Session Replay
Mixpanel Session Replay is the fastest way to understand the whole picture about your customers and make better product decisions, by combining quantitative and qualitative user insights.
When digging into customer journeys in Mixpanel’s analytics, you can understand “where do customers drop-off?” And now, Mixpanel Session Replay enables you to quickly follow-up with, “why do customers drop off?”
Platform Availability
We have two ways to implement:
Plan Availability
Session Replay is available for customers on Free, Growth, and Enterprise plans:
- Customers on the Free plan have access to 10k free replays per month.
- Customers on the Growth and Enterprise plans have access to 20k free replays per month.
- Additional custom volumes of Session Replay are available as an add-on purchase for Enterprise plans.
To access free replays, customers will need to ensure they’re on the latest Mixpanel plans:
- For customers on an existing Free plan:
- Switch your plan to the latest Free plan, which includes 1M monthly events and 10k session replays. You can make this switch directly from the pricing page.
- For customers on an existing Growth plan:
- You’re on the latest plan if you purchased or edited your plan after April 2024. If you’re not sure if you’re on the latest plan, you confirm on the pricing page - if you see ‘Make the Switch’ on the Growth plan, then you are on an older version.
- You can make the switch to our latest plan directly from the pricing page.
- Enterprise customers should contact their account manager to determine their plan status.
Customers will be blocked from viewing additional replays above their monthly limit (or custom add-on limit for an Enterprise plan) until they upgrade or purchase additional volumes.
Using Session Replay
Session Replay can be accessed in three places:
- From User Profile page
- From Mixpanel reports
- On the Home page for your project
From User Profile page
In any user’s profile page, Click the ‘View Replays’ button to watch replays from that user. From here, you will be taken to our Replay Player.
From Mixpanel reports
Click any point on a chart for Event, Funnel, and User Profile, and select ‘View Replays’ to view replays that show that event being fired. From here, you will be taken to our Replay Player.
Note: reports entry point is currently supported for Event, Funnel, and User Profile metrics only.
From the Home page
Find the Latest Replays card and click on individual replays to view them or click on ‘View All Replays‘ to see up to 100 of your latest replays.
Replay Player
The Replay Player allows you to watch replays, as well as:
- Expand the player to full-screen
- Copy a URL with or without a timestamp to share with your teammates
- Change the playback speed
- Automatically skip periods of the replay where user is inactive
- See events in the replay timeline
- Jump to different parts of the replay by clicking in the timeline
The Replay Feed on the left of the player also allows you to:
- Sort replays by recency, activity, or duration
- Search for replays by user’s name / email, replay date, user ID, or the name of an event in the replay
- See a feed of events that occurred during each replay
Server Side Stitching (Beta)
Server-Side Stitching allows our customers to easily watch replays for events that aren’t fired from our SDK.
It works by inferring the replay an event happened in by looking at the distinct ID and time that the replay ocurred. This is especially useful if you have events coming in from multiple sources, like your server or via warehouse import and it doesn’t make sense to pass around the value of mixpanel.get_session_recording_properties(). NOTE: we still recommend including these properties on your client side events to guarantee accuracy.
As a result, this feature:
- makes it 10x easier to watch replays for events coming from your data warehouse
- makes it 10x easier to watch replays for server-side tracked events
- makes Session Replay work automatically with events tracked with your CDP (although we still recommend using our CDP middleware to ensure data accuracy for cross tab / platform user sessions)
| With Competitors | With Mixpanel | Value Add | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DWH events | Can’t watch replays that contain a specific DWH event without lots of custom code | Can easily watch replays that contain specific DWH events, just need our SDK to capture replays and make an .identify() call | High |
| SS events | Can’t watch replays that contain a specific SS event without lots of custom code | Can easily watch replays that contain specific SS events, just need our SDK to capture replays and make an .identify() call | High |
| CDP events | Middleware required to watch replays that contain a specific event | You don’t need middleware to watch replays that contain specific events. However, we recommend adding middleware to handle edge cases where replays may not be associated with the right events (simultaneous sessions across tabs, domains, or apps) | Medium |
| SDK-sent events | Can easily watch replays that contain a specific event | Can easily watch replays that contain a specific event | Low |
In order for Server Side Stitching to work, just ensure that the Mixpanel Javascript SDK calls identify() at some point with the user’s unique Distinct ID. See managing user identity.
FAQ
What happens when I reach my Session Replay limit?
For customers who have purchased our Session Replay add-on, you will be billed for replays ingested beyond your purchased amount at the per unit rate. Before this happens, we’ll send email notifications warning that your limit is approaching to users with “Owner” or “Billing Admin” permissions over your Mixpanel organization.
For customers using Session Replay who have not purchased our add-on (for example, using complimentary replays included with your Free, Growth, or Enterprise plan), replays above your complimentary amount will not be viewable until you upgrade your plan. Before this happens, users with “Owner” or “Billing Admin” permissions over your Mixpanel organization will be notified that their limit is approaching.
Mixpanel reserves the right to stop ingesting replays once a customer collects replays beyond their purchased / allocated amount. To minimize disruption to your team, we recommend monitoring your usage in Mixpanel’s user interface and, if applicable to your account, working with your Account Manager to ensure you have the right plan for your session replay needs.
How soon are Replays available for viewing after a session begins?
There is about a ~1 minute delay between when recordings are captured and when they appear in Mixpanel.
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