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Hotjar vs Lucky Orange on Shopify: Prices and Checkout 2026
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Hotjar is cheaper per session and its free plan is two thousand times larger. Lucky Orange includes surveys and live chat, has a real Shopify app, publishes named checkout events on every plan, and is the only one that claims to record checkout on Shopify Plus. Neither can watch checkout on a standard Shopify plan, and both say so.
By Misha Gavura · 14 min read · Every figure read off a live vendor page on . Prices change; re-check before you buy.
The short answer
Pick Hotjar if you want the cheapest recordings and heatmaps at your traffic, or if you want to pay nothing: its Free plan lists 200,000 monthly sessions. Pick Lucky Orange if you are on Shopify Plus and need to see checkout, if you want surveys and chat in one bill, or if you want a real App Store app rather than a theme.liquid paste.
Both bill per monthly session, which makes them easy to compare. At 10,000 sessions a month, Hotjar is $69 and Lucky Orange is $89, or $72 paid annually. At 7,000 sessions Hotjar is $49 and Lucky Orange has no plan between 3,500 and 10,000, so you pay $89. The one band where Lucky Orange is cheaper is 50,000 sessions, where its Expand plan at $199 a month on an annual rate undercuts Hotjar's $219 and $279 steps. Every Hotjar step from $0 to the top of the ladder is laid out in our Hotjar pricing breakdown.
Hotjar's prices moved house. hotjar.com/pricing now returns an HTTP 308 redirect to contentsquare.com/pricing, and the plan names in older comparisons (Plus, Business, Scale) no longer exist. The heatmap.com post that ranks for this search, dated January 22, 2025, quotes those retired plans at $39, $99 and $213. None of those numbers appear on the live page.
Hotjar's price ladder, now sold as Contentsquare
Contentsquare's pricing page carries a banner headed "Looking for Hotjar pricing? You're in the right place." The analytics product has four plans: Free, Growth, Pro and Enterprise. Only Free and Growth carry a price. Growth is a slider with fifteen steps (read September 3, 2026):
| Monthly sessions | Price / mo, billed monthly | Replays / mo (fixed) |
|---|---|---|
| 7,000 | $49 | 7,000 |
| 10,000 | $69 | 10,000 |
| 15,000 | $99 | 15,000 |
| 20,000 | $119 | 20,000 |
| 25,000 | $139 | 20,000 |
| 30,000 | $159 | 20,000 |
| 35,000 | $179 | 20,000 |
| 45,000 | $219 | 20,000 |
| 60,000 | $279 | 20,000 |
| 75,000 | $339 | 20,000 |
| 85,000 | $369 | 20,000 |
| 100,000 | $409 | 20,000 |
| 120,000 | $469 | 20,000 |
| 150,000 | $569 | 22,000 |
| 200,000 | $739 | 30,000 |
The billing toggle reads "Pay monthly" or "Pay yearly" with "Save 20%"; the FAQ says the discount applies when the annual plan is set up in-app by card or PayPal, not by invoice. So the annual-equivalent of the $69 step is about $55 a month, by my arithmetic; the page does not print it. The FAQ also states that Growth plans "do not require an annual contract", that new accounts get a 15-day trial of Growth with no payment details, and that there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Pro starts at "1m+ monthly sessions" and Enterprise is custom; neither carries a price. For a Shopify store, the Growth slider is the whole menu.
Lucky Orange's price ladder, both doors
Lucky Orange publishes two lists. Its Shopify App Store listing has four plans, including a Free one, and stops at 10,000 sessions. Its website has no free plan and runs from 3,500 to 700,000. Where a plan appears on both, the prices reconcile: the App Store's $374.40 and $854.40 annual charges divide out to $31.20 and $71.20 a month, which round up to the website's $32 and $72.
| Plan | Sold where | Sessions / mo | Monthly | Annual | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | App Store | 100 | $0 | – | 30 days |
| Launch | App Store | 500 | $19 | $182.40/yr | 30 days |
| Build | Both | 3,500 | $39 | $374.40/yr ($32/mo on luckyorange.com) | 60 days |
| Grow | Both | 10,000 | $89 | $854.40/yr ($72/mo on luckyorange.com) | 60 days |
| Expand | luckyorange.com | 50,000 | – | $199/mo, annual rate | Starts at 60 days |
| Scale | luckyorange.com | 300,000 | – | $839/mo, annual rate | Starts at 60 days |
| Enterprise | luckyorange.com | 700,000+ | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Discovery AI, the feature Lucky Orange's homepage leads with, is an add-on on the paid plans: the comparison table on luckyorange.com/pricing marks it "Add-On" and the App Store prices it at +$5 on Launch, +$10 on Build and +$20 on Grow. The App Store footer reads "Recurring and usage-based charges are billed every 30 days", so its monthly figures are true month-to-month prices.
Side by side at four traffic levels
Hotjar figures are the monthly-billed price; Lucky Orange figures are the App Store monthly price where one exists and the luckyorange.com annual rate above 10,000 sessions.
| Your monthly sessions | Hotjar | Lucky Orange | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3,000 | $0 (Free plan, 200,000 sessions) | $39 Build (3,500) | Hotjar |
| 7,000 | $49 (or $0 on Free) | $89 Grow (10,000); no 7,000 rung | Hotjar |
| 10,000 | $69 | $89, or $72 annual | Hotjar |
| 20,000 | $119 | $199 Expand (50,000), annual rate | Hotjar |
| 50,000 | $219 (45,000) or $279 (60,000) | $199 Expand, annual rate | Lucky Orange |
The 7,000 and 20,000 rows are where Lucky Orange's ladder hurts. It has no plan between 3,500 and 10,000 sessions and none between 10,000 and 50,000, so a store in either gap buys the next tier up, and the difference is not $20 a month but $40 to $80. Hotjar's fifteen-step slider has a rung within a few thousand sessions of almost any store.
Lucky Orange's own comparison page puts Hotjar at "$148 /month" for 7,000 sessions. That is Contentsquare's analytics Growth plan at $49 plus its surveys Growth plan at $99, bought together. For recordings and heatmaps only, Hotjar's number is $49. If you want surveys as well, Lucky Orange's comparison is fair.
The free plans: 200,000 sessions against 100
This is the widest gap between the two products. Contentsquare's Free plan card lists "200k monthly sessions", 10,000 replays a month, one project, "Replays, Heatmaps + Funnels", error and performance monitoring, basic surveys (100 responses a month, per the tooltip) and an MCP connection for querying the data from an AI assistant (contentsquare.com/pricing, September 3, 2026). The FAQ says you can cancel a Growth plan and "continue to have access to our Free plan".
Lucky Orange's Free plan is 100 sessions a month with 30 days of storage, and it exists only on the Shopify App Store; luckyorange.com/pricing offers a "7-Day Free Trial" instead. On a store doing 10,000 sessions a month, 100 sessions is 1% of traffic. A good demo, not a plan.
The catch on Hotjar's side is the replay cap. 200,000 sessions feed the heatmaps and funnels, but only 10,000 are replayable, a fixed monthly amount the page says cannot be increased. On a 20,000-session store you could watch half your visits. Still 100 times what Lucky Orange gives away.
What each one sees at checkout on Shopify
This section should decide the purchase for a Shopify merchant, and neither vendor's comparison page mentions it. Both confirm, in their own words, that Shopify's hosted checkout keeps third-party scripts out on standard plans.
Hotjar's Shopify help article, after the theme.liquid paste, says: "This will install the Hotjar tracking code on your Shopify storefront only. Shopify's built-in checkout process doesn't support the direct integration of third-party scripts, including the Hotjar tracking code." That is the whole of what Hotjar publishes about Shopify checkout. There is no Plus-specific claim either way.
Lucky Orange's integration page says, for standard plans: "Lucky Orange tracks all events on checkout but you will not be able to see Session Recordings or Heatmaps for the checkout page. This is a Shopify limitation, not a Lucky Orange limitation." And for Plus: "Lucky Orange is the only behavioral analytics tool that supports session recordings and heatmaps on Shopify Plus's hosted checkout pages."
"Tracks all events on checkout" is specific. Lucky Orange's checkout extensibility post names them: Product Viewed, Cart Item Added and Removed, Cart Viewed, Checkout Started, Checkout Contact Info Submitted, Checkout Address Info Submitted, Checkout Shipping Info Submitted, Payment Information Submitted, and Ordered. They appear as Key Events in dashboards, funnels and visitor profiles. So on a standard plan, Lucky Orange can tell you that 400 shoppers submitted shipping details and 310 submitted payment. Hotjar's published install path gives you the storefront and nothing past the checkout door.
On Plus, Lucky Orange claims the footage itself. A vendor claim to verify during the trial, but a published one, and Hotjar makes none. If checkout is why you are buying a recorder and you are on Plus, this section is the comparison.
Sessions, replays, and what happens at the cap
Both tools meter monthly sessions, not pageviews, which is why the tables above line up. Contentsquare defines one as a visitor's full journey across every page, ending after 30 minutes of inactivity, and says the allowance covers "your entire account (and all sites)". Lucky Orange's pricing uses "Track up to 3,500 monthly sessions" and charges $5 per additional website.
The difference is the second meter. Hotjar counts replays separately, and the replay count is fixed: 7,000 on the $49 step, rising with sessions to 20,000 on the $119 step, then flat at 20,000 from $139 to $469, then 22,000 and 30,000 on the top two rungs. A 100,000-session store on Hotjar can replay one visit in five. Lucky Orange publishes no replay cap and its comparison page claims "100% of sessions recorded".
On what happens at the cap, Hotjar is the clearer of the two. Its FAQ says: "If you reach the session limit on our Free and Growth plans: You won't get any new heatmap or funnel data until next month's reset date." Lucky Orange publishes nothing on whether collection pauses, sessions are sampled, or an overage is billed. A merchant near a cap should close that gap with support, in writing, before paying.
Retention
Hotjar's Growth plan card lists "13 month data access", with a tooltip reading "Access to all session tracking data for 13 months and 2 months for the Session Replays". The Free plan card states no retention figure I could read, so this page does not give one.
Lucky Orange's App Store listing shows 30 days of storage on Free and Launch and 60 days on Build and Grow; luckyorange.com/pricing shows "Starts at 60 days" on every plan, with 90, 180 or 365-day upgrades offered and no price attached. So on the paid plans, Hotjar keeps aggregate data for over a year and replays for two months; Lucky Orange keeps everything for two months unless you pay for more. To compare this Black Friday with last one inside the tool, Hotjar's Growth plan can and Lucky Orange's base plans cannot.
Surveys and live chat
Here Lucky Orange wins cleanly. luckyorange.com/pricing lists Live Chat and "Unlimited Surveys and Announcements" on every plan. One bill, everything in it.
Contentsquare sells surveys as a second product line called Voice of Customer. Its Free plan includes 100 responses a month and three surveys or feedback widgets at a time; the Growth plan starts at 500 responses a month and is priced separately. The FAQ offers a 10% discount on the cheaper of the two when you buy both Growth plans, on top of the 20% annual discount. There is no live chat product; Lucky Orange's comparison page says so, and on the pages I read that is accurate.
A survey is the only tool in either product that gives you a reason rather than a behavior, and it is worth having. Live chat on a Shopify store usually already exists in Shopify Inbox or a help desk app, so a second one is rarely the point.
App Store install, and the fake Hotjar app
Lucky Orange has an official Shopify app, live since July 8, 2014, with 4.7 stars from 879 reviews (apps.shopify.com/lucky-orange, September 3, 2026). Its help center says the app "will automatically install the tracking code on all pages of your Shopify store", and the integration page promises "No tracking code to add, no developer needed" across "all Shopify themes including custom themes".
Hotjar has no official app. The listing at apps.shopify.com/hotjar is titled "Hotjar Install", is published by a developer called Dualsided, and states: "We are not affiliated with Hotjar itself and have no ability to manage your account with Hotjar Ltd." It charges $0.99 or $2.99 a month, carries 4.3 stars from 89 reviews, and requires an existing Hotjar account. Hotjar's own install path is the help article: copy the tracking code, open theme.liquid, paste before the closing head tag. That snippet becomes theme code you own; duplicate the theme for a seasonal refresh and it does not follow unless you carry it across by hand. Lucky Orange's app route avoids that.
The speed cost
Every session recorder ships a script to every visitor, and neither vendor publishes what it costs. Lucky Orange's integration page claims its "tracking code loads asynchronously and doesn't affect your store's page speed". I found no equivalent claim, and no measured figure, on the Hotjar or Contentsquare pages I read.
The instruction is the same for both: run PageSpeed Insights on your product page before you install, again the day after, and keep both reports. If a recorder costs you measurable Largest Contentful Paint on mobile, the tool has to earn that back. Both trials are long enough to measure it (15 days on Hotjar's Growth trial, 7 on Lucky Orange's).
Verdict by store size
Under 3,500 sessions a month. Hotjar's Free plan. It is 200,000 sessions and 10,000 replays for nothing, against Lucky Orange's $39 Build. Unless you need live chat, there is no argument.
3,500 to 10,000 sessions, standard Shopify plan. Hotjar on price ($49 to $69 against $89). Lucky Orange if you want surveys and chat in the same bill, or if the App Store install is the difference between doing this and not doing it. Both are blind inside checkout; Lucky Orange gives you the nine checkout events, which is more than nothing.
Any size, Shopify Plus, with a checkout problem. Lucky Orange. It is the only one of the two that publishes a claim to record hosted checkout. Verify it on your own store in the 7-day trial before you pay.
10,000 to 50,000 sessions. Hotjar, and it is not close. Lucky Orange has no rung here, so a 20,000-session store pays $199 a month on an annual rate for Expand's 50,000 sessions, against Hotjar's $119 billed monthly with no contract.
50,000 sessions and up. Lucky Orange on list price ($199 Expand against Hotjar's $219 and $279 steps) and on replays (no published cap against Hotjar's 20,000). Hotjar on retention, 13 months against 60 days. At this size you are likely on Plus, which tips it back to Lucky Orange if checkout matters.
Whichever you choose, a recording is a hypothesis. It cannot tell you whether the fix you ship made money; that takes a test with enough traffic to conclude, which our significance calculator will size in a minute. Budget for both halves before you pick a recorder.
Disclosure. We are building StorePilot, a CRO tool for Shopify. It is not on the Shopify App Store and cannot be installed on a live store yet, so this page has nothing to sell you. Hotjar and Lucky Orange are both real products shipping now; if you need a recorder, one of them is the right answer today.
Questions merchants keep asking
- Which is cheaper, Hotjar or Lucky Orange?
- Hotjar, on list price, at almost every volume. At 7,000 sessions Hotjar is $49 a month against Lucky Orange's Grow plan at $89 (the App Store's Build plan stops at 3,500). At 10,000 sessions Hotjar is $69 against $89, or $72 if you pay Lucky Orange annually. At 50,000 sessions Hotjar sits between its $219 and $279 steps against Lucky Orange's Expand at $199 a month on an annual rate, the one band where Lucky Orange is cheaper. Read September 3, 2026, from contentsquare.com/pricing, luckyorange.com/pricing and apps.shopify.com/lucky-orange.
- Does Hotjar have a free plan?
- Yes, and it is large: 200,000 monthly sessions, 10,000 session replays a month, one project, heatmaps and funnels, error monitoring and basic surveys (contentsquare.com/pricing, September 3, 2026). Lucky Orange's free plan is 100 sessions a month with 30 days of storage, and it exists only on the Shopify App Store; luckyorange.com offers a 7-day trial instead. If free is the requirement, this is not a close call.
- Can Hotjar or Lucky Orange record the Shopify checkout?
- Neither can on a standard Shopify plan, and both say so. Hotjar's help article says the tracking code installs on your storefront only because Shopify's checkout does not support third-party scripts. Lucky Orange's integration page says you will not see recordings or heatmaps for the checkout page on standard plans. On Shopify Plus, Lucky Orange claims recordings and heatmaps of the hosted checkout; Hotjar makes no equivalent claim on any page we read. On standard plans Lucky Orange also publishes nine named checkout events, from Checkout Started to Ordered, that show up in its funnels.
- Is Hotjar priced per session or per pageview?
- Per session, the same as Lucky Orange, so the two ladders compare directly. Contentsquare defines a session as a visitor's full journey across every page, ending after 30 minutes of inactivity. Hotjar also meters replays separately: 7,000 on the $49 step, 10,000 on $69, and capped at 20,000 from the $139 step to the $469 step. Lucky Orange's comparison page claims 100% of sessions recorded.
- What happens when I hit the session limit?
- Hotjar publishes the answer: "You won't get any new heatmap or funnel data until next month's reset date" (contentsquare.com/pricing FAQ). Lucky Orange does not. Neither luckyorange.com/pricing nor its App Store listing says whether recording pauses, sessions are sampled, or an overage is charged, as of September 3, 2026. Get the rule from support in writing before you subscribe.
- Which keeps recordings longer?
- Hotjar's Growth plans list 13 months of data access, with session replays available for 2 months. Lucky Orange stores 30 days on the App Store's Free and Launch plans, 60 days on Build and Grow, and "Starts at 60 days" on every luckyorange.com plan, with 90, 180 and 365-day upgrades offered without a published price. On the paid plans, Hotjar keeps aggregate data far longer; replays are a similar window on both.
- Do surveys and live chat cost extra?
- On Lucky Orange, no: luckyorange.com/pricing lists Live Chat and unlimited surveys and announcements on every plan. On Hotjar, surveys are a separate product line. The Free plan includes 100 survey responses a month and three widgets; the paid Voice of Customer Growth plan starts at 500 responses a month and is priced separately, with a 10% discount on the cheaper plan when you buy both. Hotjar has no live chat.
- Is there an official Hotjar app in the Shopify App Store?
- No. The listing at apps.shopify.com/hotjar is called "Hotjar Install", is published by Dualsided, and says "We are not affiliated with Hotjar itself". It charges $0.99 or $2.99 a month to place the tracking code. Hotjar's official path is pasting the code into theme.liquid. Lucky Orange's official app has been on the App Store since July 8, 2014, with 4.7 stars from 879 reviews, and installs the code on every page for you.
A note on sources. Every price, plan name, limit and quotation on this page was read off a live response on September 3, 2026, from contentsquare.com/pricing (which hotjar.com/pricing redirects to with an HTTP 308), help.hotjar.com's Shopify article, apps.shopify.com/hotjar, luckyorange.com/pricing, apps.shopify.com/lucky-orange, luckyorange.com/integrations/shopify, Lucky Orange's checkout extensibility post and Shopify install article, and luckyorange.com/lucky-orange-vs-hotjar. Hotjar's annual-equivalent figure is my arithmetic on the page's "Save 20%" toggle. Prices change. Re-check before you buy.
