hotjar vs fullstory
Hotjar vs FullStory — features, pricing, and which to choose for your SEO workflow in 2026.
Quick Verdict
Hotjar and FullStory both help you understand user behavior through session recordings and heatmaps, but they serve different markets. Hotjar targets SMBs and agencies with straightforward analytics and transparent pricing, while FullStory focuses on enterprise customers with advanced AI features and custom pricing.
The choice typically comes down to scale and complexity. If you need basic heatmaps and recordings to optimize landing pages and identify UX issues hurting your SEO, Hotjar delivers exactly what you need. If you're managing enterprise sites with complex user journeys and need AI-powered insights, FullStory's advanced analytics justify the premium.
Feature Comparison
Hotjar provides the core behavior analytics features most SEO professionals need: heatmaps showing where users click and scroll, session recordings to see exactly how users navigate your pages, and simple surveys for gathering feedback. Their funnel analysis helps identify where users drop off in conversion flows, which is crucial for optimizing pages that aren't converting. FullStory goes deeper with AI-powered frustration detection that automatically identifies rage clicks, error clicks, and dead clicks. Their search functionality lets you find specific user sessions based on complex criteria like "users who visited the pricing page but didn't convert." FullStory's performance monitoring also tracks page load times and identifies technical issues that could hurt your Core Web Vitals scores. Both platforms offer heatmaps and session recordings, but FullStory's replay quality is superior with pixel-perfect reproductions and better mobile capture. However, Hotjar's interface is more intuitive for teams that don't have dedicated analytics specialists.
Pricing Comparison
Hotjar starts free for up to 35 daily sessions, then paid plans begin at $39/month for 100 daily sessions. Their Business plan at $99/month includes 500 sessions and advanced features like funnels. Pricing is transparent and scales predictably based on session volume. FullStory offers a free tier for 1,000 monthly sessions but requires custom pricing for meaningful usage. Enterprise plans typically start around $199/month but can reach thousands per month for high-traffic sites. While expensive, FullStory includes advanced AI features and unlimited user seats that can justify the cost for larger organizations.
Best For
Choose Hotjar if you're an SMB, agency, or startup that needs straightforward behavior analytics. It's perfect for optimizing landing pages, identifying UX friction points, and gathering user feedback without complexity. The transparent pricing and easy setup make it ideal for teams that want insights quickly without enterprise overhead. Choose FullStory if you're managing enterprise websites with complex user journeys and need advanced analytics capabilities. The AI-powered insights and superior search functionality are valuable for large teams that need to dig deep into user behavior patterns. It's also better for sites where technical performance monitoring is crucial for SEO.
The Verdict
For most SEO use cases, Hotjar provides better value. Its straightforward approach to heatmaps and session recordings gives you the insights needed to optimize pages and improve user experience signals without overwhelming complexity. FullStory's advanced features are impressive but overkill unless you're managing enterprise sites where the additional AI capabilities and performance monitoring justify the significant price premium.