Volcanoes in the middle of tectonic plates or at sites of excessive volcanism near plate boundaries, thought to be caused by plumes of hot rock rising in Earth’s mantle, are called hotspots. These hotspots often produce tracks of extinct or dormant volcanoes, effectively recording the rate and direction of movement of tectonic plates relative to the mantle plume producing them. Constraining hotspot motion is critical to answering questions of the forcing of the global tectonic system and understanding the motion of tectonic plates relative to the deep mantle. In this work we examine the trends of hotspot tracks over the last ≈5–15 Ma to conduct a novel statistical approach that compares a set of predicted motions against the known average to identify a preferred track direction. After comparing one million test runs for 7 different subsets of 56 global hotspots, we conclude that the rate of hotspot motion is slower than previously thought (2–4 mm/yr) compared with plate motion (>15 mm/yr). We also were able to determine the preferred directions of motion for all hotspots. This work provides new limits on the geologically present motion of hotspots thus helping future models of mantle flow with testable predictions.