The best way to understand how our pricing model works is by checking our pricing page and trying out different combinations of plans for Observe and Ask.

As always, our support team is on hand for any questions you might have.