How are cohorts defined?

A cohort is a group of users who first visited your site during the same time period. With daily granularity, all users who first visited on March 1st form one cohort. With weekly granularity, all first-time visitors in a given week form a cohort.

What counts as a 'return visit'?

A return visit is any session by a previously seen visitor on a subsequent day or week. Rybbit uses privacy-friendly identifiers (daily rotating salts) to recognize returning visitors without cookies or personal data.

Can I see retention for specific user segments?

Yes. Apply any filter — country, device, referrer, UTM source — to see retention data for specific segments. This helps you understand which audiences have the best long-term engagement.

What time ranges are available?

You can analyze retention over periods from 7 days up to 365 days. Choose the range that matches your product's natural engagement cycle.

How does this work with privacy and cookie-free tracking?

Rybbit uses daily rotating salt-based identifiers to recognize returning visitors without cookies or personal data. This means retention data is accurate while remaining fully GDPR compliant.

Retention

Are your users coming back?

Cohort retention analysis that shows you exactly when users return — and when they stop. The clearest signal of product-market fit.

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Live retention demo — real cohort analysis data

Acquisition numbers are vanity metrics if users don't come back. Retention is the single most important metric for understanding whether your product or content is delivering real value. If users return, you're building something that matters. If they don't, no amount of traffic will save you.

Rybbit's retention analysis groups users into cohorts by their first visit date and tracks what percentage return on each subsequent day or week. The result is a color-coded heatmap that makes it instantly obvious whether your retention is improving, degrading, or holding steady.

Filter by any dimension to compare retention across segments. Do users from organic search retain better than paid? Do mobile users come back as often as desktop? Segment your retention data to find the channels and experiences that build lasting engagement — all without cookies and fully GDPR compliant.

Capabilities

What you can do

Cohort analysis tables

Color-coded retention tables show you exactly what percentage of each cohort returns on day 1, day 7, day 30, and beyond.

Daily or weekly cohorts

Choose between daily and weekly cohort groupings depending on your product's engagement frequency.

Flexible time ranges

Analyze retention over 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, or up to a full year. Match the window to your product's natural cycle.

Cohort size display

See how many users are in each cohort alongside their retention percentages for proper context on small vs. large cohorts.

Color-coded heatmap

High retention periods are highlighted in green; low retention in lighter shades. Spot trends instantly without reading every number.

Trend comparison

Compare retention rates across different time periods to measure whether product changes are improving user stickiness.

Getting Started

How it works

Users visit your site

Rybbit automatically tracks visitor sessions. Each visitor is assigned to a cohort based on the date of their first visit.

Return visits are tracked

When a visitor returns on subsequent days or weeks, Rybbit records the return visit and maps it to their original cohort.

Open the Retention dashboard

Navigate to Retention in your dashboard. Select daily or weekly granularity and your desired time range.

Analyze your cohorts

Read the retention table to understand how each cohort retains over time. Identify if recent changes improved or hurt retention rates.

Use Cases

Who uses this

Product teams

Measure whether product changes improve user stickiness. Track if new features bring users back more frequently.

Startup founders

Retention is the most important metric for product-market fit. See if your early users are coming back or churning.

Marketing teams

Compare retention rates across acquisition channels. See which traffic sources bring users who actually stick around.

Growth teams

Identify retention plateaus and inflection points. Focus optimization efforts on the time period with the steepest drop-off.

Product managers

Use retention data to justify roadmap decisions. Show stakeholders how specific features impact long-term engagement.

Data-driven teams

Combine retention data with event tracking and funnels to build a complete picture of user engagement over time.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Explore More

Related features

Web Analytics

The full dashboard with traffic and engagement metrics.

Goals

Track conversions and see how they correlate with retention.

Funnels

Understand the journey that leads to retained users.

User Profiles

See individual user histories and engagement patterns.

Custom Events

Track engagement events that indicate user stickiness.

User Journeys

Map how retained users navigate differently from churned ones.

Measure what really matters

Cohort retention analysis that works out of the box. No cookies, no setup, just clarity.

7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.