Candler or Microsoft Clarity for an online store.
Microsoft Clarity is free, has no traffic limits, and is a good tool. If you want free recordings and heatmaps, start there. Candler is for stores that want every recording tied to the store's own order data on any platform, checkout funnels with the visits that dropped off, and analytics with no advertising business behind it.
In short.
- Pick Clarity if
- You want session replay and heatmaps for free, at any traffic, and page-level guesses at purchases are enough.
- Pick Candler if
- You want revenue and orders from your store tied to each visit, recordings kept longer than 30 days, and visitor data kept out of an ad network.
- Both?
- Plenty of stores run Clarity and something else. They don't interfere with each other.
Clarity is free, and that's real.
Clarity has no paid plan and no traffic limits. It records up to 100,000 sessions per project a day and keeps recordings for 30 days, with favorites and a random sample kept up to 9 months. Candler's free plan records 1,000 sessions a month. On free volume, Clarity wins and it isn't close.
Clarity's sales reports are for Shopify.
Clarity's Purchases report only works on Shopify sites, and its checkout abandonment report only on Shopify Plus. Elsewhere, Clarity can spot a purchase or an add to cart from what happens on the page, but it doesn't get the order itself: no order number, no products, no revenue.
Candler gets the order from the store on every platform it supports: the WooCommerce plugin, the BigCommerce orders key or the Shopify webhook. Each paid order lands on the visit that made it, with its products and total, and is counted once. You can search for shoppers who added to cart and didn't buy, then watch what happened.
| Candler | Microsoft Clarity | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free for 1,000 recorded sessions a month. Paid from $24 | Free, no paid plan |
| Recordings kept | 14 days on Free, up to 180 days on paid plans | 30 days, with favorites and a sample up to 9 months |
| Orders and revenue | From the store on WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Shopify | Purchases report on Shopify. Elsewhere, detected from page activity |
| Checkout abandonment | Every platform, linked to the visits that left. Checkout itself is recorded on WooCommerce and BigCommerce | Shopify Plus |
| Where data is kept | Nuremberg, Germany | Microsoft Azure |
| Advertising ties | None. No ad pixels, data never sold | Connects to Microsoft Advertising |
Candler has no advertising business behind it.
Clarity connects to Microsoft Advertising, its FAQ says its third-party cookies serve purposes like advertising, and it points visitors to the ad industry's opt-out page. That's a fair trade for a free tool, but it's worth knowing when you write your privacy policy.
Candler sells software, not data. It sets no ad pixels, builds no profiles across other sites and never sells visitor data. IP addresses aren't stored with visits, form fields are masked in the browser, and visitors whose browser sends Global Privacy Control aren't tracked. Clarity respects Global Privacy Control too.
Each has things the other doesn't.
Clarity has, Candler doesn't
- AI features, including chat about your data and AI summaries.
- A Google Analytics integration.
- Unlimited projects and team members at no cost.
What Candler adds for a store
- Revenue, orders and add to cart rates by product and traffic source, from the store's own order data.
- Checkout recorded on WooCommerce and BigCommerce, so you can watch the step where a shopper gave up.
- Recordings kept up to 180 days, and visits and orders kept with no time limit on paid plans.
- Notes and follow-up dates your staff add to a visitor's profile.
- Data kept in the EU, on servers in Nuremberg, Germany.
What people ask when comparing.
- Why pay when Clarity is free?
- Pay if knowing which visits ended in an order, and for how much, is worth more than the plan, or if you need recordings for longer than 30 days. If neither matters, Clarity is a good choice.
- Can I run Candler and Clarity together?
- Yes. They use their own cookies and scripts and don't conflict.
- Does Clarity work with WooCommerce?
- Yes, for recordings and heatmaps. Its Purchases report is for Shopify sites only.
Microsoft and Microsoft Clarity are trademarks of Microsoft. Candler isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Clarity's details are from its FAQ and change from time to time.