Glossary: Active Users

What are Active Users?

Active users count distinct identities that meet a defined activity rule in a stated period. Web analytics may count visitors or accounts; crypto analytics may count addresses or wallet clusters. State the unit and action so figures are comparable.

Active Users Explained

Active users are the people who actually use something.

For example, if 10,000 people have signed up for an app, but only 2,000 used it this week, the app has 2,000 weekly active users.

The word “active” usually means the user did something meaningful, like opening an app, sending a message, making a purchase, or completing a transaction.

This metric helps teams understand real usage, not just how many people created an account.

What Active Users Mean For

Audience

Use Case

Product teams

Measure whether users are regularly engaging with the product or key features.

Growth teams

Track whether campaigns, launches, or experiments increase real user activity.

Founders and analysts

Evaluate product health, retention, engagement, and overall adoption over time.

Examples

• A social app counts someone as an active user if they log in, post, comment, like, or view content during the day.

• A crypto protocol counts a wallet as active if it interacts with a smart contract during a selected time period.

• A SaaS product tracks weekly active users to see how many accounts use the platform each week.

• A marketplace measures monthly active users by counting buyers and sellers who complete at least one meaningful action that month.

Choose the identity unit before counting

Web analytics often counts persistent visitors, account products may count authenticated users, and apps may count wallet addresses or resolved wallet clusters. The selected unit should match the question. Use visitors for reach, identified users for account behavior, wallets for address-level participation, and clusters when the analysis intentionally groups linked addresses.

Keep DAU, WAU, and MAU consistent

Daily, weekly, and monthly active users should share the same activity definition and identity rule. Only the time window should change. If DAU counts transacting wallets while MAU counts any visitor, ratios such as DAU/MAU become misleading because the numerator and denominator measure different populations.

Related reading

Explore product analytics, Daily Active Users (DAU), Unique Active Wallets, Identity Resolution, and the blockchain-based apps event analytics guide.

FAQs

What does active users mean?

Active users are users who interact with a product during a specific time period.

How are active users measured?

They are measured by counting unique users who complete a defined activity within a set time period.

Are active users the same as registered users?

No. Registered users signed up. Active users actually used the product during the measured period.

What are common active user metrics?

Common metrics include DAU, WAU, and MAU.

Why are active users important?

They show whether people are actually using a product, not just signing up for it.