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Clarity is a free way to see heatmaps and session recordings. Cuttl covers the same ground and adds the next step: testing a fix and checking whether it worked.
Microsoft Clarity is a free behaviour analytics tool with heatmaps, session recordings, rage and dead click detection and AI insights, with no traffic limits. It doesn’t run A/B tests. Cuttl is a paid tool that includes the same kind of analytics plus A/B, split URL and multivariate tests, automatic fix checks and Change Impact on one plan.
Clarity is often the first heatmap tool a team installs, and for many sites it’s enough. Teams usually look further when they start testing changes, because the problems Clarity shows then have to be rebuilt as tests in a second tool, with a second snippet and a second report. This page compares the two honestly, including when Clarity is the better pick.
What is A/B testing? Read the guide| Feature | Cuttl | Microsoft Clarity |
|---|---|---|
| Price | One paid plan with every feature | Free, with no paid tier |
| Heatmaps (click, scroll, movement) | Yes, using all of your traffic | Yes, with no traffic limits or sampling |
| Session recordings | Yes. Visits with frustration, errors, feedback or a conversion are always kept | Yes |
| Recording retention | You choose, from 30 days to two years | 30 days. Favourite recordings and a random sample are kept for up to 9 months |
| Rage, dead and error clicks | Yes, grouped into issues ranked by how many visitors they affect | Yes, as insights and recording filters |
| Funnels and form analytics | Funnels, plus drop-off for every form field | Funnels |
| A/B, split URL and multivariate tests | Included, with a visual editor, guardrails and Bayesian, sequential or fixed-horizon statistics | Not offered |
| Heatmaps and recordings for each test variant | Yes | Not applicable |
| Before-and-after analysis without a test (Change Impact) | Yes | No |
| Fixes checked automatically | Yes. Issues close once clean visits can’t be chance, and reopen if the problem returns | No |
| Feedback and NPS surveys | Yes, linked to the visit’s recording | No |
| Speed and error monitoring | JavaScript errors, failed requests, Core Web Vitals and uptime | JavaScript errors in recordings |
| AI | MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code, which can also draft tests (with approval) | AI-generated insights and summaries in Clarity |
| Sites | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland | Respects your consent settings before recording; IP addresses are never stored | Explicit consent required before Clarity’s cookies are used |
Microsoft Clarity details are from Microsoft’s Clarity FAQ and clarity.microsoft.com, October 2026. Check their site for current features.
In Cuttl, a problem such as rage clicks on a checkout button becomes a test idea with the recordings attached. One click drafts the A/B test, and each variant gets its own heatmaps and recordings. With Clarity, the test lives in a separate tool.
Web Experiments
Cuttl watches for a problem to stop after you fix it, marks the issue fixed once the clean visits can’t be chance, and reopens it if the problem comes back.
Frustration and issues
Not every change can be A/B tested. Change Impact compares the pages you changed with the rest of your site before and after, and says plainly when there isn’t enough data yet.
How to measure a change without an A/B test
Cuttl’s MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code answer questions about your visitors and draft tests from real page elements. Anything that changes your site waits for a person’s approval.
MCPAdd the Cuttl snippet to your site’s <head> (or through Google Tag Manager). It can run next to Clarity.
Set up your goals and funnels in Cuttl. Heatmaps and recordings start filling in from the first visit.
Run your first A/B test on the biggest issue Cuttl finds.
Keep Clarity as long as it’s useful, or remove its snippet once you no longer need it.
Yes. Microsoft describes Clarity as free forever, with no traffic limits and no paid upgrade.
No. Clarity is a behaviour analytics tool for heatmaps, session recordings and insights. To test a change, you need a separate A/B testing tool, or a tool like Cuttl that does both.
Yes. Both run from a script in your page’s head, so you can run them side by side while you compare, or keep Clarity alongside Cuttl.
According to Microsoft, Clarity keeps recordings for 30 days. Recordings you mark as favourites, plus a random sample, are kept for up to 9 months.
Teams usually pay when they want to act on what they see: test a fix, see heatmaps and recordings for each variant, and get told when a fix worked. Cuttl does that on one plan for unlimited sites. If you only need to watch visits, Clarity may be enough.
No. Cuttl is a paid, fully hosted service. Email [email protected] for current pricing.
Yes. Hotjar is now part of Contentsquare, and Cuttl covers the same heatmaps, recordings and surveys, with A/B testing included. See Cuttl vs Contentsquare.
Add one line to your site and your first heatmaps and recordings arrive today.