Looking for a Microsoft Clarity alternative? Here's the straight version: if you're not on Shopify, stay with Clarity. It's free, the script is fast, the heatmaps and replays are good, and Microsoft isn't going anywhere. There's no point switching for switching's sake.
If you are on Shopify and want filters that understand your customers, orders, cart values, and UTMs — Clarity isn't shaped for you. The list below ranks the strongest alternatives by Shopify-fit. Propel Replays takes the top slot because it's built on Shopify primitives and the free tier covers most small stores. Hotjar, Lucky Orange, MIDA, Mouseflow, and Smartlook follow, with honest notes on each — including the one that's about to shut down.
Disclosure: we make Propel Replays. We've tried to write this list the way we'd want a peer studio to write it — naming where competitors win, naming where Clarity is still the right call, and not pretending the free option is bad just because we charge for ours.
The recurring reasons we hear from merchants who switch.
Ranked by Shopify-fit, not by raw feature count. Each entry has the quick verdict, where it wins, where it doesn't, and the price.
Shopify-native session replay, heatmaps, AI summaries, and surveys — built by a small Shopify studio.
Propel Replays is the tool we built because we ran a Shopify store called SOLID and couldn't answer the question Clarity couldn't either: why aren't these visitors converting? Shopify Analytics told us what; Clarity and Hotjar told us what visitors did, but their filters didn't speak Shopify. So the segments that mattered — first-time buyers, returning VIPs, $200+ carts — were off-limits. We built the version that does.
Where it wins vs. Clarity: replay filters map to every Shopify customer field, cart value, order tag, UTM, and Shopify Markets region. Replays link back to the actual order in Shopify admin — click through and you're in the customer record. The script ships as a Shopify theme app embed (Shopify injects it at the bottom of the page after the rest of your theme has loaded, async), measuring 0ms impact on Core Web Vitals. Lighthouse scores are identical with Replays enabled and disabled. Insight alerts proactively surface the replays worth your attention, and product-page alerts flag ATC-rate drops on PDPs before they bleed conversion — neither lives in Clarity.
AI summaries with Shopify context: every replay is auto-summarized into two sentences the moment you open it. The story of the session — where the visitor came from, what they did, where they bailed — surfaces before the video plays, and the summary is written with the Shopify customer and order context in view. Clarity's Copilot does generic page-level analysis; Propel writes per-session narratives that know who the visitor is in your store.
Real merchant support: tickets are answered by humans, often the same person who built the feature. Tom (our Support Team Lead) shows up by name in five-star reviews more times than any of us care to count. Replies are typically the same day, often within hours. Clarity has docs and a forum. The two aren't substitutes.
Where Clarity still wins: Clarity's free tier is unlimited sessions; Propel's is 750 pageviews/month. If you're doing more than that and free is the deciding factor, Clarity is the right call. If you can spend $6.44/mo (annual) on a tool that fits your Shopify workflow, Propel is the upgrade path Clarity doesn't offer.
The original session replay brand. Multi-platform. Now part of Contentsquare's enterprise stack.
Hotjar invented the modern session-replay-plus-heatmaps category and earned its market position with years of polish. Feature-rich, mature, well-documented. If you run multiple sites across multiple platforms — Webflow, WordPress, custom React, and Shopify — Hotjar's the one tool that treats them all the same.
Where Hotjar wins vs. Clarity: richer feature set (funnels, surveys, feedback widgets), polished UI, more granular event tracking, an established Shopify integration listing. If you're switching from Clarity because you've outgrown it and you don't care specifically about Shopify-shape, Hotjar is the obvious upgrade.
Where it falls short for Shopify: the same multi-platform-ness that makes it portable also means it's not Shopify-shaped. Filters don't know what a Shopify customer is. Replays don't link back to orders. The script loads through GTM or a hard-coded snippet — structurally heavier than a Shopify-native embed (we don't have a published Lighthouse benchmark on it). The Contentsquare acquisition has pushed pricing up and the sales motion enterprise-ward — small Shopify merchants find it expensive and overbuilt.
Verdict: if you're already on Hotjar and it's working, no reason to leave for Clarity. If you're moving from Clarity and Shopify-shape matters, skip Hotjar — the multi-platform tax is the same as Clarity's, just at higher prices.
Long-running Shopify App Store presence with a mature feature set and a dated UI.
Lucky Orange has been on the Shopify App Store as long as anyone in this category and built a serious feature footprint — replays, heatmaps, conversion funnels, live chat, surveys, announcements. Tens of thousands of Shopify stores have used it at some point. If you remember Lucky Orange from 2018, it's still around.
Where Lucky Orange wins vs. Clarity: deeper Shopify integration than Clarity (the Shopify App Store listing is real, not a partner page), live chat and conversion funnels in the box, mature heatmap and replay features. If you want every CRO tool under one app and you don't mind the older feel, it's a fair switch.
Where it falls short: the UI feels like 2017, the dashboard buries the signal under a wall of features, and the tracking script bundles many modules into one payload — structurally heavier than a Shopify-native embed. Pricing climbs sharply at scale: Launch ($19/mo) is fine; Build ($39/mo) and Grow ($89/mo) cost more than most small Shopify stores want to spend on CRO. Sales-first onboarding rubs some merchants the wrong way.
Verdict: a fine Clarity alternative if you want the breadth of features and don't care about modern UI. If you care about craft, speed, or AI-summarized workflows, look elsewhere on this list.
Shopify-native replays and heatmaps — our closest direct peer in shape and pricing.
MIDA is the closest peer to what we're building. Same audience (Shopify merchants), same general feature shape (session replay + heatmaps), similar entry pricing. They've invested heavily in SEO content — comparison and alternative pages, glossary, pillar posts — and they rank for a lot of the same queries we do.
Where MIDA wins vs. Clarity: properly Shopify-native, modern UI, lighter script footprint than Clarity. Reasonable pricing. If your only criterion is "anything other than Clarity, but Shopify-shaped", MIDA does the job.
Where we differ from MIDA: we lean harder on AI-summarized workflows (every replay opens with a two-sentence narrative, generated automatically), we sweat craft details — defaults, empty states, install flow — and our support shows up in five-star reviews by name. MIDA's stronger on out-the-gate SEO content; we're stronger on the in-app experience and the marketing site you're reading. The honest pitch is to try both on the free tier for a week and pick whichever rhythm fits you.
Verdict: a legitimate Clarity alternative, especially if AI summaries and craft aren't load-bearing for your workflow. If they are, Propel.
Multi-platform replays and heatmaps with a strong friction-detection bent.
Mouseflow leans into automated friction detection — rage clicks, dead clicks, error clicks, JavaScript errors, slow-page indicators, U-turns. The dashboard surfaces these as ranked "friction events" so you don't have to know which sessions to watch. For a tool that competes mostly on automation, that's a defensible angle.
Where Mouseflow wins vs. Clarity: better friction surfacing, real funnel analysis, more developer-friendly event tracking. If you have a stack that goes beyond Shopify and you want one tool that watches a SaaS dashboard plus your storefront, Mouseflow's a respectable pick.
Where it falls short for Shopify: multi-platform like Hotjar and Clarity — no Shopify customer-field filters, no order link, generic script load. Pricing skews higher than the Shopify-native options on this list. If Shopify is your only platform, Mouseflow's strengths don't compound for you.
A solid product on its way out. Cisco announced End of Sale for May 31, 2026.
Smartlook was, until recently, a credible Clarity alternative — strong on mobile and web replays, decent heatmaps, reasonable pricing. Cisco acquired the parent company and announced End of Sale for May 31, 2026. New customers can't sign up after that date; existing customers face a sunset window.
Verdict: not a viable choice for new installs. If you're already on Smartlook, you're in the migration window — pick a long-term-stable tool from the list above. If you found this page after googling "Smartlook alternative", we have a dedicated page for that here.
We make a competitor — and we still think Clarity is the right tool in plenty of cases. Here are the four.
The criteria a Shopify merchant actually uses when picking a session-replay tool.
| Tool | Shopify-native? | Free tier | Starts at | AI summaries | 0ms CWV | App Store | Customer filters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Propel Replays | Yes | 750 pv/mo | $6.44/mo annual | Yes — every replay | Yes | 4.9★ | Yes — every Shopify field |
| Microsoft Clarity | No | Unlimited | Free | Page-level (Copilot) | No | Partner page | No |
| Hotjar | No | 35 sessions/day | $39/mo | Limited | No | 3.9★ | No |
| Lucky Orange | Partial | 100 sessions/mo | $19/mo (Launch) | No | No | 4.6★ | Limited |
| MIDA | Yes | 3,000 pv/mo | $9.99/mo | Yes | Close to 0ms | 4.9★ | Yes |
| Mouseflow | No | 500 sessions/mo | $25/mo (Essential) | No | No | 4.0★ | No |
| Smartlook | No | EOL May 2026 | — | — | — | — | — |
Pricing reflects each vendor's published entry-tier as of April 2026. App Store ratings reflect the Shopify App Store listing where one exists.
Easier than switching from Hotjar or Lucky Orange. Here's the honest path.
One click. Replays adds itself as a Shopify theme app embed — no GTM, no theme.liquid edits. The tracking script ships async at the bottom of the page after Shopify's done its work, which is why we measure 0ms impact on Core Web Vitals. First replay typically lands in your dashboard within a minute of normal traffic.
We genuinely recommend this. The two scripts don't interfere — Clarity loads through your theme.liquid, Propel loads through the theme app embed. Watch the same week's traffic in both tools. Compare which surfaces the answers faster, which filters fit your questions, which one you actually open in the morning. After two weeks the call is usually obvious.
Switching from Clarity is easier than switching from Hotjar or Lucky Orange because there's nothing to anxiously preserve. Clarity doesn't offer session export — historical replays live with Microsoft regardless of what you do next. Heatmap aggregates can't be exported either. So the question of "do I lose my Clarity data" is moot: that data was never yours to keep. Start fresh; a week of Shopify-shaped data tends to be more useful than a year of generic data.
Once you've made the call, pull the Clarity snippet out of theme.liquid (or remove the GTM tag, or uninstall the Clarity Shopify partner integration — depending on how you installed it). One fewer third-party script in your theme is, separately, a small Lighthouse win. If you'd like a hand and you're stuck, our support team — Tom in particular — has walked dozens of merchants through this. Email us; replies usually land the same day.
Install Propel Replays free on the Shopify App Store. Free up to 750 pageviews/mo. 7-day free trial on every paid plan. 35% off when billed annually.