# Unique hits

Unique hits are an approximate count of distinct visitors in a 24-hour window. Total hits count every page load, including refreshes. Unique hits try not to.

Unique hits are on paid plans. Legacy free accounts ignore the unique-hits widget parameter.

## What we store

We do not store a visitor ID. Each request builds a one-way hash from the site, a truncated user agent, the Cloudflare edge IP, the current date, and a salt that rotates every 12 hours. The hash is not reversible. It resets at midnight UTC.

The per-page unique hits (the number on a path row) include the path in that hash. Sessions and journeys use a hash without the path, so one person browsing several pages still looks like one visitor that day.

Country is looked up from the IP and then the IP is discarded.

## What it is not

It is not a cookie, a fingerprint, or a person who comes back next week. Same human, next day, new hash. Two browsers, two hashes. A shared office NAT can collapse several people into one.

Bots and obvious automation are filtered before they count.

## Turning it on

Unique hits show on Overview once unique tracking is enabled for the site. The [hit counter widget](/docs/widgets/hit-counter) can show unique hits with `?hits=unique`.

More on the hashes is in [how we handle visitor data](/docs/trust/privacy).