Docs / Reference / How Overview metrics are calculated
How Overview metrics are calculated
Exact definitions of every Overview card, the time periods, and how often the numbers are refreshed.
This page explains exactly how each number on the Overview tab is worked out, so you can check it against your own records.
Where the numbers come from
The Overview does not count your orders each time you open it. A background job counts them ahead of time and stores one total per day. The cards and chart add up those daily totals.
- When it refreshes. The last 3 days are recounted every hour. All stored days are recounted once a day. A recount of recent days is also queued when a subscription status, order status or membership status changes, or a membership is saved. These queued recounts run at most about once a minute.
- When you open the Overview. If the stored figures are more than an hour old, a recount of recent days is queued.
- First run. Right after activation the figures are built in the background. Until they are ready, the cards show a loading state.
- How far back. Daily figures are kept for the last 400 days. Events older than that count as zero. This can affect Last year and its comparison.
- Recent activity is read live. It is not part of the stored figures.
For the scheduling details, see Performance.
Data source
Each card counts either Subscriptions or Memberships. Open Summary on the Overview and use each card’s Data source toggle. The default cards count subscriptions.
Time periods
Periods use your site’s time zone (Settings → General).
Range | Period counted | Compared with |
|---|---|---|
This month | 1st of this month to today | The whole previous month |
Last month | The whole previous month | The month before that |
Quarterly | The current quarter to today, or an earlier quarter of this year (Q1–Q4) | The quarter before |
Half Yearly | 1st Half (January–June) or 2nd Half (July–December) of this year, up to today. The 2nd Half can only be picked once it has started. | The half before |
Year | 1 January to today | The whole previous year |
Last year | The whole previous year | The year before that |
Custom | Your start and end date | The same number of days, ending the day before your start date |
Event dates are grouped by the calendar day WooCommerce stores for them.
The chart shows one point per day for This month, Last month and custom ranges up to 45 days. Longer ranges show one point per month.
The six cards
Active subscribers
- Subscriptions: the number of subscriptions with status Active. Pending Cancellation and On hold are not included.
- Memberships: the number of memberships with status Active. Complimentary is not included.
- For a period that ended in the past, the figure is worked back from today’s count:
Active at end of period = active today − new since then + cancelled since then + expired since then
On the chart, each point is the active count on the last day of that day or month.
New subscribers
- Subscriptions: subscriptions whose start date falls in the period, whatever their status now.
- Memberships: memberships whose start date (Member since) falls in the period, whatever their status now.
Cancelled
- Subscriptions: subscriptions whose status is now Cancelled or Pending Cancellation, counted on their cancelled date.
- Memberships: memberships whose status is now Cancelled, counted on their end date.
Expired
- Subscriptions: subscriptions whose status is now Expired, counted on their end date.
- Memberships: memberships whose status is now Expired, counted on their end date.
Total renewals value
- Subscriptions: the sum of order totals for subscription renewal orders with status Completed or Processing, counted on the order date.
- Memberships: the sum of order totals for Completed or Processing orders that granted membership access, counted on the order date. Only orders placed more than 2 minutes after the membership was created count. Subscription renewal orders are left out, so the same money is not counted twice.
This is money received from renewals, not a count of renewals.
Churn rate
Churn rate = cancelled during the period ÷ active at the start of the period × 100
Active at the start of the period = active at the end − new + cancelled + expired
- The result is rounded to one decimal place.
- Expired records reduce the starting count but are not counted as churn.
- If the starting count is zero, churn shows 0.
The change line under each number
- Each card compares the period with the one in the Compared with column above.
- Most cards show a percentage change. Churn rate shows the change in percentage points (pts).
- If the previous value was zero, the change shows +100%, −100% or 0%.
- A rise is marked as good for Active subscribers, New subscribers and Total renewals value. A rise is marked as bad for Cancelled, Expired and Churn rate.
Status chart
The pie chart shows today’s counts in five groups: Active, Pending Cancellation, On hold, Cancelled and Expired. A paused membership is counted as On hold. It does not change with the range.
Your own metrics
With Add metric you can build a card from a Measure and conditions on an Event (Started, Cancelled, Expired, Renewed) or a Status.
- Event conditions count events in the period, using the same rules as the cards above.
- A Status of Active uses the active count at the end of the period. Other statuses use today’s count, whatever the period.
- Percentage of total divides the count by the active count at the end of the period. With the Cancelled event, it returns the Churn rate.
- Sum of a field and Average of a field both return the renewals value.
- The Upcoming recurring value card can be switched on in Summary, but version 1.0.1 does not calculate a value for it.