How are monthly active users calculated?

Understand what counts as a Monthly Active User (MAU) in the WLL platform and how this impacts usage and billing.

TLDR

If any event at all – intrinsic or custom – is reported for a user during the calendar month, that user is considered active and will count towards your MAU total.

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What is a Monthly Active User (MAU)?

MAU stands for Monthly Active User. It's a billing metric used to track how many individual users interact with your loyalty program in a given calendar month.

In the WLL platform, an MAU is defined as any user who triggers at least one event during the month. Events can include actions like making a purchase, redeeming a reward, completing a task, or any other behavior tracked by your program.

MAUs are counted based on unique user IDs. If a user triggers 50 events in one month, they still count as just one MAU.

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What counts as an event?

Any time an event is reported to the Loyalty Engine, it contributes to MAU calculation. These events fall into two categories:

Intrinsic event types

These are predefined event types used internally by the platform, such as:

• PURCHASED_REWARD

• REDEEMED_VOUCHER

• CLOSED_ACCOUNT

These are automatically reported by the Loyalty Engine, and are triggered by platform activity. Learn more about intrinsic event types.

Custom event types

These are defined by you to track user behavior that matters to your program, such as:

• ORDER_PLACED

• SIGNED_UP_NEWSLETTER

• SUBMITTED_CODE

You report these events using the API, and they can be used to award points, segment users, or trigger other actions through reactors. Learn more about custom event types.

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Look out for...

Some events may be triggered by system logic even if the user isn’t actively engaging with your program.

For example, if you enable audience joined/left events for a specific audience, those events will count toward MAU.

Let’s say you create an audience of users who joined over a year ago. When a user enters that audience, the platform will automatically report an AUDIENCE_JOINED event for that user.

That means even if they haven’t interacted with your program in 6 months, they will still count as an MAU in the month that AUDIENCE_JOINED event is reported.

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Why does MAU matter?

MAU is used to measure program usage and scale. It’s also how many WLL contracts and licences are priced.

This metric helps ensure that pricing scales with actual program engagement. You’re only billed for users who interact with your loyalty program in a meaningful way.

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If you’re unsure how MAU is applied to your agreement, or how to monitor usage, contact your account manager or WLL Support.