Crazyegg vs Improvely
Crazyegg and Improvely serve very different performance marketing needs. Crazyegg focuses on 'what' users do on your page using visual behavior tools. Improvely pinpoints 'where' users came from, offering dedicated click fraud protection. You're trading deep visual optimization for rigorous financial tracking and security.
Powerful Insights, Complex Commitment.
Crazyegg offers essential user behavior visualization tools including heatmaps and recordings, backed by competitive A/B testing features starting at the Plus tier. We noted multiple, severe user complaints regarding automatic annual billing and recent failures in customer support quality. Overall, this is a strong feature set hampered significantly by poor business practices and reliability issues.
Pros
- Powerful features like Heatmaps, Scrollmaps, and Session Recordings.
- Easy implementation and integration via Google Tag Manager (GTM).
- Unlimited domains and team members included in all plans.
- Competitive functionality compared to similar tools like HotJar.
Cons
- Frequent user claims of deceptive default annual billing.
- Highly inconsistent and often dismissive customer support.
- App is reported as glitchy, with intermittent tracking failures.
- Cannot get a refund on the mandatory annual subscription.
Strong features, catastrophic user risk.
Improvely focuses on comprehensive conversion tracking and robust click fraud protection for performance marketers. While the features promise great clarity in identifying traffic sources, we note a major discrepancy between marketing claims and documented external user experiences regarding billing and platform reliance. Overall, the significant risk associated with mandatory link masking and alleged pervasive billing issues forces us to strongly caution potential users.
Pros
- Dedicated, real-time click fraud protection and alerts.
- Comprehensive conversion tracking pinpoints exact traffic sources.
- Scalable plans support an unlimited number of websites and campaigns.
- Agency plans include necessary white-label reporting and sub-accounts.
Cons
- Cancellation immediately breaks all previously masked tracking links.
- Pricing automatically increases based on traffic volume (forced upgrades).
- Severe allegations of unauthorized long-term recurring billing reported.
- Customer support is reported as extremely poor and non-responsive.
AboutCrazyegg
Crazy Egg is a powerful platform trusted by over 436,000 websites globally to truly understand their visitors. It moves beyond raw metrics by showing you how people interact with your site. Instead of complex, confusing navigation, you get simple clarity on visitor actions. This platform offers multiple easy-to-use tools to visualize behavior, experiment, and get fast feedback directly from your audience. 💡
AboutImprovely
Improvely is an easy-to-use dashboard designed for marketers looking to centralize their results monitoring. It's a comprehensive tool built specifically to optimize your marketing performance. If you need to know exactly where every signup and sale originates—from a specific campaign or any other channel—Improvely delivers that information. It serves individual marketers, remote teams, and agencies working with clients, offering robust team logins and custom-branded client reports. It works everywhere you advertise online. 💡
Highlights
Feature Comparison
Features Overview
We highlight the main differences and pick a winner for each feature.
Core Goal
Crazyegg focuses on website optimization and user behavior insights. Improvely centralizes campaign tracking and financial clarity.
Crazyegg provides heatmaps and session recordings to see friction on your pages. You learn exactly what users do after landing. Improvely identifies the exact revenue source for every sale and signup. It connects conversions back to specific ad clicks. The choice depends on needing visual UX proof versus highly accurate source attribution. Improvely is specialized for external ad monitoring and protection.
Visual Behavior Tools
Crazyegg provides robust heatmaps and session recordings. Improvely offers no similar visual behavior capabilities.
Crazyegg uses Heatmaps and Confetti Maps to visualize clicks and scrolling depth. Session Recordings let you watch real user journeys in action. Improvely concentrates wholly on tracking attribution links and traffic sources. It doesn't monitor behavior once the user lands on the site. Crazyegg is essential for UX designers and conversion optimizers seeking visual feedback.
Click Fraud Protection
Improvely offers dedicated, real-time click fraud monitoring. Crazyegg entirely lacks features for protecting ad spend.
Improvely systems inspect every incoming click for suspicious activity and fraud signs. It sends instant alerts so you can immediately pause rogue ad sources. Crazyegg focuses entirely on post-click activity and on-page optimization. If you run significant paid traffic, Improvely specifically shields your campaigns from wasted budget. This is Improvely's largest, unique advantage over Crazyegg. Implement fraud alerts to save hundreds every month.
A/B Testing
Crazyegg provides full internal testing implementation and tracking. Improvely provides only tracking tools for externally created tests.
Crazyegg includes built-in tools to create, launch, and manage A/B experiments easily. Conversion tracking ties in seamlessly with heatmaps and analytics. Improvely offers specific link masking and tracking tools for split tests. It relies on third-party tools to generate the tested variations. Crazyegg is a better all-in-one platform for running continuous optimization experiments directly. Improvely tracks the results of tests elsewhere.
Agency Client Support
Improvely is tailored for agency use with sub-accounts and branding tools. Crazyegg supports teams but lacks advanced client views.
Improvely's higher tiers include client sub-accounts and full white-label reporting features. This lets agencies brand dashboards for clients professionally. Crazyegg provides unlimited team members and domains on every plan. However, it doesn't offer the segregated or branded environments agencies rely on. Improvely streamlines client management and provides better, branded reporting visibility.
Pricing Model Risk
Crazyegg has low feature dependency but confusing annual billing. Improvely has aggressive automatic upgrades and catastrophic cancellation risk.
Crazyegg bills annually by default, surprise-charging users who forget to cancel before renewal. Improvely triggers automatic, forced upgrades if traffic exceeds the plan's visit limit monthly. This leads to unexpectedly high costs quickly. Critically, canceling Improvely reportedly breaks all associated tracking links immediately. Crazyegg’s pricing risk is generally monetary; Improvely’s risk is operational and technical.
Crazyegg costs between $29 and $599 per month, billed annually, with four plans: Starter at $29/mo, Plus at $99/mo, Pro at $249/mo, and Enterprise at $599/mo.
All plans include unlimited website domains, unlimited team members, and powerful web analytics. Here's a closer look at what each subscription level offers, noting that all prices shown are based on annual billing.
Starter
Price: $29/month (Billed annually) Websites Supported: Unlimited Best For: Small projects or new users needing essential site behavior insights. Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features:
- 5,000 tracked pageviews per month
- 5 Heatmap reports
- 50 Recordings per month
- 6 months Recordings storage
- 5,000 tracked pageviews /mo
- 5 Heatmap reports
- 6 months Recordings storage
- Unlimited website domains
- Unlimited team members
- 150,000 tracked pageviews /mo
- 75 Heatmap reports
- 2 years Recordings storage
- Unlimited A/B Testing, CTAs & Conversion Tracking
- Unlimited Errors Tracking
- 500,000 tracked pageviews /mo
- 100 Heatmap reports
- 2 years Recordings storage
- Unlimited A/B Testing, CTAs & Conversion Tracking
- Priority support
- 1,000,000 tracked pageviews /mo
- 200 Heatmap reports
- 2 years Recordings storage
- SAML Single Sign On
- Onboarding & Training
Improvely costs between $29 and $299+ per month with four plans: Freelancer at $29/month, Startup at $79/month, Small Agency at $149/month, and Large Agency at $299+/month.
Explore the details of each subscription level below to find the best fit for your comprehensive tracking needs.
Freelancer
Price: $29/month Websites Supported: Unlimited Best For: Individual users or very small businesses handling initial traffic volumes. Refund Policy: Not explicitly stated Other Features: 10,000 visits tracked per month, 1 team member, Click fraud monitoring
- Visit & conversion tracking
- Click fraud monitoring
- Split testing tracking tools
- Visit & conversion tracking
- Click fraud monitoring
- Split testing tracking tools
- Unlimited team members
- Visit & conversion tracking
- Click fraud monitoring
- Split testing tracking tools
- Sub-accounts
- Unlimited team members
- Visit & conversion tracking
- Click fraud monitoring
- Split testing tracking tools
- Sub-accounts
Pricing Notes
- Crazyegg offers a $0/month free tier; Improvely starts at $29/month.
- Crazyegg defaults to annual billing, which users frequently find surprising and frustrating.
- Improvely automatically upgrades your plan when traffic exceeds limits, forcing users onto higher-cost tiers.
- Crazyegg includes unlimited team members on all plans, simplifying team collaboration pricing.
- Improvely's pricing is metric-based (unique visits); Crazyegg uses quotas (pageviews, reports, recordings).
Pricing Head-to-Head
User Reviews
Crazyegg’s user reception is sharply polarized, centered primarily around confusing billing practices and inconsistent customer support responsiveness. Many users praise the core product, noting that it provides solid functionality for visualizing user behavior and finding improvements in e-commerce performance.
Integration, especially via Google Tag Manager, is frequently highlighted as easy and efficient. However, recent sentiment focuses heavily on mandatory annual billing. Multiple users felt deceived, claiming the service defaults to expensive yearly contracts immediately after the free trial ends, often resulting in unexpected, large charges (often over $1,100).
I tested this tool but barely used it at all. Now I was charged over $1100 for an annual subscription I never wanted or opted in for. This fraudulent behavior is ridiculous if they don't issue a refund.
External feedback is critically low, currently reflecting only a single detailed user experience on Trustpilot. This review raises severe allegations regarding the company's business practices and operational structure.
The most concerning recurring theme highlighted is the infrastructure dependence; users claim that stopping the subscription causes all previously tracked links (masked by Improvely) to break immediately, leading to massive traffic loss. Furthermore, the sole reviewer alleges long-term, unauthorized recurring billing post-cancellation, totaling over $3,500 in one year, despite repeated attempts to resolve the issue.
Be warned about link masking. When we stopped paying the subscription, all our historical links across social media immediately stopped working. We lost years of traffic buildup simply by trying to cancel the service.
Our Verdict
Crazyegg is the clear winner for most teams and general web optimization needs. Improvely is highly specialized but carries massive operational risk regarding link dependency. Crazyegg’s superpower is making user behavior visible, literally. You get robust heatmaps, session recordings, and integrated A/B testing tools. Teams can quickly diagnose friction points and test fixes without relying on other tools. Crazyegg offers a strong, all-in-one visual optimization stack for marketers. Improvely’s core strength is providing essential click fraud protection and detailed attribution tracking. If you spend thousands monthly on paid traffic, Improvely can save you from wasted ad dollars instantly. It accurately pins conversions to exact sources, which is critical for optimization efforts. The deciding factor is risk tolerance versus specialization. Crazyegg is a safe, versatile tool with strong features but confusing annual billing. Improvely may save your budget but risks breaking historical campaign links upon cancellation. Choose Crazyegg if you need visual behavioral data and integrated experiments. Only choose Improvely if click fraud and rigorous source attribution are your ONLY pain points, and you fully accept the severe operational risks reported by former users.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for identifying on-page customer behavior problems: Crazyegg or Improvely?
Crazyegg is significantly better for behavior problems. It is purpose-built to provide visual tools like heatmaps and session recordings. Improvely does not offer any visual user behavior analysis features.
Can Crazyegg protect against ad click fraud like Improvely does?
No, Crazyegg does not include any click fraud monitoring or protection systems whatsoever. Improvely specializes entirely in detecting and alerting you to suspicious activity. Use Improvely if maximizing ad spend efficiency is a priority.
What are the major risks when choosing Improvely over Crazyegg?
Improvely carries high risk due to the dependency of masked links; cancellation can break years of historical traffic data. Users also report issues with unauthorized recurring billing. Crazyegg's main risk is surprising annual default billing.
Which tool is better suited for marketing agencies with multiple clients?
Improvely is generally better for agencies handling paid traffic. Its higher tiers include crucial sub-accounts and white-label reporting. Crazyegg supports unlimited teams but lacks these client-facing specialization features.
Does either Crazyegg or Improvely offer a free plan?
Yes, Crazyegg offers a permanent $0/month free plan with limited resources. Improvely does not have a free plan, but it provides a 14-day free trial on all paid tiers.
How do the technical setup requirements compare between Crazyegg and Improvely?
Crazyegg requires a single code snippet, often installed via Google Tag Manager, for visual tracking. Improvely requires creating and masking specific tracking links for all campaigns. Both are simple to start.
Ready to Choose?
Both tools have their strengths. Choose based on your specific needs.