Period Compare

The period-compare panel in the collapsible drawer shows the total page view count for the current billing cycle and the total for the previous billing cycle side by side. It is a quick way to see whether this month is tracking ahead of or behind last month.

What the two numbers represent

The This cycle tile shows the total accepted page views counted from the start of the current billing cycle to the most recent board load. The Previous cycle tile shows the total accepted page views counted for the full previous billing cycle — from its start to its end. The cycles are defined by your billing anniversary dates, not by calendar months.

Because the current cycle is in progress, the This cycle count is always for a partial period compared to the Previous cycle count, which is complete. If today is the 10th of your cycle and your cycles are 30 days, the This cycle count covers 10 days while the Previous cycle count covers all 30. You cannot directly compare the raw totals and conclude that traffic is down.

The delta note on the Cycle left metric tile at the top of the board is a cycle-pacing comparison that accounts for the elapsed fraction of the cycle. The period-compare panel in the drawer is a simpler display of the two raw cycle totals, without pacing adjustment.

Using period compare for trend decisions

The most useful time to read the period-compare panel is at the end of a cycle, when the current cycle count is close to complete. At that point, the two numbers are both full-cycle counts and can be compared directly. A current cycle count that is 20% higher than the previous cycle count is strong evidence of growth, assuming the cycle lengths are the same.

Mid-cycle comparisons are still useful as directional signals. If your current cycle is 50% complete and the This cycle count is already higher than the entire Previous cycle count, you are on track for a large increase regardless of what happens in the second half. If the current cycle is 80% complete and the count is still well below the previous total, something has changed — check the by-day chart for the date when traffic declined.

The period-compare panel does not show a breakdown of what changed between cycles. It is a headline number only. To understand why the cycle counts differ, use the date range selector to compare the two periods on the main board — select a custom range for each period and compare the page-groups and referrers cards.

Cycle boundaries and billing anniversary

Each billing cycle starts and ends on the anniversary of the day your subscription began. If you subscribed on the 15th of a month, your cycles run from the 15th to the 14th of every subsequent month. The cycle start and end dates are visible in your billing section.

The previous cycle in the period-compare panel is always the cycle immediately before the current one — not the same calendar month of the previous year. A cycle that ran from July 15 to August 14 compares to the cycle that ran from June 15 to July 14.

Period compare and the by-day chart

The by-day chart on the main board already overlays a prior-period series. That prior-period series is aligned to the date range you have selected in the range pills, which may or may not correspond to a full billing cycle. The period-compare panel is specifically about billing cycles, while the chart's prior-period overlay is about the date range you have selected.

If you select "this cycle" in the range pills, the prior-period overlay on the chart aligns the previous cycle's days with the current cycle's days. In that configuration, the chart and the period-compare panel are showing the same two periods through different views — one as a day-by-day shape, the other as a single aggregate total.

What period compare does not show

Period compare does not show which page groups or referrers caused the difference between the two cycle totals. It does not break down the delta by country, resolution, or language. It is a single headline comparison of two cycle totals.

It also does not compare to the same cycle a year ago. StatelessID does not offer year-over-year comparisons in the current version of the board. For a rough year-over-year view, select a custom range for the equivalent period of the previous year using the date range picker and compare the main count tile to the current range's count.

Troubleshooting

If the Previous cycle tile shows zero, your account may have been created during the current cycle and there is no completed previous cycle to compare. This is expected for new accounts.

If the This cycle count is unexpectedly low compared to the previous cycle, check the filter-impact panel for quota drops. A quota cap reached early in the cycle will cause the This cycle count to stop growing before the cycle ends, making it look like traffic dropped even if real visitor counts are the same.