Microsoft's free session replay and heatmap tool with no traffic caps, for websites and mobile apps.

Clarity records sessions and renders click, scroll, and area heatmaps with no sampling and no volume pricing — Microsoft states it is free forever, with no traffic limits and no paid tier to upgrade to. It derives behavioral signals like rage clicks and dead clicks automatically, masks sensitive content by default, and links to Google Analytics so you can jump from a GA segment to matching recordings. The client-side capture code is open source on GitHub, though the backend that stores and serves your data is Microsoft’s alone.

How it models data. Clarity identifies users with a first-party cookie per browser, so the same person on a phone, tablet, and PC counts as three users. Sessions are replay-first, not event-first: there is no warehouse export or user-level events API in the mold of product-analytics tools, so treat it as a qualitative layer, not a system of record. Retention is short and fixed — recordings are kept 30 days (favorites and a random sample up to 9 months), so save anything you’ll want later.

Implementation. Install is a snippet in the <head>, an NPM package (@microsoft/clarity), or a one-click integration on platforms like Shopify, WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace; GTM is auto-detected during setup. Data appears immediately, and you can verify capture by watching POST requests to clarity.ms/collect. Bot detection is on by default and excludes bot sessions from counts. Mobile app SDKs exist, though some features (conversion maps, for one) don’t carry over from web.

Real gotchas. Clarity cannot capture canvas content or third-party iframes, so canvas-heavy apps get blank replays. Input-box text is masked in every masking mode and cannot be unmasked; conversely, content inside stylesheets is never masked, so don’t put sensitive strings in CSS. URL-parameter masking requires a support request. For visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, Microsoft now enforces consent signals: you must pass consent through Clarity’s Consent API or a supported CMP, and without it cookies aren’t set — analytics still collect, but sessions fragment into single pages and full replays and journey continuity are unavailable. Microsoft’s terms also bar using Clarity on sites or apps targeting users under 18.

The strategic cost is the arrangement itself. Clarity data is processed by Microsoft, and its terms permit using collected data to improve Microsoft products and machine-learning models — a trade many teams accept and privacy-sensitive organizations should evaluate explicitly, alongside the consent implications of shipping session data to a third party.

Use it when you want replay and heatmaps on every session at zero cost, especially as a first qualitative layer next to an existing analytics stack. Look past it when data-sharing terms are a non-starter, when you need retention beyond 30 days, or when you need product-analytics depth, warehouse export, or developer-grade debugging context around each replay.

Microsoft Clarity