Which Shopify analytics tool is right for your store? A detailed comparison of features, pricing, and use cases.
Cartlytics vs Microsoft Clarity: Which Shopify Analytics Tool Is Right for You?
Microsoft Clarity is the free option everyone points to. It records sessions, draws heatmaps, and since 2025 it has a native Shopify app you install from the Shopify App Store. It has over 2,000 reviews there.
Clarity shows you how visitors behave on your pages. Cartlytics shows you the carts themselves: which products are in each one, what they are worth, who owns them, and where that shopper came from. Different tools, different questions.
So do you need Clarity, Cartlytics, or both? It depends on the question you are trying to answer.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Cartlytics | Microsoft Clarity |
|---|---|---|
| Live list of every cart with its products | Yes | No |
| Cart value and customer per cart | Yes | No |
| Add-to-cart tracking | Yes | Smart Events |
| Session recordings | No | Yes |
| Checkout recording | No | Shopify Plus only |
| Heatmaps | No | Yes |
| Rage clicks and dead clicks | No | Yes |
| Cart recovery emails | Yes | No |
| Turn a cart into a draft order | Yes | No |
| UTM and traffic source tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Shopify-native app | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | with limits | free forever |
| Starting paid price | $9/mo | none |
What Is Cartlytics?
Cartlytics is a Shopify app that does one thing well: it tracks carts. You see every active cart on your store in real time, the products in it, its value, the customer when Shopify knows them, and where they came from (Google, Instagram, an email campaign).
When a cart is abandoned, Cartlytics can send a recovery email automatically or hand the cart to your Klaviyo flow. You can also turn a cart into a draft order. Daily or weekly reports land in your inbox, so you do not have to log in every day.
It installs from the Shopify App Store in about two minutes. No code, no theme edits.
What is the Microsoft Clarity Shopify app?
Microsoft Clarity is a free behavior analytics tool. It records visitor sessions, builds click and scroll heatmaps, and flags frustration signals such as rage clicks and dead clicks. Its Shopify app installs the tracking for you and adds Smart Events, so add to cart, start checkout and purchase are detected with no setup.
On Shopify Plus, it can also follow visitors into the checkout and thank-you pages through Shopify's pixel, which most behavior tools cannot see. On a standard Shopify plan that checkout tracking is not available.
It is free forever, with no session cap and no paid tier. If you have ever wondered why visitors leave a product page without adding anything, Clarity is built to answer that.
Key Differences
Sessions vs carts
Clarity shows you anonymous sessions: a recording of what a visitor did on a page. Cartlytics shows you carts: a list of what each shopper has added, what it is worth and who they are.
Say a customer adds a $200 item, browses for ten minutes and leaves. In Clarity you filter recordings by the Add to Cart event and watch them one by one. In Cartlytics that cart sits at the top of your dashboard with the product, the value, the source and the customer already attached.
Watching vs acting
Clarity is built to observe. It tells you where visitors struggle so you can fix the page. It does not contact the shopper.
Cartlytics is built to act on a cart: send a recovery email, trigger your Klaviyo flow, or turn the cart into a draft order and send it to the customer.
How they read your store
Both install as Shopify apps, so neither needs a developer. Clarity records the browser and adds Shopify events on top. Cartlytics reads Shopify's cart data directly, so it already knows your products, prices, currency and customers, and it does not depend on a visitor's browser to keep a recording.
Price
Clarity is free forever. That is hard to beat, and it is the right answer for heatmaps and recordings. Cartlytics has a free plan with limits and starts at $9 per month after that, billed on orders, so bot traffic never inflates your bill.
Pricing Comparison
| Plan | Cartlytics | Microsoft Clarity |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Yes (with limits) | Yes, free forever |
| Entry paid | $9/month | None |
| Mid-tier | $19/month | None |
| Higher tier | $29/month | None |
Clarity has no paid tier at all. Microsoft funds it, so there is no session cap to hit and no upgrade prompt.
Cartlytics starts at $9 per month for growing stores, billed on your monthly orders rather than on sessions or carts. The free plan covers stores that are just getting started.
When to Choose Cartlytics
Go with Cartlytics if your question is about carts: what is in them, what they are worth, who abandoned them and where those shoppers came from. Also if you want recovery emails, Klaviyo triggers or draft orders without paying for another tool.
If you already run Clarity and still cannot answer “what was in that abandoned cart?”, that is exactly the gap Cartlytics fills.
When to Choose Microsoft Clarity
Choose Clarity if your question is about pages: why visitors do not click the buy button, whether they scroll to your call to action, where a form breaks. Recordings and heatmaps answer that, and they cost nothing.
If you are on Shopify Plus, it is also the right tool for the checkout flow itself, which Clarity can record there through Shopify's pixel.
Can you use both?
Yes, and it is a good combination. Both install from the Shopify App Store, and both are free to start. Clarity tells you why a page loses visitors. Cartlytics tells you which carts you are losing and lets you win them back.
If you only have time for one, pick the one that matches your biggest leak. For most Shopify stores that is abandoned carts.
Microsoft Clarity alternatives: is Cartlytics one?
If you came here looking for a Microsoft Clarity alternative, it helps to know what you want to replace. Clarity is a behavior tool: heatmaps and session recordings. Cartlytics is a cart analytics and recovery tool. Cartlytics is the right alternative if what you actually want from Clarity is to know what shoppers add, remove and abandon, and to recover those carts. It is not a like-for-like swap if you need heatmaps or replays, and since Clarity is free, there is no reason to drop it for those.
Want the full landscape? See our roundup of the best Shopify cart analytics apps.
Bottom line
These are not really competitors. Clarity shows you how visitors behave on your pages. Cartlytics shows you the carts and lets you recover them.
If you want to know why people leave a page, install Clarity; it is free. If you want to know what was in the cart they left, who they were and how to get them back, that is Cartlytics.
Common questions
Is Cartlytics a Microsoft Clarity alternative?
Cartlytics is a Microsoft Clarity alternative if what you want is to see what shoppers add, remove and abandon, and to recover those carts. Clarity is a free behavior tool with heatmaps and session recordings; Cartlytics is a cart analytics and recovery tool with a free plan and paid plans from $9 per month. They answer different questions, and many stores run both.
Does Microsoft Clarity show abandoned carts on Shopify?
Partly. Clarity's Shopify app detects add-to-cart and checkout events, so you can filter session recordings to visitors who added to cart and did not buy, and watch them. On Shopify Plus it adds a Checkout Abandonment card that shows which checkout step people drop at. What it does not show is a list of abandoned carts with the products, the value and the customer, and it does not send recovery emails. Cartlytics does both.
Can you use Microsoft Clarity and Cartlytics together?
Yes. Both are Shopify apps that install from the App Store, and both are free to start. Clarity records how visitors behave on your pages; Cartlytics tracks every cart in real time and recovers abandoned ones. They do not overlap, so running both is common.