Clarify or split “Views per visit” when using event-level filters

[andyj2022]

First of all, thanks for the explanation on issue #5804 — I understand and agree that the current calculation of “Views per visit” is internally consistent and intentionally session-based.

That said, I think there is still a UX and product clarity issue worth discussing.

In the Plausible dashboard, users see three metrics side by side:

• Total Pageviews
• Total Visits
• Views per visit

In the unfiltered view, “Views per visit” effectively equals Pageviews / Visits, which strongly sets the user expectation.

When an event-level filter is applied (e.g. a custom property), the first two metrics reflect the filtered data, but “Views per visit” silently changes its semantic meaning:

• Pageviews: filtered events
• Visits: sessions with at least one matching event
• Views per visit: average total pages of the entire session, not the filtered events

This makes the metric no longer derivable from the two numbers shown next to it, which is very confusing for most users. The natural mental model (“just divide the two”) suddenly breaks, with no explanation in the UI.

I fully agree that the current definition is useful as a session-based engagement metric. The problem is that:

• the metric name doesn’t reflect that nuance
• the dashboard doesn’t indicate that a different semantic is being applied
• the behavior is especially confusing for event-level properties, which are increasingly common

Possible ways to reduce confusion without changing the underlying calculation:

• Add a tooltip or info text explaining that “Views per visit” always uses full session pageviews
• Rename the metric when event-level filters are active (e.g. “Avg pages per matching session”)
• Eventually expose both interpretations as separate metrics

I think this would help align Plausible’s internal logic with user expectations, especially for less technical users.