Data consumption
Session replay follows the same consumption pricing as your other browser bytes. The amount of bytes produced depends on the count, length, and user-activity levels of sessions, as well as the complexity of your site's DOM.
The most accurate way to project your cost per replay is to enable the feature for a short test period and measure your actual consumption. Alternatively, you can use an average of 5.3 MB per replay as a rough approximation, though keep in mind that your actual cost may vary significantly. A simple formula to project your approximate costs is: sessions x sampling_rate x gb_per_replay x cost_per_gb.
Here's an example:
1 million (sessions) x 5% (sampling_rate) x 0.0053 (gb_per_replay) x $0.35 (cost_per_gb) = $92.75 for 50,000 replays
To control your consumption, adjust your sampling rates.
User privacy and security concerns
We prioritize data privacy and built session replay with strong default settings to minimize the potential exposure of sensitive customer information. You can further customize privacy settings to meet your specific needs.
Session replay doesn't capture screenshots or videos. Instead, it records only the essential DOM state changes needed to reconstruct user interactions. This significantly reduces the amount of data stored.
Compliance with data privacy laws
New Relic acts as a data processor under GDPR and a service provider under CCPA. This means we process data according to your instructions. Ultimately, compliance with these laws depends on how you implement session replay within your application.
By default, all text and user inputs, including personal data, are masked within the recordings. You can selectively unmask specific elements if needed, but the default ensures that no personally identifiable information is readily visible. This approach provides a strong foundation for data privacy while offering flexibility for your specific needs.
Session replay and your app's performance
Session replay minimizes impact on your applications performance with:
- Minimal initial impact: Session replay loads asynchronously after full page load, ensuring no interference with early page load performance metrics.
- DOM mutation tracking: Once loaded, session replay monitors DOM changes and reports them as compressed payloads. The size of these payloads correlates with the complexity of the DOM tree.
- Performance optimization techniques: Payload size can also increase if the DOM is large. However, session replay uses a number of techniques to reduce payload size, such as:
- GZIP compression
- Duplication reduction
- Strategic payload harvesting: A large (compressed) payload is sent only when the full DOM is captured, which typically occurs when the replay feature is first imported. Subsequently, only small payloads related to the user's actions are sent. The browser agent will harvest data based on the first occurrence of the following conditions:
- The payload reaches more than 64 KB compressed.
- 60 seconds elapses.
- The visibility of the page changes (example, tab change, focus, navigation).
- The session ends.