Softwr

Accounting & Finance · head to head

ADP vs Hotjar

ADP logo

ADP

Accounting & Finance

Always Designing for People

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
H

Hotjar

E-commerce

Understand how users behave on your site

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Hotjar has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ADP no pricing is published; every quote is custom and driven by employee count and which services are taken; Hotjar website performance impact - Hotjar tracking code can cause noticeable slowdowns affecting site speed and Google rankings
  • They diverge on capability: ADP covers Payroll, Hotjar covers Heatmaps.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ADP and Hotjar actually diverge.

Attributes where ADP and Hotjar differ
AttributeADPHotjar
Starting price$29/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionUnknown
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb
CategoryAccounting & FinanceE-commerce
Founded19492014

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ADP

  • Payroll
  • Tax services
  • HR management
  • Time & attendance
  • Benefits administration
  • QuickBooks
  • Sage
  • Oracle

Only in Hotjar

  • Heatmaps
  • Session recordings
  • Feedback widgets
  • Surveys
  • User interviews
  • Conversion funnels
  • Form analytics
  • Rage click detection

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ADP

  • Payroll processing and tax filingnot Hotjar
  • HR administration and employee recordsnot Hotjar
  • Time and attendance trackingnot Hotjar
  • Benefits administrationnot Hotjar
  • Talent management on the mid-market and enterprise productsnot Hotjar

Hotjar

  • User behavior analysisnot ADP
  • Conversion optimizationnot ADP
  • UX researchnot ADP
  • Customer feedbacknot ADP
  • Usability testingnot ADP

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ADP

  • No pricing is published; every quote is custom and driven by employee count and which services are taken
  • Split into three separate products by company size, RUN for 1 to 49 employees, Workforce Now for 50 and above, and Lyric HCM for enterprise, so growing across a threshold means changing product rather than plan

Hotjar

  • Website performance impact - Hotjar tracking code can cause noticeable slowdowns affecting site speed and Google rankings
  • Session recording limits - free and lower-tier plans have monthly session recording caps that must be sampled above the limit
  • Inaccurate heatmaps on dynamic pages - heatmaps fail to display correctly on pages with modals, sticky navigation bars, and pop-up overlays
  • No mobile app - only web-based access available
  • Not real-time analytics - includes slight data processing delay

Pricing, plan by plan

ADP

$29/month
  • Essential$79/month
    • Payroll
    • Tax filing
    • Direct deposit
  • Enhanced$139/month
    • HR tools
    • Background checks
    • Job posting

Hotjar

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Hotjar review.

Which should you pick?

Choose ADP if

  • You need payroll.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want tax services.
ADP review

Choose Hotjar if

  • You need heatmaps.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want session recordings.
Hotjar review

Questions people ask

Is ADP or Hotjar better?
Neither clearly leads. ADP starts at $29/month and Hotjar at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ADP or Hotjar?
Hotjar has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $29/month for ADP and Free for Hotjar.
Does ADP or Hotjar run on more platforms?
ADP runs on Web, Ios, Android. Hotjar runs on Web.
Can I use Hotjar for free?
Yes. Hotjar has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. ADP starts at $29/month.
What is ADP best used for?
ADP is most often used for payroll processing and tax filing, hr administration and employee records, time and attendance tracking, benefits administration. Of those, payroll processing and tax filing and hr administration and employee records are not what Hotjar is typically brought in for.
What can ADP do that Hotjar cannot?
ADP covers Payroll, Tax services, HR management, Time & attendance. Hotjar covers Heatmaps, Session recordings, Feedback widgets, Surveys.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Hotjar: Does Hotjar have a free tier?

Yes. Hotjar's free plan (now under Contentsquare) includes 200,000 monthly sessions, 10,000 session replays, and unlimited heatmaps, with no time limit on the free tier.

Source
Hotjar: Can I export my data from Hotjar?

Yes. Hotjar allows exporting heatmaps as JPG images, survey responses as CSV files, and session recording metadata. Advanced export options are available through the Hotjar API.

Source
Hotjar: Does Hotjar provide real-time analytics?

No. Hotjar has a slight delay in data processing and does not offer true real-time analytics compared to some competitors.

Source
Hotjar: What integrations does Hotjar support?

Hotjar integrates with Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Slack, HubSpot, Jira, Linear, Microsoft Teams, Zapier, and hundreds of other tools through its API and partner integrations.

Source
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Related pages

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