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A Microsoft Clarity alternative that costs money and asks for nothing back

Clarity is free forever, with no traffic limit, and its session replays and heatmaps are genuinely good. Its own terms explain the deal: Microsoft is an independent controller of the personal data it collects through your site, not your processor, and it may use that data for any purpose — including, in its words, creating user profiles for advertising. Kipstats charges 9 € a month and does none of that.

Clarity terms, documentation and script read in September 2026.

In short: if watching a recorded session is what you need, Clarity does it for free and Kipstats does not do it at all. If what you need is to know where people get stuck without handing your visitors to an advertising business — and without a consent banner, which Clarity now enforces in the EEA — this is the trade you are making.

Kipstats vs Microsoft Clarity, line by line

Clarity's replay, heatmaps and mobile SDKs are real advantages; they are in the table.

Price

Kipstats

Free 1 site / 10K views, then 9€/mo

Microsoft Clarity

Free, no traffic limit

Your analytics vendor is

Kipstats

Your processor

Microsoft Clarity

An independent controller

Data used for advertising profiles

Kipstats

No

Microsoft Clarity

Allowed by its terms

Cookies

Kipstats

None

Microsoft Clarity

First and third-party, non-essential

Consent banner in the EEA

Kipstats

Not needed

Microsoft Clarity

Enforced since Oct 2025

Data stored in the EU

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

Azure, transfers under SCCs

History kept

Kipstats

No limit today

Microsoft Clarity

30 days (9 months for favourites)

Session replay

Kipstats

No

Microsoft Clarity

Yes

Heatmaps

Kipstats

No

Microsoft Clarity

Sampled, 100K views max

Mobile SDKs

Kipstats

No

Microsoft Clarity

iOS, Android, RN, Flutter

Rage clicks, dead clicks

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

Yes

Abandoned form fields

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

Visible in replays

Revenue and purchases

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

No

Server-side events

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

No

AI assistants as a channel

Kipstats

Yes

Microsoft Clarity

No

Script, compressed

Kipstats

4.2 KB

Microsoft Clarity

~25 KB

Microsoft Clarity figures read on its own pricing and documentation pages, September 2026. Prices move — check theirs before deciding.

What "free forever" is paid with

1. Microsoft is not your processor

Clarity's terms of service say it plainly: you and Microsoft are independent controllers, and neither party is a processor or service provider of the other. Microsoft may use the personal data collected through your site for any purpose in line with its privacy statement, including improving its products and creating user profiles for purposes that include advertising. The same terms require you to disclose in your privacy notice that Microsoft collects data from you to provide Microsoft Advertising. That is a sentence most Clarity users have never added to their policy.

2. Cookies, and a banner in Europe

Clarity sets first-party cookies (_clck, _clsk) and third-party ones used for advertising (MUID, CLID and others), and its documentation states these are non-essential. Since 31 October 2025 it enforces consent signals for visits from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland: without consent, sessions fragment and full replays stop working. Kipstats sets no cookie, so there is nothing to consent to and nothing to lose when a visitor declines.

3. Thirty days of history

Clarity keeps recordings for 30 days (favourites and a sample up to nine months), and heatmaps are built on a sample capped at 100,000 pageviews. Kipstats keeps what it collected, with no cap today, and never samples.

Where Clarity is better, plainly

Session replay, click and scroll heatmaps, Copilot summaries, mobile SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native and Flutter, and no traffic limit at any price. Kipstats has none of those. We detect the same friction signals — rage clicks, dead clicks — as aggregates, which is less vivid than watching the video and much easier to justify to a DPO.

Which one is for you

Pick Kipstats if…

  • You do not want your visitors' behaviour feeding an advertising business.
  • You would rather have no cookie banner than a compliant one.
  • You need more than 30 days of history.
  • You want sales and conversions in the same place as the friction.

Stay on Microsoft Clarity if…

  • Watching a real session recording is what convinces your team.
  • You need heatmaps, or mobile app analytics.
  • Your budget is zero and the terms are acceptable to you.
  • Your traffic is far beyond what a paid plan would cost you elsewhere.

Questions

Is Clarity really free?

Yes, with no traffic limits. Microsoft states on its own pricing page that Clarity is one of the ways it collects behavioural data to improve its products and machine-learning models, which is why it is free.

Does Clarity need a cookie banner?

In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, yes: it has enforced consent signals since 31 October 2025, and without consent its cookies are not set, which fragments sessions and disables full replays. Its FAQ also answers "yes" to whether you must inform users about its cookies.

Can I run Clarity and Kipstats together?

Technically yes, and some teams do — replay on one side, cookie-free counting and revenue on the other. Just remember that only one of the two requires a consent banner, so running both means keeping the banner.

Why does Kipstats not do session replay?

Because a replay is a recording of a person using your site, and it is the feature that turns an analytics tool into a privacy file. We capture the same friction as counts: rage clicks, dead clicks, abandoned fields, JS errors — with the element and the page, never the content typed.

Friction without the recordings

Free for one site, cookie-free, hosted in the EU. Add it next to Clarity and compare what each one tells you.

Start for free