Hotjar vs Metabase: pricing, plans, and positioning compared
Verified pricing and side-by-side plan structures. Updated daily.
Side-by-side comparison
Hotjar Analytics & Data | Metabase Analytics & Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $39/mo | $100/mo |
| Annual discount | −18% | −10% |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Number of tiers | 4 | 3 |
| Positioning | Session replay + heatmap analytics acquired by Contentsquare in 2021 for $500M. Positioned as the alternative to FullStory and Microsoft Clarity (free) for product and marketing teams. Distinctive for its combined qualitative + quantitative approach — heatmaps, recordings, feedback polls, surveys in one platform. Priced $32-$171/mo across four tiers. Real cost bloat comes from session capacity — high-traffic sites hit overages fast. | Open-source business intelligence tool positioned as the alternative to Tableau and Looker for engineering-led teams. Distinctive for its free self-hosted tier that runs on Docker — the go-to "first BI tool" for startups before they can justify a data team. Cloud version priced from $85/mo. Acquired minority stake by Insight Partners; still open-source. Popular with technical founders who want SQL access to their Postgres/BigQuery data. |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Plan-by-plan comparison
| # | Hotjar | Metabase |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free Monthly: 0 · Annual: 0 daily session cap | Starter Monthly: 100 · Annual: 90 base incl. 5 users, +$6/user |
| 2 | Observe Plus Monthly: 39 · Annual: 32 heatmaps + recordings | Pro Monthly: 575 · Annual: 517.50 base incl. 10 users, +$12/user |
| 3 | Observe Business Monthly: 99 · Annual: 80 funnels + integrations | Enterprise Monthly: custom · Annual: custom from ~$20K/yr |
| 4 | Observe Scale Monthly: 213 · Annual: 171 API access + CSM | — |