Compare · Heatmaps, recordings and surveys
Liftable vs Hotjar
Hotjar, now part of Contentsquare, shows you what visitors do: heatmaps, session recordings, surveys and feedback. It is a tool for understanding, it is not Shopify-specific, and it has a free tier.
Liftable does not replace what Hotjar is for. Its session watching is not built yet; its evidence today comes from a crawl of your store. What it adds is the price of each opportunity, the drafted fix, and — once the runtimes are live — the test.
The scan is free · results in about a minute
What Hotjar does well
- Session recordings and heatmaps that show you exactly what a visitor did.
- Surveys and feedback widgets — asking the visitor, which no crawl can do.
- Works on any site, with a free tier to start.
Choose Hotjar if
- You want to watch recordings and ask visitors questions.
- Your store is not on Shopify.
- You want a free tier and a mature product.
Where Liftable is behind today
- Hotjar records sessions today. Liftable's pixel is built; replays attached to a opportunity are not.
- Hotjar runs surveys. Liftable has no plan to.
- Hotjar is mature and widely used. Liftable has no published results.
Side by side, as of today
The Liftable column says what is built, what is built but has not run on a live store, and what is not built. Read the chips before the prose.
| Capability | Hotjar | Liftable today |
|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCost | HotjarFree tier and paid plans; see hotjar.com for current pricing. | Liftable todayNoFlat monthly plans priced on sessions: $125, $400 and $999 a month, 14 days free. The store scan is free for anyone. The free scan stays free. |
| CapabilitySession recordings and heatmaps | HotjarYes. This is what Hotjar is for. | Liftable todayNot built yetPlanned: a pixel of at most 30 kB and replays attached to each opportunity. The pixel is built and ships as a Shopify web-pixel extension; until a store installs it, the evidence comes from the crawl rather than from real sessions. |
| CapabilitySurveys and feedback | HotjarYes. | Liftable todayNoNo, and not planned. |
| CapabilityPrices the opportunity in dollars a month | HotjarNo. Hotjar shows behaviour; the cost is for you to work out. | Liftable todayBuiltYes, on the free scan, with the formula printed. Labelled "estimate" until orders are connected. |
| CapabilityWrites the fix | HotjarNo. | Liftable todayPartly builtDrafts theme change sets from 20 fix templates. The runtimes that put a draft on a duplicate theme, Shopify Rollouts or a Shopify Function are being built and have not written to any store. |
| CapabilityRuns and reads a split test | HotjarNo. Hotjar is not a testing tool. | Liftable todayBuilt, not run liveA sequential test (mSPRT) with a power check that refuses underpowered tests. Verified in simulation (2.3% false positives on A/A data at α = 5% over 1,000 runs); no live experiment has run yet. Runtimes not built. |
| CapabilityShopify-specific checks | HotjarNo. Hotjar is platform-agnostic. | Liftable todayBuiltYes: cart drawer, discount field, shipping step, app bloat, theme fingerprint, AI-shopper readiness. |
| CapabilityData handling | HotjarRecordings are stored with Hotjar; see its privacy documentation. | Liftable todayBuiltEach store's data is scoped by store id at the query layer and by row-level security in Postgres. The only thing pooled across merchants is anonymised test effect sizes, kept only where five or more stores and ten or more tests contributed, and a store can opt out. |
| CapabilityTrack record | HotjarWidely used, for years. | Liftable todayNoNo published merchant results. One design partner; no receipts to show. |
The difference is where the work happens.
Hotjar shows you the recording; working out what it costs and building the fix is still your job. Liftable is built to price the opportunity, draft the change and prove it on orders. Today it does the first two from a crawl, and the third is being built.
How Liftable compares.
Replay tools show you what happened and testing tools split your traffic. Liftable does the work in between, and is new: the last column says what it does today.
| What you need | Replay tools | Testing tools | A CRO agency | Liftable |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shows where shoppers struggle | Yes: recordings and heatmaps | No: it splits traffic you point it at | Yes, by hand | Yes: a free scan, with evidence |
| Puts a number on what a leak costs | No | No | Varies by agency | Yes: an estimated range, with its inputs shown |
| Decides what to fix first | You do | You do | The agency | Liftable ranks it; you approve |
| Does the implementation | You do | You do | The agency | Our founding team, with you |
| Measures the result | No | Yes: split tests | Usually | With the founding team where traffic supports it; automated tests coming |
| What it costs | Free and paid tiers | Free and paid tiers | $2,500–25,000 a month | Scan free; programme $750–$1,500 a month |
Detail per product: Shopify Rollouts, Intelligems, Hotjar, a CRO agency.
Find what's holding your Shopify store back
ShopifyLiftable reads your storefront as a shopper would and shows what looks wrong on your own pages, desktop and mobile: friction, slow pages, missing trust and apps doing nothing, with the evidence for each. Free, in about a minute.
Questions about Hotjar
Can I keep Hotjar and use Liftable?
Yes. They do not overlap today: Hotjar records, Liftable crawls and prices. When Liftable's pixel ships, running both means two scripts in the storefront, and the scan's app-bloat check will tell you what each costs in load time.
Will Liftable show me recordings?
That is the plan — each opportunity with the sessions that prove it — but the pixel and the replay viewer are not built. Until then the evidence is the crawl: screenshots, request logs, web vitals and DOM findings.
Scan your store.
See where your store is losing revenue and what to fix first. It is free, takes about a minute, and needs no install.