Visitant vs Microsoft Clarity
Microsoft Clarity is a free behaviour tool: session recordings, heatmaps, funnels and a Copilot that summarises what it saw, with no traffic limits. Visitant is a cookie-free analytics dashboard that counts people and AI: crawlers, assistant referrals and the conversions they bring. Honest verdict: they answer different questions. Clarity shows you how one person moved on a page; Visitant shows you where thousands came from, including from AI, and what they did. In our view many sites are best served by running both.
- Clarity costs $0 with no traffic limits, no site limits and no seat limits (Microsoft FAQ). Visitant has a free plan and paid plans from $12/mo.
- Clarity sets first-party cookies and Microsoft requires explicit consent for visitors in the EEA, UK and Switzerland; without it sessions are fragmented and replays are unavailable (Microsoft FAQ). Visitant sets 0 cookies.
- Retention: Clarity keeps recordings for 30 days (favourites and a sample for 9 months) and heatmaps for 9 months. Visitant keeps 13 months on Free and 5 years on Pro.
- Visitant logs 44 AI crawlers server-side and groups referrals from 21 assistants; Clarity has neither. Clarity has session replay and heatmaps; Visitant has neither.
- In our view the data-use trade-off matters: Microsoft's FAQ points visitors to the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out to stop Clarity telemetry, which suggests the data is not only yours.
Prices and features checked 2026-09-25 at clarity.microsoft.com. If something changed, tell us: promptowy@gmail.com
Features
| Visitant | Microsoft Clarity | |
|---|---|---|
| Cookie-free, no consent banner | yes0 cookies, no IP stored | nofirst-party cookies; explicit consent required in the EEA, UK and Switzerland |
| Price | yesFree plan, paid from $12/mo | yesfree forever, no traffic limits |
| Session recordings | no | yesup to 100,000 sessions per project per day |
| Heatmaps | no | yesclick, scroll, area |
| Copilot / AI summaries of behaviour | no | yesCopilot in Clarity |
| Ask questions in plain language | paid extraEnglish and Polish, about traffic, Business and up | yesCopilot chat about dashboard data |
| EU hosting | yesPoland | noMicrosoft Azure; region not stated in the FAQ |
| Data retention | yes13 months on Free, 5 years on Pro | partialrecordings 30 days, favourites 9 months, heatmaps 9 months |
| Script size (vendor's own number) | yes1.9 KB gzipped | n/ano number on the vendor site on the checked date |
| Goals and custom events | yesevery plan | yessmart events and custom tags |
| Funnels | paid extraPro and up | yes |
| Revenue per source | paid extraPro and up | partialPurchases only for Shopify projects |
| Core Web Vitals | paid extraPro and up | yesPerformance widget: LCP, INP, CLS at the 75th percentile |
| Stats API and export | yesCSV on every plan, API on Pro and up | partialCSV export; Data Export API capped at 10 requests per project a day, last 1-3 days |
| Public share links | yesdashboard | partialheatmaps and recordings shared with guests, links expire |
| Team seats | yes1 / 3 / 15 / 100 by plan | yesno limit, 10 pending invites at a time |
| Google Analytics integration | no | yesGA segments in recordings |
| AI assistant referrals as a channel | yes21 assistants | nonot found in the docs |
| AI crawler log (server-side) | yes44 crawlers, checked against published IP ranges | no |
| AI agents kept out of human counts | yesSignature-Agent, webdriver | n/anot documented |
Pricing
| Free | $0/mo | 5,000 events |
| Pro | $12/mo | 100,000 events |
| Business | $39/mo | 1,000,000 events |
| Scale | $149/mo | 10,000,000 events |
AI crawler hits never count toward the limit. Going over the limit never locks the dashboard.
| Clarity | $0 | no traffic limits, unlimited sites and team members |
| Recordings | $0 | up to 100,000 sessions per project per day, kept 30 days |
| Heatmaps | $0 | kept 9 months |
Clarity has one price: free. Read on 2026-09-25 from the Clarity FAQ on Microsoft Learn ("Clarity is a free service forever", no traffic or site limits, 100,000 recorded sessions per project a day); the pricing page itself renders only in the browser. The trade-off is not money: cookies with EU consent, 30-day recording retention, and Microsoft as the data controller.
The AI loop
Clarity records what a person did on the page. Visitant records how the person got there, including the AI part that usually stays invisible. A server snippet logs fetches by 44 known AI crawlers, split into training, AI search and user-fetch, each hit checked against the IP ranges its operator publishes, spoofed ones flagged. The browser script groups referrals from 21 assistants into one AI channel, adds a "likely AI" estimate from text-fragment landings, and excludes AI agents (Signature-Agent, webdriver) from human counts, which also keeps them out of your conversion rate. Goals, funnels and revenue can then be split per assistant. Clarity's Copilot is AI applied to your recordings; it does not see crawlers or group assistant traffic. Crawler hits never count toward the Visitant plan limit, and going over the limit never locks the dashboard.
- You want to watch real sessions and heatmaps to fix a page; Visitant has no replay and no heatmaps.
- $0 with no traffic cap is the requirement, and a consent banner is already on the site.
- You use Google Analytics and want GA segments inside recordings.
- You run a Shopify store and want the purchase view Clarity adds for Shopify projects.
- You do not want cookies or a consent banner: Visitant sets 0 cookies and stores 0 IP addresses.
- You need history: 13 months on Free, 5 years on Pro, instead of 30 days of recordings.
- You publish content that AI assistants quote and want the crawler log (44) and assistant referrals (21) tied to goals and revenue.
- You want EU hosting in Poland and a vendor whose only product is your dashboard.
Questions
Can I use Clarity and Visitant together?
Yes, and in our view that is the common setup: Clarity for replays and heatmaps, Visitant for cookie-free traffic, goals and the AI loop. Note that Clarity's cookies still need consent in the EEA, UK and Switzerland.
Does Clarity really cost nothing?
Yes. Microsoft's FAQ says Clarity is free forever with no traffic limits, and there is no paid tier. Microsoft is the data controller and the FAQ points visitors to the Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out to stop Clarity telemetry.
What happens in Clarity without cookie consent?
Per the Microsoft FAQ, pageviews and basic interactions are still collected, but sessions are fragmented and full session replays and journey continuity are unavailable for those visitors.
Does Visitant have session recordings or heatmaps?
No. Visitant counts and attributes traffic, including AI crawlers and assistant referrals; it does not record screens.
How long does Clarity keep data?
Recordings 30 days from capture; favourite recordings and a random sample 9 months; heatmaps and labels 9 months (Microsoft FAQ, 2026-09-08).