A session is the period of time that a unique user interacts with pages across your site. A single session will track all of the page views, user behavior, and all the changes to each page between the start and end of the session.
Hotjar Recordings and Continuous Heatmaps are based on sessions. You can learn more from our articles on Starting Continuous Recordings and Starting Continuous Heatmaps.
- When does a session start?
- When does a session end?
- How many sessions do I have on my plan?
- What if my site gets more traffic than my daily plan allows?
- How does sampling work?
When does a session start?
A session starts when a user lands on a page of your site with the Hotjar tracking code installed. There are some exceptions, such as:
- If you have certain triggers or page targeting rules enabled, the session will begin after a matching tag or trigger is met.
- If a user has our opt-out cookie or Do Not Track enabled, Hotjar will not track anything in their session, however, widgets will appear if set up.
When does a session end?
A session ends when a user takes one of the following actions:
- Closes their browser.
- Closes all tabs with a session on your site.
- Moves to a page on a different site.
- Moves to a page on your site without the Hotjar tracking code installed.
- Moves to a page on your site with a *different* tracking code installed.
- Does not interact with your site for 30 minutes.
- Does not return within 30 seconds.
How many sessions do I have on my plan?
Based on your plan, each Site on your Account has a daily session capture rate. Below are the Daily Session Rates on Hotjar plans:
|
Plan Billed Monthly |
Daily Recording Rate |
|
Basic |
|
|
Plus $/€39 |
100 Recordings |
|
Business $/€99 |
500 Recordings |
|
Business $/€189 |
1,500 Recordings |
|
Business $/€289 |
2,500 Recordings |
|
Business $/€389 |
4,000 Recordings |
|
Business $/€589 |
8,000 Recordings |
|
Business $/€989 |
15,000 Recordings |
|
Need more? |
What if my site gets more traffic than my daily plan allows?
If your plan is smaller than your daily traffic, Hotjar captures a portion of your traffic
If your plan is smaller than your daily traffic, Hotjar captures a portion of your traffic as a percentage of your traffic. This is calculated by this formula:
Traffic coverage = Plan Daily Limit / Potential Traffic
As an example, if I have a daily limit on my plan of 500 sessions, but my site has 1,000 sessions per day, then my traffic coverage would be 50%.
If you ever need to know whether your current plan is big enough to cover your site traffic, you can check whether your traffic coverage includes all of the potential traffic Hotjar could track.
Find the traffic coverage widget on the top right corner of insights.
The button will show your current traffic coverage, click on it for a more detailed breakdown.
If you'd like to learn more about what might affect what traffic Hotjar can track as potential traffic, you can read more in Does Hotjar track all your users?
How is traffic coverage applied?
If you exceed your daily session capture limit, Hotjar will sample your traffic. Our sampling algorithm captures data at an even rate and ensures even distribution over time to give a more holistic view of user behavior.
For example, if your plan allows you to collect 1,500 sessions per day and you actually collect less than that, sampling will not occur. Sampling takes place if you exceed your daily session capture rate. When this happens, Hotjar adjusts the flow of sessions based on the total number of sessions recorded over a moving 24-hour window. This gives you an even distribution of session capture throughout the day.
Here’s an illustration of how your session capture rates might vary throughout the day:
