A Hotjar alternative made for online stores.
Hotjar is now sold as part of Contentsquare, a broad experience analytics suite. Candler does one job: it records store visits and ties each one to the cart, the checkout and the paid order. If you run a WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Shopify store and mostly use Hotjar for recordings and heatmaps, Candler is the narrower, store-first choice.
In short.
- Pick Candler if
- You run an online store and want recordings tied to orders, funnels that link to the visits that dropped off, and a price that doesn't climb with features you don't use.
- Stay with Hotjar if
- You use its surveys and feedback tools, you want product analytics or AI summaries, or you want the most free recordings.
- Not sure?
- Run both for a few weeks. They don't interfere with each other.
Hotjar's plans are now Contentsquare's.
Contentsquare bought Hotjar in 2021. Hotjar's pricing page now sends you to Contentsquare's, where heatmaps and recordings are part of its Experience Analytics plans. If you're on an older Hotjar plan, check what you'll move to when it renews.
Price compared.
Contentsquare's figures are from its own pricing page.
| Candler | Contentsquare (Hotjar) | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 1,000 recorded sessions a month, recordings kept 14 days | Up to 200,000 sessions analyzed, with 5% of sessions recorded (up to 10,000), kept 1 month |
| First paid plan | Starter, $24 a month, 5,000 recorded sessions | Growth, from $39 a month, priced by sessions |
| Recordings kept | 30 days on Starter, up to 180 days on Scale | 2 months on Growth |
| Websites | 1, 3 or 10 by plan | 1 project on Free, 3 on Growth |
| Running out | Recording pauses until next month. No overage charges | On Free, collection stops until the monthly reset |
Contentsquare's free plan records more visits than Candler's. If free volume is what you need most, it's the better deal. Candler's free plan records fewer visits but keeps a year of visits and orders, and every visit carries its cart and order.
Hotjar covers more ground. Candler goes deeper on sales.
Both have
Session recordings, click and scroll heatmaps, funnels, and rage click detection.
Contentsquare has, Candler doesn't
- Surveys and feedback widgets.
- Product analytics.
- AI chat and AI summaries of heatmaps and replays, on paid plans.
What Candler is built around
- Every recording knows the cart and the order. Search for visits that added to cart and didn't buy, or that started checkout and left, and press play.
- Orders from the store's server. The WooCommerce plugin, the BigCommerce orders key and the Shopify webhook report paid orders directly, so ad blockers don't lose sales.
- Revenue by source. Every visit keeps its source, campaign and ad click ID, so orders line up with where the shopper came from.
- Drop-off recordings. Each funnel step links to the recordings of the shoppers who stopped there.
- Visitor profiles with every visit and order, plus notes your staff add.
- Data in the EU. Recordings, visits, orders and backups stay on servers in Nuremberg, Germany.
Switching means running both for a while.
- Sign up free and install Candler next to Hotjar. Pick your platform: WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, or one script tag on any other site.
- Let both record for a week or two and compare.
- Remove the one you don't keep.
What people ask when comparing.
- Is Hotjar still a separate product?
- Hotjar's pricing page now goes to Contentsquare's, and its recordings and heatmaps are sold as Contentsquare's Experience Analytics.
- Does Candler have surveys?
- No. Candler does recordings, heatmaps, funnels and store analytics only.
- Can Candler show which recordings ended in a sale?
- Yes. Every visit is tagged with whether it added to cart, started checkout and bought, and you can filter recordings by any of those.
Hotjar and Contentsquare are trademarks of their owner. Candler isn't affiliated with or endorsed by either. Their details are from Contentsquare's pricing page and change from time to time.