A session replay plays one visit back, moment by moment: where the cursor went, what was clicked, how far the page scrolled and where the person stopped. A heatmap piles many visits onto one picture, so you can judge the page as a whole. Together they turn “somebody left my checkout” into “she clicked the coupon field, then stopped at the card form”.
Both are easier to show than to describe, so we built a demo you can watch without signing up. Open the demo here. The replay and the heatmap on that page use invented visits to a made-up shop. Nothing you do while watching is recorded, and there is no form to fill in first.
What a session replay shows you
A replay answers the questions a pageview number cannot. Watch one and you see:
- the pages a visitor opened, and the order they opened them in;
- where the cursor went and what the person clicked or tapped, and which form fields they started;
- which forms were sent, and which were abandoned;
- where the visit ended, and the moments right before it.
That last point is often the most useful. A visitor who reaches a form and stops is a different problem from a visitor who never scrolled past the hero. One replay tells you which one is happening on your site, and with a click you can see the exact moment it went wrong.
What a heatmap shows you
A heatmap answers a different question: which parts of this page get clicks and attention, and which get ignored. Where dozens of visits are stacked, the popular spots light up and the dead zones stay quiet. You can see at a glance whether the button you want clicked sits where people actually click and scroll, or whether a misleading element is stealing the attention.
A replay is one person. A heatmap is the whole page. Most sites end up wanting both, and the session replay and heatmaps guide explains how they fit together. If you are mainly curious about the map itself, the website heatmap tool page walks through click heatmaps in more detail.
See the demo now
The demo landing embeds both tools on one page: play back an invented session, pause it, jump between pages, and look at the heatmap beside it. No signup, no credit card, nothing to install. If you want more room, the same demo opens on its own page.
How recording works
If you decide to try it on your own site, these are the ground rules, and they are ours by design:
- Recording stays off until you turn it on for that website. Adding the tracking code does not start it.
- Each site records a daily sample of visits, not every visit.
- By default, page text is masked in the visitor’s browser before anything is sent. Passwords and payment fields always stay hidden.
We say this plainly because privacy is a common concern before people try session recording. You control when recording starts, and page text stays masked by default.
Included with Pro and higher, and in the free trial
Session replay and heatmaps are included with Pro and higher plans and in the free Pro trial for new accounts. Every new account starts with a 7-day Pro trial, no credit card needed. Free, Starter and Growth accounts that have paid before can start one 14-day trial from the dashboard.
Your next step
Watch the demo first. It takes about a minute, needs no account, and shows you exactly what session replay and heatmaps look like when they work. When you are ready to see your own visitors, start the free trial and turn on recording for one website. Then the question is no longer what session replay feels like, but what your visitors have been trying to show you.
