New Session Rate

New session rate shows what share of a period's sessions came from users entering the site for the first time — a measure of audience freshness.

This rate summarizes the audience mix in one number: near one hundred means the site keeps winning fresh users but has not yet retained anyone, while low means the site runs on the return of its existing audience. Neither is inherently good or bad; its meaning depends on the growth stage. A young site naturally has, and should have, a high new session rate, but if it stays high for months while total users do not grow, the site is winning and losing users like a leaky bucket. A common trap is equating a new session with a new user; this rate measures the share of sessions, not of people, and because a returning user has several sessions, the new session rate usually differs from the percentage of new users. It should be read beside the return rate so acquisition and retention are seen together.