Heatmap tools: AI search visibility ranking (2026)
How AI search engines rank heatmap tools by visibility and citations. 20 brands measured monthly across Google AI Mode: which brands the AI names in answers, which domains it cites as sources, and how the leaders compare. Analytics platforms used to visualize clicks, scroll depth, sessions, funnels, and on-page user behavior to improve conversion rates. Composite score: 70% visibility (% of AI answers naming the brand) + 30% citation rate (% citing the brand's domain). Full methodology →
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When buyers ask AI engines to recommend heatmap tools, Hotjar comes up most often by a wide margin, appearing in 62.5% of AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI. Crazy Egg and Microsoft Clarity round out the top three, with Clarity gaining ground likely due to its free pricing and Microsoft backing. The remaining 17 brands on this page share the leftover visibility.
The sources AI engines cite most for this category are a mixed set: youtube.com, crazyegg.com, heatmap.com, inspectlet.com, and amplitude.com. The presence of a brand's own domain (crazyegg.com) and a direct competitor (heatmap.com) in the citation pool suggests AI models are pulling from product-level content and comparison pages rather than neutral review aggregators. That means brands with strong owned content and tutorial coverage tend to rank higher in AI responses.
For a buyer using this page, the AI visibility score is a useful signal of which tools have broad third-party coverage and active user communities, but it is not a substitute for testing. Microsoft Clarity scores well despite being newer, which shows that free tools with clear documentation accumulate AI-visible content quickly. Check whether the brands you shortlist have recent reviews (2023 onward) and coverage specific to your use case, such as ecommerce or SaaS product analytics.
At a glance
What we observed in this category
Hotjar leads the heatmap tools category with a visibility score of 62.5%, more than 12 points above the next closest brand, Microsoft Clarity at 50%. The category average visibility sits at just 11.9%, meaning Hotjar is operating at more than five times the average. That gap is significant because it means Google AI Mode consistently surfaces Hotjar in responses while the majority of the 20 brands in this category receive little or no mention. Crazy Egg holds rank 2 with a composite score of 41.2, close to Hotjar's 43.8.
The most striking divergence between visibility and citation belongs to Inspectlet, which has 0% visibility but a category-leading citation rate of 87.5%. It is named in source links frequently but never described as a recommended tool. Hotjar shows the inverse pattern, with 62.5% visibility and 0% citation, meaning AI Mode discusses it often but does not link to its domain. Crazy Egg balances both signals with 37.5% visibility and 50% citation, making it the only top-5 brand with meaningful scores on both dimensions.
Google AI Mode is the top engine for every brand in this dataset, suggesting no meaningful differentiation by engine at this stage of the audit. The top cited sources include youtube.com, inspectlet.com, crazyegg.com, and reddit.com, pointing to a mix of third-party review content and brand-owned domains. The presence of amplitude.com and heatmap.com in the cited sources list indicates AI is drawing on adjacent analytics tools and niche domain names when constructing answers, not solely established category leaders.
Movers & shakers since last refresh
Biggest visibility risers
-
Crazy Egg 25% → 38% · rank #2 → #2+12pp
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Smartlook 25% → 38% · rank #6 → #5+12pp
Biggest visibility fallers
-
Lucky Orange 38% → 25% · rank #4 → #7-12pp
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UXCam 12% → 0% · rank #8 → #11-12pp
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FullStory 12% → 0% · rank #9 → #14-12pp
The ranking
| # | Brand | Visibility | Citation | Top engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
hotjar.com
|
62% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Hotjar leads all brands with 62.5% visibility, more than five times the 11.9% category average, but its 0% citation rate means AI discusses it without linking to its domain. |
||||
| 2 |
crazyegg.com
|
38% | 50% | Google AI Mode |
Crazy Egg is the only top-5 brand with both strong visibility (37.5%) and a high citation rate (50%), and it gained 12.5 visibility points since the previous period. |
||||
| 3 |
clarity.microsoft.com
|
50% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
Microsoft Clarity sits at 50% visibility and a composite score of 38.8, but its 12.5% citation rate trails Crazy Egg's 50%, limiting its authority signal in AI responses. |
||||
| 4 |
inspectlet.com
|
0% | 88% | Google AI Mode |
Inspectlet's 87.5% citation rate is the highest in the category, yet its 0% visibility score means it is referenced as a source but never described as a recommended solution. |
||||
| 5 |
smartlook.com
|
38% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Smartlook rose one rank to 5th with a 12.5 point visibility gain to 37.5%, but its citation rate dropped 37.5 points, signalling a sharp decoupling between mention and source trust. |
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| 6 |
mouseflow.com
|
25% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
| 7 |
luckyorange.com
|
25% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 8 |
plerdy.com
|
0% | 25% | Google AI Mode |
| 9 |
glassbox.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 10 |
quantummetric.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 11 |
uxcam.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 12 |
vwo.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 13 |
contentsquare.com
|
0% | 12% | Google AI Mode |
| 14 |
fullstory.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 15 |
medallia.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 16 |
ptengine.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 17 |
freshworks.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 18 |
attentioninsight.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 19 |
zoho.com
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
| 20 |
heap.io
|
0% | 0% | Google AI Mode |
Sources AI engines trust in this category
Across the 8 buyer-intent queries we ran on heatmap tools, these are the domains Google AI Mode cited most often. If you're not on this list — or if your competitors are — that's a concrete PR / linkbuilding target.
How to read this ranking
Four things worth knowing before you act on the numbers above. These are the same definitions across every industry page — for category-specific observations, see the What we observed section above (where available) and the per-brand insights inline in the ranking.
Visibility = being named
A brand's visibility % is the share of AI answers that mention it by name in the response prose. This is who AI engines actively recommend to the buyer. More on visibility →
Citation rate = being trusted
Citation rate is the share of AI answers that include the brand's domain as a clickable source link. This is what the AI treats as authoritative evidence, different from being named. More on citation rate →
Top engine differs by brand
The "top engine" column shows which AI surface each brand performs best on. Big gaps between a brand's score across engines usually points to specific content or schema gaps. How AI engines pick sources →
Rankings move month to month
AI engines re-crawl and re-rank on shorter cycles than classical search. We re-audit every brand on this list at least every 30 days and refresh this page automatically. How AI search ranking works →
Get your own heatmap tools brand audited
The brands above were curated from public market-leader lists. Want the same measurement against your own brand — including the queries you appear on, which competitors get named instead, and a prioritised fix list? Run a free preview.
Frequently asked about heatmap tools AI visibility
Who leads AI visibility in heatmap tools?
Hotjar leads with 62.5% visibility and a composite score of 43.8, well above the category average of 11.9%. No other brand exceeds 50% visibility in this audit period.
Which heatmap tool is cited most as a source by Google AI Mode?
Inspectlet has the highest citation rate in the category at 87.5%, appearing in the top cited sources list, despite having 0% visibility as a recommended brand.
What sources does AI cite most for heatmap tool research?
The top cited sources in this category are youtube.com, inspectlet.com, crazyegg.com, heatmap.com, amplitude.com, cpoclub.com, figpii.com, and reddit.com, combining brand domains with third-party and community content.
Is there a brand where visibility and citation are both strong?
Crazy Egg is the only top-5 brand with meaningful scores on both dimensions, holding 37.5% visibility and a 50% citation rate simultaneously.
Which brands have lost the most AI visibility recently?
Lucky Orange fell three rank positions with a 12.5 point visibility drop, while FullStory dropped five rank positions and now registers 0% visibility after previously holding 12.5%.
How concentrated is AI visibility across the 20 brands in this category?
The category average visibility is just 11.9%, and 10 of the top brands have 0% visibility, indicating that Google AI Mode concentrates mentions heavily among a small group of tools.