Ever wondered what your users do when they enter your website? Where do they go? How do they interact with your website? In fact, it’s not just a simple curiosity; it’s a marketing strategy! Fortunately, there are solutions that can help us gain insight into our users’ actions and that’s what session replay software is for!
As an online business owner, you can’t underestimate the power of CRO tools in increasing your conversion rate. Session replay is one of the most effective methods in marketing plans that are proven to be helpful in many ways. In this article, we’re going to introduce the best session replay software and its features to help you choose the best one for your business.
Eager to start optimizing your website right away? Our recommendation is always WatchThemLive as it’s one of the best free tools with great features. Want to know more? Start your free plan today or keep reading this article for further elaboration!
What Is a Session Replay Software
Session replay, also known as session recording, is a video captured by session replay tools that allow you to see exactly what your users see and do from the moment they enter your website until they leave. It allows you to monitor every action your users take, every little movement, and their behavior toward your website.
Session replay software offers great insight into how users interact with a certain website and which elements of each page they find more engaging. By going over these recordings, you can save a lot of time and energy and find the best strategy to optimize your website and fix any pain points!
Why Is Session Replay Important
As technology becomes more advanced, you can’t expect to get your desired results by sticking to old strategies. It’s also a given that customer experience analytics is one of the primary steps of website optimization. Therefore, you need a powerful tool with great features that can help you gather insight into every step of your conversion funnel.
That’s exactly when session replay software comes to your help! It will allow you to analyze your users’ activity more accurately without any guesswork. WatchThemLive is always a winning ticket when it comes to real-time session recordings in addition to other great features.
Keep reading to get familiar with the 8 best session replay tools and their features and prices!
Best Session Replay Software
All around the world, business owners are using session replay tools for websites to know their customers better and boost their revenue. So, why shouldn’t you? Whether you’re only starting with website optimization tools or want to change your existing one, you should think fast and choose the one that fits your business best! In the following, we’ll introduce the best session replay tools. So, keep scrolling!
#1 WatchThemLive: The Best All-In-One Session Replay Tool
As we mentioned earlier, WatchThemLive is one of the best tools you can use to boost your conversion with great features and reasonable pricing. We always recommend this tool to business owners who are looking to enhance their business strategy! They are also available on Shopify.
Now, let’s see what features they offer!
Session replay
WatchThemLive takes pride in its accurate and easy-to-use session replay feature. You’ll never miss any details as it captures each session and provides you with all the data you need!
That’s not all! You can save a lot of time as WatchThemLive allows you to filter sessions based on country, device, email, name, etc., and optimize every aspect of your website by tracking your users’ activity.
Heatmaps
One of the best data visualization methods is the heatmap. It’s a visualized presentation of collected data and shows you which parts of your website are getting more clicks, scrolls, etc. It offers great insight into your users’ interaction with your website and on which elements of your website you should focus more, where to put CTA buttons, and how to catch your viewers’ attention.
Web Analytics
Accessing all the data you need is as easy as pressing a few buttons. Just leave everything to WatchThemLive and enjoy a smooth trip to the land of success! It offers an easy-to-use and complete dashboard that enables you to understand your target market better. You can reach your business’s full potential easier than ever.
Visual Live Chat
Customer service has never been more efficient. By using WatchThemLive’s visual live chat feature, you can access a real-time session recording of the users who reach out to you through live chat. This will allow you to fully understand where and how they’re having issues or questions. Deliver an exceptional customer experience and gain the credibility and trust of your users.
Video Testimonials
There is no better way to show off your happy and satisfied customers than sharing their experience with the world through videos! You can ask your customers to share their thoughts on your products and services through a video so that you can share it on any platform you want. By doing so, you’ll gain exceptional credibility and potential customers will get to know you much better!
Goal Tracking
You can set your desired goal and always keep track of your progress. You’ll never lose sight of your path, and every step will be much smoother!
User Tracking
According to Forrester, 77% of customers prefer a more personalized experience and are more likely to return for further purchases. This shows the importance of knowing your users and their needs and personalities.
There is no other way to reach this level of knowledge other than to keep track of your users throughout your website. This way, you’ll know exactly what they want and how they feel about each part of your website. WatchthemLive has made it simple for business owners to track their users all over their websites!
WatchThemLive Pricing
One of the factors you must consider before purchasing any tool is pricing. You need to do thorough research and keep your budget in mind to make the best decision.
WatchThemLive has the lowest pricing amongst competitors and is affordable even for small businesses and startups. There is also a free plan where users can choose to have access to all these great features. Take a look at their pricing.
#2 Mouseflow
Mouseflow is a user behavioral analytic tool that provides business owners with data to optimize their websites. It does so by offering features such as session replays, heatmaps, and web analytics. Mouseflow also allows you to build and monitor users’ funnels to better understand their journey. Now let’s go over some pros and cons and elaborate on this tool more.
Mouseflow Pros
- Offers real-time data,
- Good security,
- Offers a free plan,
- You can build and monitor funnels.
Mouseflow Cons
- Its plans are not affordable,
- Lacks a proper guide for new users,
- Hard to navigate and not easy to use,
- There are many reports of missing data,
- The confusing credit system,
- Not suitable for small businesses and startups,
- Doesn’t use sampling method in session recordings,
- There is no review about this tool on legit review websites such as Reddit or Trustpilot.
Mouseflow Pricing
Here you can see Mouseflow plans and prices. Compare it to other tools and decide for yourself!
#3 Hotjar
Another CRO tool that you’ve probably heard of is Hotjar. It’s an analytic tool that gathers user behavior data by tracking them throughout your website. Unfortunately. Many developers are reconsidering using Hotjar and are looking for other alternatives due to different shortcomings. Let’s go over some Hotjar advantages and disadvantages to better understand whether it’s a good option or not.
Hotjar Pros
- Offers frustration and confusion signals,
- Easy to set up and use,
- Offers heatmaps,
- Free plan.
Hotjar Cons
- It can increase your website’s loading time and negatively affect your organic traffic and customer experience,
- Lacks responsive customer support,
- Hard to search and find your target sessions,
- Their pricing model is high compared to other competitors,
- You can’t customize the dashboard view,
- Hard to use on mobile devices.
Hotjar Pricing
As we mentioned earlier, Hotjar pricing structure can be steep for bigger organizations compared to other alternatives. There is a free plan but it can be very limiting. Take a look for yourself.
#4 VWO
Amongst the list of best session replay software tools, VWO is another alternative we’re going to introduce. It’s a testing and optimization software that allows you to run different tests, analyze users’ behavior and allegedly, enhance your conversion. Now let’s delve into this tool more!
VWO Pros
- Offers different methods of testing,
- Visual editor feature,
- Easy to use,
- Heatmaps and session replays.
VWO Cons
- Increases website loading time,
- Unclear pricing,
- Difficult to launch more advanced tests,
- Causes page flickering,
- Users find the provided data inaccurate.
VWO Pricing
There is no straightforward way to know about their plans and pricing. You need to reach out and ask them which can take hours or even days to receive an answer. Their pricing structure is based on your website’s traffic and you never know how much they’re going to charge you!
Here is a picture of their plans. As you can see, no pricing is provided.
#5 Lucky Orange
Another CRO tool with a session replay feature is Lucky Orange. It’s a conversion optimization software that helps businesses understand the ‘why’ behind their customers’ actions. It does so by tracking users across your website and offers heatmaps, session replays, and user identification.
Lucky Orange Pros
- Offers frustration tracking,
- Free trial,
- Envisions the customer journey map,
- Offers psychographic data segmentation.
Lucky Orange Cons
- Complex UX,
- UI looks outdated,
- Several reviews show that Lucky Orange upgrades your plan without informing you (you can turn it off, but still it’s not right to do so),
- Doesn’t work well with single-page apps,
- Slow at getting reports.
Lucky Orange Pricing
As you can see in the following picture, you can use a 7-day trial for every plan. The Grow plan is the most popular one which is 35$ per month. Take a look at their pricing page.
#6 Crazyegg
It’s another behavior analytic tool that promises to help business owners improve their websites and enhance their overall revenue. It allows you to run A/B testing and analyze your users’ actions. They also offer a session replay feature for more insight.
Crazyegg Pros
- Easy to start up and use,
- Good UX and UI,
- Offers customers segmentation based on location, device, etc,
- Offers data integration.
Crazyegg Cons
- No free plan is available. You only get a 30-day free trial,
- No monthly payment option,
- Increases website loading time,
- According to many reviews, customer support is not responsive enough,
- Some reports show that sometimes this platform doesn’t capture users’ activities.
Crazyegg Pricing
As we mentioned earlier, there are no free plans available. You only get a 30-day free trial. Here you can see Crazyegg pricing page.
#7 Fullstory
It’s a digital experience analytics platform that claims to provide deep insight into your visitors’ journey throughout your website. It helps you identify any bugs or issues and fix them to improve your customer journey experience. With that being said, Fullstory has earned 2.6 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot which shows that users are not so happy with this tool.
Fullstory Pros
- Offers session replays and heatmaps,
- Easy to filter out sessions,
- Easy to integrate with.
Fullstory Cons
- Not user-friendly and intuitive,
- It’s pricey,
- Cluttered dashboard,
- Can’t create heatmaps for specific pages,
- Reports show that their sales team use unprofessional tactics to persuade customers to purchase,
- Increases website loading time,
- No straightforward pricing plan,
- No free plan.
Fullstory Pricing
This software is one of those companies that you need to reach out to in order to know more about their prices. It’s really inconvenient as you won’t know how expensive it can get!
There are also no free plans and you only get a 14-day free trial.
#8 Smartlook
You can analyze your users’ behavior by using Smartlook as an analytic tool. Allegedly, it helps business owners understand the reason behind their users’ actions and purchases, and you can personalize your products and website according to your target audience. It offers different features such as session replays, heatmaps, web analytics, and funnels.
Smartlook Pros
- Offers a free plan,
- Captures most of the sessions,
- You can create funnels,
- Funnel visualization data.
Smartlook Cons
- It’s hard to cancel your subscription,
- Inaccurate data of users’ locations,
- Doesn’t provide psychographic segmentation,
- High and inflexible pricing,
- Unresponsive customer support,
- Many limitations in their free plan.
Smartlook Pricing
As we mentioned earlier, Smartlook pricing is high especially for smaller businesses. They offer a free plan but it’s very limiting as you only get 1500 sessions per month and only 3 heatmaps, 1 funnel, and 2 events.
The startup plan starts at 39$ per month which is still limited and you’ll be charged even more if you want to upgrade its features. The business plan starts at 111$ per month which is high compared to other alternatives with the same or even more features.
Best Session Replay Tools FAQs
Many people realizing the importance of session replay tools are considering using one to their advantage. Here are a few frequently asked questions regarding this matter. Maybe one of them is yours!
Q1. Why Use a Session Replay?
Session recording software allows us to capture every session of our website’s viewers and by analyzing them, we can gain deep insight into our customers’ journey.
Q2. Does Google Analytics Have Session Replay?
No, Google Analytics doesn’t offer a session replay feature. You’ll need other session recording software to be able to capture your users’ sessions.
Conclusion
In this article, we introduced some of the best session replay software and elaborated on their pros, cons, and pricing. It’s important to do a thorough research before purchasing any CRO tool and we hope this article has been helpful to you.
We know how important visitor tracking is in order to have a successful business and a high conversion rate. That’s why we always recommend WatchThemLive as the best session replay software for every business owner who is looking to boost their revenue!
So don’t waste any time and sign up for free now to start right away!
Author: Reyhaneh Afshar
