The best session replay tools in 2026 — prices verified, including where we lose

Name: BusinessMCP
Brand: BusinessMCP

Seven replay tools compared on what they cost, how long they keep a recording, and whether they can tell you who was in it.

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Price: Free: Clarity (unlimited), Contentsquare (200k), FullStory (30k), Mouseflow (500). Paid: $25–$839/mo self-serve; FullStory quote-only. BusinessMCP from $79/mo.
Switching gets you: The one replay tool on this list that names the visiting company, runs on a cookieless script with analytics and CRM, and turns friction into an AI-built A/B test.
Stay with Session replay tools if: You want free replay (Clarity), surveys in the same tool (Hotjar, Lucky Orange, Mouseflow), or engineering-grade capture and mobile SDKs (FullStory).

Feature comparison — pricing verified September 2026. Sources: public pricing pages + published teardowns.
	BusinessMCP	Hotjar (Contentsquare)	Microsoft Clarity	FullStory	Mouseflow	Lucky Orange
Entry price for replay	$79/mo (Growth); free plan is analytics-only	Free (200k sessions/mo) · Growth $49/mo annual · Pro/Enterprise custom	Free forever, no traffic limit	Free (30k sessions/mo) · paid tiers quote-only, ~$10k–$116k/yr	Free (500 sessions) · $25 · $109 · $319/mo · Enterprise custom	$32–$839/mo annual ($39+ monthly) · Enterprise custom
Replay retention	7 days · 30 days · unlimited (Growth · Scale · Business)	1 month free · 2 months on Growth · up to 24 months on Pro	30 days (favourites + heatmaps 9 months)	12 months on Free; contract-dependent on paid	1 · 3 · 6 · 12 months by tier	60 days (extendable on higher tiers)
Rage + dead-click detection	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI analysis of a recording or heatmap	Yes	Yes (Contentsquare AI summaries)	Yes (AI summaries + chat)	Yes (StoryAI, add-on)	Yes (AI-generated summaries)	Yes (Discovery AI)
Friction → A/B test (AI opens the PR)	Yes (Scale, $199/mo)	No	No	No	No	No
Knows which company the session was	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Cookieless, consent-aware capture	Yes	Sets its own cookies; consent handled by you	Sets first-party cookies; consent handled by you	Cookie-based identity; consent handled by you	Cookie-based; consent handled by you	Cookie-based; consent handled by you
Analytics + CRM in the same tool	Yes	No	No	No	No	No

The full picture

Session replay has become a commodity: every tool on this page records the DOM, draws click and scroll heatmaps, and flags rage clicks. What still separates them is price at real volume, how long a recording survives, whether the tool knows who the visitor was, and whether it is still going to exist next year — Smartlook reached end of sale under Cisco in May 2026, and Hotjar’s pricing page now redirects to Contentsquare.

Below are the prices we verified on 15 September 2026, a feature matrix with BusinessMCP in the first column, and a plain statement of where each competitor beats us. If you only need free replay, Microsoft Clarity is the answer and you can stop reading. If you need replay that feeds a sales pipeline and an AI business analyst, keep going.

The tools, honestly assessed

Microsoft Clarity — the free default

Free forever, no traffic limits, recordings, heatmaps, rage and dead clicks, AI summaries. Playback is kept 30 days (heatmaps and favourites nine months). No identification, no CRM, and the data sits with Microsoft. Start here if budget is zero.

Hotjar (Contentsquare) — the incumbent, now three products

Free up to 200k sessions with one month of data; Growth from $49/month billed annually and scaling with volume (13 months of data, two months of replay); Pro and Enterprise custom. Surveys are a separate Voice of Customer subscription. Best if you want replay plus feedback under one enterprise vendor.

FullStory — engineering-grade, quote-only

Console and network capture, mobile SDKs, product analytics, capture rules by segment. Free to 30k sessions with 12 months retention; paid plans are quoted, with Vendr reporting ~$10k–$116k/yr contracts (median ~$28k). Best when engineers are the audience and the budget is annual.

Mouseflow — self-serve mid-market

Free (500 sessions, 1 month), Essential $25/mo (5,000 sessions, 3 months), Advanced $109 (25,000, 6 months), Premium $319 (100,000, 12 months), Enterprise custom; annual billing saves up to 35%. Adds funnels, form analytics and feedback. Retention scales with the tier, which is honest and predictable.

Lucky Orange — every feature on every plan

Build $32, Grow $72, Expand $199, Scale $839 per month on annual billing ($39/$89/$249 monthly), by session volume with 60-day storage; Enterprise custom. Heatmaps, replay, surveys, chat and Discovery AI on all tiers — popular with Shopify stores.

Smartlook — do not start here

Cisco announced end of life on 31 March 2026: end of sale 31 May 2026, last renewal 31 August 2026, servers off 31 August 2027, with Splunk Observability as the named migration path. Its last published pricing was a free tier to 3,000 sessions and Pro from $55/month. Existing customers need a plan before the renewal deadline.

BusinessMCP — replay that knows the account

Replay and heatmaps from $79/month on the same cookieless script as analytics and CRM; every recording linked to the identified contact or the company resolved from IP; deterministic rage and dead-click detection with a frustration score; AI read-outs; on Scale ($199) friction becomes an A/B test the AI implements as a pull request. Retention 7 / 30 / unlimited days by plan.

Real data, not a mockup

What it looks like in BusinessMCP

Recorded on our own site, PII scrubbed — the same product you get on the free plan.

app.businessmcp.com/replays

Session replay pricing at a glance (verified September 2026)

Hotjar’s plans are Contentsquare’s and are being reshuffled; Smartlook cannot be purchased and its servers shut down on 31 August 2027. Re-verify before you buy.

Plan	Price	Notes
Microsoft Clarity	$0	free forever, no traffic limit; 30-day playback
Hotjar (Contentsquare)	Free · from $49/mo	free to 200k sessions; Growth annual, scales with volume; Pro/Enterprise custom
FullStory	Free · custom	free to 30k sessions/12 months; contracts ~$10k–$116k/yr reported
Mouseflow	Free · $25–$319/mo	500 / 5k / 25k / 100k sessions; retention 1–12 months
Lucky Orange	$32–$839/mo annual	$39+ monthly; 3.5k–300k sessions; 60-day storage
Smartlook	Not for sale	end of sale 31 May 2026; last published Pro from $55/mo
BusinessMCP	$79–$499/mo	Growth 7-day · Scale 30-day + A/B tests · Business unlimited; analytics + CRM included

Every price above was read from the vendor’s own pricing page on 15 September 2026, except FullStory’s paid range (Vendr contract data) and Smartlook’s legacy price (a 2026 teardown, since the product is no longer sold).

Where BusinessMCP is NOT the right choice

An alternatives page you can trust has to cut both ways. Honestly:

There is no free replay tier. Microsoft Clarity is free forever with no traffic limit and Contentsquare (Hotjar) records up to 200k sessions a month for $0; BusinessMCP recordings start on the $79 Growth plan with 7-day retention.
Our replay retention is shorter unless you are on Business. Growth keeps 7 days and Scale 30; keeping recordings for the life of the account is a $499/mo feature, and raw heatmap events expire at 30 days on every plan. Contentsquare Growth keeps 13 months of data access, and FullStory Free keeps 12 months.
We do not ship surveys, feedback widgets, NPS or funnel-in-replay reports. Hotjar, Lucky Orange and Mouseflow bundle those; with us, a survey tool is a separate purchase.
Replays capture the DOM, not the console or network. FullStory and Smartlook record JS errors and requests alongside the session; if engineers are your main replay audience, that matters.
We are a younger product with fewer integrations and coarser sampling controls than FullStory’s segment-based capture rules, and there is no native mobile-app SDK — web only.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free session replay tool?

Microsoft Clarity. It is free forever with no traffic limit and includes recordings, heatmaps, rage and dead-click detection and AI summaries. Its limits are 30-day playback retention and no visitor identification. Contentsquare (Hotjar) and FullStory also have free tiers capped at 200k and 30k sessions a month respectively.

Is Smartlook still available?

No. Cisco announced Smartlook’s end of life on 31 March 2026: end of sale was 31 May 2026, the last renewal date is 31 August 2026 and servers shut down on 31 August 2027. Existing customers are pointed at Splunk Observability Cloud; anyone else should choose a different tool.

Which session replay tool identifies the visiting company?

Of the tools on this page, only BusinessMCP. Replay runs on the same cookieless script as its analytics and CRM, so an anonymous B2B session carries the company resolved from IP (about 20–35% of B2B visits) and an identified session opens against the contact.

How do retention periods compare?

Clarity 30 days; Contentsquare 1 month free, 2 months replay on Growth, up to 24 on Pro; FullStory 12 months free, contract-set on paid; Mouseflow 1–12 months by tier; Lucky Orange 60 days; BusinessMCP 7 days on Growth, 30 on Scale, unlimited on Business.

Do I need a cookie banner for session replay?

That depends on the tool and your jurisdiction. Most replay tools set their own cookies and leave consent to you. BusinessMCP’s script is cookieless and consent-aware — in gated modes recording waits until consent is granted — but you remain the controller and should follow your local rules.

Other honest alternatives

Smartlook alternative

Where to go before the August 2027 shutdown.

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Crazy Egg

Heatmap-first tool with A/B testing; see the teardown.

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Website personalization for B2B

What to do once you know which company is on the page.

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Sources & verification

Every price on this page traces to a public source, last verified September 15, 2026. Spotted a change? Tell us and we'll re-verify.

Keep reading

Session replay & heatmaps, explained Hotjar alternative Microsoft Clarity alternative FullStory alternative Website personalization for B2B

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