The digital space is becoming increasingly crowded every year. If you are a marketing specialist, UI/UX designer, product manager, or business owner, you know well that messages, visual content, and CTA buttons all compete for the same thing- user attention.
This competition happens within seconds. In practice, we often refer to the “3-5 second rule“: if a user does not read the message and feel engaged within this timeframe, you lose the chance to interest them, guide them, and turn them into a customer.
Because of this, businesses constantly look for ways and tools to understand where users look, what they notice, and what attracts, engages, and holds their attention the most. Traditional research methods were very expensive and complex, and only available to a small group of businesses. However, thanks to the development of machine learning and later deep learning, accessible alternatives have emerged that are now available to businesses of any size and to solo experts.
In this overview, we will compare two tools: AI-based predictive eye tracking (Attention Insight) and real user behavior analysis (Microsoft Clarity). Both tools help to better understand users and their behavior, but they do so using different methods.
How do the core principles differ? Attention Insight vs. Clarity
Comparing these two tools is relevant because they represent two different paradigms: prediction versus reality.
Attention Insight is based on predictive eye tracking (AI heatmaps). It allows you to test different designs and video content before launch. The tool models where people are most likely to look, which areas may receive less attention, and how clear the visuals are for users. These predictions are especially valuable during the pre-launch stage, when creating and validating design variations, before running A/B tests or sending live traffic. In this phase, speed, low cost, and reliable predictions are critical.
Microsoft Clarity, on the other hand, is based on real user data. It analyzes session recordings, clicks, attention, and scroll maps from actual user interactions. Clarity provides heatmaps, scroll depth, segmentation, filters, and a clear picture of how people truly interact with your website. It is well-suited for post-launch optimization, problem diagnosis, identifying conversion drop-offs, and making UX decisions.
AI solutions in Microsoft Clarity are used to generate insights, provide recommendations, summarize data, and answer user questions based on real behavioral data. For this purpose, another Microsoft tool is integrated into the workflow – Copilot.
In 2025, Microsoft Clarity introduced AI-based predictive eye-tracking heatmaps for web page designs. With this step, Clarity aimed to add an extra analytical layer by addressing the need for predictive eye-tracking, rather than relying solely on insights from real user data. However, this feature remained active for only about a year before being removed. As we analyze the data further, you will see why the decision was made to phase out predictive eye-tracking, focus strictly on real-user data, and leave predictive features to more accurate tools.
To make everything clearer, we will compare these tools in detail from different perspectives and show how they can be combined to deliver maximum value for businesses. The comparison will cover:
- Data accuracy
- Sample analysis (web design, poster, and packaging)
- Features
- Pricing and plans
- Free trials
- Integrations
- Reports
- Support
- Ease of use and user reviews
Data Accuracy
Data accuracy is the foundation of any analysis. A tool has little value if there is no objective understanding of how accurate its data is. However, “accuracy” means different things in different contexts. Let’s look at this in more detail.
Attention Insight uses one of the most advanced branches of artificial intelligence – deep learning. This technology is an advanced form of machine learning based on artificial neural networks. These networks work in a way similar to the human brain and allow complex analytical tasks to be performed.
The company is transparent about how its algorithm is trained. The model was trained on more than 5.5 million fixations and over 550 million gaze points collected from eye-tracking studies. According to Attention Insight, their system can generate predictive eye-tracking heatmaps with up to 96% accuracy.
To support this claim, 300 test image heatmaps were submitted to the MIT Tuebingen Saliency Benchmark. After evaluation, MIT researchers found that the predicted heatmaps matched real eye-tracking data in an average of 92.5% of standard image cases. Across all types of designs, heatmap accuracy can reach up to 96%.
Attention Insight also shares the following details about its dataset and research sample:
- Eye-tracking data from approximately 70,000 individual participants was used to train the algorithm.
- Both open-source and proprietary image datasets were used.
- The analyzed attention duration is around 4 seconds.
- Gender distribution: 58% women and 42% men.
- Participant ages range from 7 to over 60 years, with the largest group aged 21–30.
- Respondents came from the United States and Europe.
This provides a clear and fairly detailed picture of data reliability and the algorithm training process. For those who want to explore the technology in more depth, more information is available in the Attention Insight technology documentation.
Microsoft Clarity collects real user data. Accuracy here depends on traffic volume: the more visitors you have, the more reliable the data becomes. Clarity does not rely on predictions. It shows actual behavior. Heatmaps display where users really click, how far they scroll, and where they hesitate. Session recordings reveal real browsing behavior, mouse movements, and form interactions.
Clarity does not suggest where attention should go – it shows where users actually clicked and what they did on the page. This makes it one of the best reality checks when you want to understand what is truly happening on your website.
To keep up with current trends and move beyond just real-user data, Clarity attempted to integrate AI-based solutions, including predictive heatmaps. However, no information regarding specific accuracy metrics or formal validation results was ever published. No percentages were showing how closely these predictions matched real eye-tracking data or benchmark tests.
Available documentation merely explained how the feature works and highlighted its benefits, leaving out official reliability measurements. Consequently, to assess the tool’s actual usefulness for design prediction and to verify its accuracy, one would have to rely on third-party comparisons or run independent tests.
So, let’s test it ourselves.
Heatmaps
AI-based heatmaps are a visual representation of data that helps determine whether users notice the elements we want them to notice. The algorithm uses a color scale to show which areas attract more attention.
Since Clarity is designed for website analysis, let’s compare web design examples from both Attention Insight and Clarity. We will also compare them with each other and with a real eye-tracking heatmap to achieve the most accurate results.
Real
eye-tracking
Attention Insight
predictive eye-tracking
Clarity
predictive eye-tracking
The Attention Insight heatmap reflects real eye-tracking data quite accurately. It highlights the same areas and attention points that naturally attract the human eye. The differences are mainly in color, as a slightly different color palette and intensity are used. The only more noticeable difference is the level of attention given to the email input field.
The predictive heatmap in Clarity shows many differences when compared to real eye-tracking data. The logo and menu bar elements are marked as receiving a high level of attention. The person and their face receive no attention at all, which is surprising. Neuroscience research shows that people and faces are among the first elements to attract attention. Attention to the main headline is fragmented. The area that matches best is the email section and the submit button.
In Clarity’s predictive heatmap, visual hierarchy is weak, and attention appears highly fragmented.
It is difficult to draw strong conclusions about data accuracy based on a single example. It would be valuable to analyze not only a website’s hero section but also poster and packaging designs. Unfortunately, this can only be done using Attention Insight, as Clarity’s predictive heatmaps were designed exclusively for web design. Although it was technically possible to upload static visuals instead of a URL, testing the tool outside its intended purpose would compromise objectivity.
Recognizing the overall importance of predictive eye-tracking heatmaps, Clarity nevertheless decided to discontinue this feature in 2026. According to information provided by Clarity’s integrated Copilot, the decision was driven specifically by a lack of data accuracy – a shortcoming that was also clearly demonstrated by our own test.
Consequently, Clarity opted to leave predictive eye-tracking to more precise and advanced tools specialized in this field, such as Attention Insight, which, as previously mentioned, offers up to 96% accuracy.
For this reason, poster and packaging designs will be compared only using Attention Insight and real eye-tracking heatmaps, in order to validate data accuracy.
Real
eye-tracking
Attention Insight
predicted eye-tracking
Attention Insight heatmap very accurately reflects real eye-tracking data. It highlights the same areas and attention hotspots that naturally attract our attention. The differences are visible only in the colors and their intensity, due to the use of a different color palette.
The headline stands out as the area that attracts the most attention and is marked with strong intensity. The woman’s face, the slogan, and the logo also draw clear attention.
Let’s try one more example – the packaging design:
Real
eye-tracking
Attention Insight
predicted eye-tracking
Real eye-tracking data and Attention Insight once again show very similar results. The main focus of attention is directed mostly toward the content located in the center of the package. Although information in the corners of the packaging also attracts attention, it does not receive the same level of focus as the central area.
These three examples show that the heatmaps generated by Attention Insight and real eye-tracking results are very closely aligned. The attention zones are almost identical. The differences appear only in visualization intensity and the color palette of the heatmaps.
Based on these examples, we can conclude that Attention Insight heatmaps are accurate, and the reported accuracy rate of 96% can be considered reliable.
It appears that Clarity’s real strength is not predictive eye-tracking heatmaps, but heatmaps based on real user data, which we will discuss in the next section.
Features
We have already established that the tools work using different methods – predictive vs. real data – so a direct „feature-to-feature“ comparison is not feasible.
However, we can analyze what each tool offers, when and how they can be useful, which problems they can solve, and how they can meet the needs of businesses or designers.
First, let’s take a look at a comprehensive feature table for Attention Insight:
Features | Attention Insight |
Attention Heatmaps | Yes |
Areas of Interests | Yes |
Auto AOIs | Yes (CTA buttons), other AOIs can be set by you. |
Percentage of Attention | Yes |
Comparison | Yes |
Clarity score | Yes |
Image upload | Yes |
Image upload „drag and drop“ | Yes |
Focus map | Yes |
URL Capture | Yes |
Current View analysis | Yes |
Full Page analysis | Yes |
Plugin Access | Yes |
Reports | Yes |
Report Builder | Yes |
Access from mobile | Yes |
Attention heatmaps for video | Yes (Beta version) |
API | Yes |
Shareable Study URL | Yes |
Tutorials | Yes |
Cognitive Demand | Yes |
Integration with design tools | Yes |
Contrast metric | Yes |
AI recommendations | Yes |
Let’s take a closer look at the key features of Attention Insight
We have already analyzed attention heatmaps, so let’s move on to Areas of Interest (AOI) – clear numbers showing how much attention specific areas receive. This is the most decision-friendly metric in design discussions: it avoids guesswork and provides clear figures, making it easy to make informed decisions.
The percentage of Attention shows the proportion of attention each area receives. We get not only clear numbers but also AI-based recommendations on how to improve each element.
For more information about Areas of Interest and Attention percentages, check out the “Percentage of Attention” section in the Attention Insight blog post.
Focus Maps help to understand which areas of a design “catch” attention within the first 4 seconds and hide all zones that remain unnoticed during that time.
In the example below, we can see an Attention Insight focus map clearly visualizing the areas that will be noticed in the first few seconds.
Clarity Score is one of the most useful indicators when you need to quickly assess whether visual information is clear and not overloaded. It shows how easily a new user can understand the design. The analysis considers the amount, size, and contrast of both text and images, and whether the design is cluttered with elements or conflicting colors. Clarity correlates with perception, and perception correlates with action. The score ranges from 1 to 100, with 100 indicating a perfectly clear design.
This metric is especially valuable because it helps ensure that your time and money are not wasted on designs that are unlikely to achieve their goals. It also provides insight into how “competitive” your design is compared to competitors in the same category.
You can improve your designs using the Focus Score, which shows the level of attention concentration in your design. The higher the score, the more clearly your message reaches the user and is easily remembered.
Conversely, a low Focus Score indicates that attention is scattered across the design, reducing its effectiveness. To create a design that captures attention and communicates your message clearly, aim for the highest possible score.
Design Variant Comparison. When you have more than one design version and want to compare them to determine “which is better” based on data, the comparison feature is very useful. You can analyze two variants side by side at the same time. You can see heatmaps for both designs and get clarity scores as percentages, showing which design is more effective. This means that decisions about which design to use are based on numbers, not intuition.
Contrast Maps divide your image into zones and analyze the main colors to ensure maximum visibility and contrast. Green areas indicate high contrast, ensuring that the most important elements attract attention. Blue areas highlight zones that need improvement. The higher the value, the better the contrast.
Microsoft Clarity features
Microsoft Clarity also offers a wide range of features, but here the focus is on real user data. To use it, your website or online store must be connected to Clarity through integrations or by adding code. Once data starts coming in, you can access all the features and see the real performance of your site.
Clarity provides a detailed documentation page with examples, so when analyzing its features and capabilities, we will rely on the information provided there.
Features | Clarity |
Attention heatmaps | Yes |
Click heatmaps | Yes |
Scroll heatmaps | Yes |
Area heatmaps | Yes |
Conversion heatmaps | Yes |
Percentage of Attention | Yes |
Comparison | Yes |
Clarity score | No |
Image upload | Yes |
Image upload „drag and drop“ | No |
Focus map | No |
URL Capture | Yes |
Current View analysis | Yes |
Plugin Access | Yes |
Access from mobile | Yes |
Report Builder | No (just download the data) |
Attention heatmaps for video | No |
API | Yes |
Shareable Study URL | Yes |
Tutorial | Yes |
Session recordings | Yes |
View live recordings | Yes |
Clarity Heatmaps
After adding the Clarity code to your website and receiving visitors, you can generate heatmaps to see where people click, what they ignore, and how far they scroll. Clarity provides five types of heatmaps:
- Click heatmaps: reveal which elements on your site have high engagement
- Scroll heatmaps: show how far your visitors scrolled
- Area heatmaps: calculate total clicks within a chosen area
- Conversion heatmaps: display which elements drove purchase conversions (Shopify users only)
- Attention maps: show where visitors spend the most time on your page
Let’s take a quick look at how Clarity’s heatmaps are displayed:
Click Heatmaps show which elements attract interaction and where users take action.
Scroll Heatmaps show how far down the page users scroll. For example, if a CTA button is below the scrolling median, only a small portion of visitors actually see it, making it unlikely that they will take action.
Clarity Area Maps display the total clicks for all elements within a selected area. Unlike a standard click map, you can choose the area and see the combined heat for all elements inside it.
Conversion Heatmaps provide specific business metric data for e-commerce websites. Using conversion heatmaps, you can understand which site interactions influence purchase behavior.
Attention Maps help you understand which parts of a page users spend the most time on. Warmer colors indicate more time spent, while cooler colors indicate less.
No more guessing about how your page performs. In addition to Clarity’s various heatmaps, you can get a full list of the top-performing page elements and also view their session recordings.
If you work with a team or manage client websites, you can easily share all this information or send a link. If needed, you can also download everything.
Heatmap Comparison
Just like with Attention Insight, Clarity allows you to compare two design versions. The tool helps analyze two versions of the same page to see where visitors click and how they scroll.
This is very useful for A/B testing and tracking the user journey. Using filters, you can also see how behavior differs across segments or time periods.
Session Recordings
Session recordings help you clearly understand how people actually use your website. You can see the entire user journey as if it’s laid out in front of you. This is invaluable for identifying what works, what needs improvement, or simply testing new ideas.
By analyzing session recordings, you can see how users navigate, where they hesitate, where they get frustrated, and where you lose them. This is perfect for bug hunting and identifying UX friction. Problem areas can be found quickly and at no cost.
From session recordings, you can generate a heatmap with a single click. This means that at any point in the recording, you can view a heatmap of that moment and use the insights to make improvements.
Segmentation and Filters
In addition, using more than 40 filters — or creating your own custom ones — allows you to easily narrow down what to analyze. Filters help uncover user behavior at the page or session level. By saving favorite filter combinations as segments, you can quickly find and use them later.
All available filtering options, grouped by category, can be seen in the table:
You can segment website visitors by device, browser, country, traffic source, session duration, campaign, and more. In many cases, this type of segmentation is more valuable than “average” numbers, because it allows you to make decisions based on specific segments (for example: visitors from a particular campaign).
Collaboration with team members or clients is also very easy. You can mark important recordings for quick access, add labels for comments, download recordings, or share them with others.
Clarity Insights
Clarity Insights is based on Microsoft’s experience and is a set of machine learning (ML)-powered filters and recommendations that show which content should be most important to you as a website owner.
The dashboard is useful for designers, product managers, marketers, and web developers. With the dashboard, you can quickly understand users without analyzing individual interactions or sessions. It’s like a summary of all activity on your website.
The Clarity dashboard provides summarized metrics to help you understand website traffic:
- Number of sessions and time spent on site
- User data by device, browser, referral source, and traffic channel
- Users who clicked on non-existent links
- Users who scrolled up and down the page searching for something they couldn’t easily find
- JavaScript errors
- Rage clicks: where users click repeatedly in frustration
- Dead clicks: when users click but nothing happens
You can also discover additional insights such as:
- Performance Metrics
- User Intent Metrics
- E-Commerce Insights (most viewed products, abandonment points, and more)
- Region Insights (geographical information)
- Content Insights (how users read your blog)
And many other data points that help identify website activity and overall “health.”
All the statistical information provided can be organized using filters and segments, allowing you to analyze specific user behavior patterns. This helps make informed decisions about website performance and improvements.
Clarity and Copilot
To make work more efficient, Microsoft integrated Copilot with Clarity. You can directly ask questions, and Copilot will generate answers based on the data in your project dashboard, providing suggestions on how to improve your website.
For your productivity, the AI will prepare summaries of heatmaps and user behavior from session recordings. By following the links, you can quickly go to the points on the page identified by Copilot and review them.
You will also receive summaries of recordings, recommendations, and trends, with direct answers to any questions you may have.
Pricing
User attention is the new currency. How much are we willing to pay to know what captures and holds it, while protecting the business from costly mistakes?
Attention Insight operates on a subscription model and offers different plans to meet the needs of businesses and creators of various sizes:
- Basic Plan: Affordable for individual designers and freelancers who occasionally need to check their designs or marketing materials.
- PRO Plan: For specialists or businesses with larger needs, including API integration or video content testing.
- Hero Plan: Unlimited access. Ideal for agencies or businesses with ongoing needs, requiring full functionality and additional support.
Plan options and pricing are shown in the table below, along with a comparison of monthly and annual subscriptions.
Investing in Attention Insight makes sense for quality control before launch. It can even save time on A/B testing and provides clear returns, especially when design mistakes can be costly in terms of time, lost conversions, or wasted advertising budgets. If you work with visual or video content, this AI tool pays off through reduced testing costs.
Microsoft Clarity is 100% free. It offers unlimited session recordings, heatmaps, team members, and projects, making it very attractive for small teams and projects with limited budgets.
However, it requires time and sufficient website traffic to generate statistically meaningful data. The tool is suitable only for website analysis. If you work with other types of visual materials, Clarity will not help. It is not suitable for testing packaging designs, marketing materials, or pre-launch projects.
Free versions and trials: less risk, more insights
You can easily try out Attention Insight and see the benefits it provides without any commitment through the free trial. For 14 days, you can test all Attention Insight features with no obligations – and you don’t even need to add a credit card. During this time, you can determine whether the tool is suitable and useful for you or your team. Sign up for the free trial of Attention Insight.
Microsoft Clarity does not offer trial versions, but that makes sense because the tool is completely free and ready to use immediately. You just need to connect it to your website or online store using integrations or by adding the code directly. Depending on your platform, it may take some time to complete the necessary integrations so that the tool works effectively, collects data, and provides insights.
Additionally, Clarity currently offers users access to the beta version of the new Brand Agents tool, allowing early adopters to test it (currently available only for Shopify users). According to Clarity: “Brand Agents is a conversational AI that lives on your site and represents your brand. Brand Agents captures rich behavioral signals and intent patterns with the power of Microsoft Clarity to guide smarter merchandising, marketing, and product decisions.”
While the tool is in beta, it is free to use. However, it will be paid once officially released, and pricing information has not yet been provided.
Reports: how findings are presented and applied
The quality of reports determines how quickly and easily you can make decisions, and how clearly all stakeholders – colleagues, partners, or clients – understand the information when it’s shared.
Attention Insight reports are visually clear: in one place, you get a technology overview, attention heatmaps, Focus Map, Clarity Score, Percentage of Attention, Contrast Map, and AI Recommendations, all designed to maximize design effectiveness using an advanced Vision LLM model.
Reports are available in PDF or PPT format. The PPT format allows you to customize slides according to your brand style, add context, comparisons, and recommendations, and choose the language. This is especially valuable if you are presenting slides to agencies or clients. Using the automatically generated report saves a lot of time while making your presentation look highly professional.
Microsoft Clarity reports should be understood as a “live” dashboard. There is no traditional PDF-style document. Instead, you get an interactive interface with filtering, session recordings, and ready-made heatmaps.
While this can make creating a formal “deliverable” more challenging, the live format helps quickly address issues. If needed, all information can be downloaded or shared via a link.
To get summaries or recommendations, you can use the AI tool Copilot integrated directly in the Clarity dashboard, but this is also not a traditional report format.
Clarity focuses on real data and its live presentation rather than generating reports. This means you need to select what’s important to you and organize your own system for interpreting and using the data.
Integrations: Where the Tool “Lives” in Your Ecosystem
One of Attention Insight’s strengths is its integration with the design ecosystem: Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Sketch, and a Chrome extension. If you or your team work with these platforms (as most UI/UX designers do), these integrations significantly shorten the time from idea to insights.
You can also automate the process using Zapier, which makes your workflow even faster and easier.
Integrations | Attention Insight |
Chrome Extension | Yes |
Adobe Photoshop | Yes |
Adobe Indesign | Yes |
Adobe XD | Yes |
Figma | Yes |
Sketch | Yes |
Zapier | Yes |
API | Yes |
Visual Usability Checker (Figma plugin) | Yes |
Additionally, Attention Insight offers the Visual Usability Checker – an AI-powered Figma plugin that analyzes visual usability, visual hierarchy, and cognitive load. You can find more information about this plugin in “Attention Insight Visual Usability Checker.”
Microsoft Clarity naturally integrates with your live website and the Microsoft ecosystem. While it doesn’t have “design” integrations, Clarity works well with other analytics tools such as Google Analytics.
The tool can also be easily connected to many platforms and apps. The table of integrations is provided below:
In addition, Clarity offers Clarity Live – real-time analysis through a browser extension that lets you view user interactions with your website almost instantly. You can see live heatmaps, location maps, and watch recordings on any page you are visiting.
You’ll also be able to monitor hidden elements, such as pop-ups, and see how users interact with them, as well as click distribution metrics for any selected area of the page.
Clarity Live can be easily installed by downloading the Microsoft Edge or Chrome extension.
Clarity collects real user sessions, so it’s important to comply with GDPR, CCPA, and other data protection regulations. Microsoft provides privacy settings and options to hide sensitive areas, but the responsibility for proper anonymization ultimately rests with the website owner.
Support and assistance: how quickly can you get solutions?
Support and a knowledge base become especially important when you encounter problems, uncertainties, or questions during your workflow.
Attention Insight takes care of its users by providing a clear knowledge base. You can explore the tool through a demo version, watch tutorial videos, attend webinars, follow step-by-step guides, or check the FAQ. A broader range of resources is available on the blog and in case studies. Live chat helps you quickly find solutions.
On social media, you can also find information not only about the company and the tool’s features, but also comments and reviews, and engage directly to get help in a more personal way.
Attention Insight is active on:
Twitter (X),
On these platforms, you can find many Attention Insight posts and additional information to follow the company’s activities and updates.
If you have a plan designed for larger needs, such as the Hero plan, you automatically get dedicated support for any questions that arise.
Microsoft Clarity provides strong and detailed documentation, well-described “issues,” blog posts with updates, case studies, an extensive FAQ section, demo versions, and YouTube videos. While there is no formal or direct support, Clarity has active communities that often help users find solutions.
The tool is also present on many popular social media platforms:
What the market says: tool usability, user experience, and reputation
As you know, social proof is one of the most powerful factors when choosing a tool. To make an informed decision, it’s valuable to see what users say about the tools on different platforms.
Attention Insight is often praised for its clarity, ease of use, and integrations with design tools, allowing it to fit seamlessly into daily workflows. The tool features extremely simple registration and a fast “upload-and-see” model. Everything is laid out intuitively, clearly, and simply, so even first-time users rarely encounter confusion. And if questions do arise, the tool provides immediate guidance or support – from video tutorials to free consultations or live chat.
Getting started is easy: just upload an image via drag-and-drop or provide a URL, and you immediately receive a heatmap, AOI (Areas of Interest), Clarity Score, and all the other features described above. This accelerates team decisions and reduces time spent in “discussions without data.”
For creative professionals testing multiple design versions or seeking an AI “eye” evaluation before launch, integrations with design tools like Figma, Adobe XD, and Photoshop are extremely useful. Automation with Zapier further speeds up the cycle, shortening the time between prototyping and design evaluation.
The tool covers a wide range of testing possibilities – from packaging and marketing materials to websites and videos.
Microsoft Clarity connects to your website via integration plugins, depending on your platform, or by directly adding a script to your site so that data can start being collected. To use Clarity, you need to already have an active website or access to one.
According to user feedback, the UI/UX experience is intuitive and user-friendly. Users praise the filtering and segmentation options, different types of heatmaps, and session recordings with event-based search ( “rage clicks,” “dead clicks,” “quick backs”). Navigation and the dashboard are clear and easy to use.
Clarity is especially useful when decisions are based directly on real session recordings and when you want an “inside view” of user behavior. The tool simplifies post-launch diagnostics in a real context and significantly helps with identifying issues and improving websites.
However, the primary advantage of Microsoft Clarity is that it is completely free. Access to so much information at no cost is a strong benefit for small teams or individual developers. Many users mention that they wish they had started using the tool earlier. That said, some advanced analysts note that Clarity lacks more complex analysis features found in paid platforms.
Based on reviews and rating platforms, we can form a clear impression of both tools from user feedback, which is generally positive. Both Attention Insight and Clarity consistently score above 4.5 out of 5, indicating high user trust.
Below is a table showing ratings for both tools across platforms, with links to read real user reviews yourself.
Attention Insight | Microsoft Clarity |
Capterra 4.8 / 5 | Capterra 4.8 / 5 |
Trustpilot 4.5 / 5 | Trustpilot – nėra |
G2 4.8 / 5 | G2 4.5 / 5 |
AppSumo 4.7 | AppSumo – nėra |
Softwear advice 4.8 / 5 | Softwear advice – 4.8 / 5 |
DigiDop 5 /5 | DigiDop – nėra |
Product Hunt 5/5 | Product Hunt – nėra |
Softwear suggest 5 / 5 | Softwear suggest – nėra |
SaaSworthy 5 / 5 | SaaSworthy – nėra |
GetApp 4.8 / 5 | GetApp 4.8 / 5 |
Shopify 4.5 / 5 |
Attention Insight and Clarity feedback comparison table
Conclusions
We’ve already seen that the attention economy forces us to act quickly and accurately. Design clarity and smooth user journeys are two aspects aimed at the same goal.
Analyzing these two tools is not about choosing “one or the other” or declaring a winner. Both tools address very different, yet essential, tasks. Although their methods are fundamentally different, they can complement each other very effectively, creating a particularly strong combination:
Therefore, when it comes to websites or e-commerce stores, it’s optimal to use both tools.
When deciding, it’s helpful to have a simple checklist of questions to guide your choice:
- Is it important to justify design decisions before launch? If yes, integrate Attention Insight into your creative workflow directly or via design tool integrations.
- Do you need data-driven decisions only for websites, or for all marketing materials? For pre-publish marketing materials, only Attention Insight will help. For websites, use Attention Insight pre-launch and Clarity post-launch.
- Do you have traffic and want to see real “bugs,” friction points, conversion drop-offs, or user actions? Implement Clarity and use session recordings and issue tracking.
- Are you an agency or team that needs to report to clients? Use Attention Insight reports (PDF/PPTX) pre-launch to justify decisions, and Clarity screen recordings post-launch. This way, you can combine predicted insights and real behavior in one document.
- Do you want to reduce “discussion” and “guesswork”? AOI percentages, Clarity Score, and Focus Map from Attention Insight + click and scroll heatmaps from Clarity make decisions immediately obvious.
- Is budget a key concern? Clarity is free as a post-launch tool. Attention Insight is a purposeful investment in quality that pays off during the pre-launch stage.
Attention Insight excels pre-publication and covers predictions not only for website design but for a wide variety of content types: landing pages, marketing materials, posters, packaging, advertising, retail shelf displays, mobile website and app screens, and video content. Its core strength is fast AI prediction. High forecast accuracy (96%) is scientifically proven. It offers multiple integrations with design tools, Clarity Score for clarity, AOI percentages, and professional reports.
Microsoft Clarity strengths: session recordings, click/scroll heatmaps, issue detection, segmentation, and filtering – all based on real user data and actions. It doesn’t integrate with design tools, and it cannot be used to test other types of marketing content, as it is intended only for websites. It’s a real-data tool ideal for monitoring and deep UX research post-launch.
So, if you have a live website with traffic and need to see what users are actually doing, analyze real user actions, fix friction points post-launch, address conversion or technical issues, and gather real behavioral data for free, you should try Clarity.
When these tools are combined, you gain two layers of insight that shorten iteration cycles, reduce mistakes, and save money – both in advertising, conversions, and visual content choices. This strategy is particularly valuable for teams or specialists who want to make good decisions before the real launch and avoid working “blindly” or relying solely on intuition post-launch.
