I have two questions around the Frequency measurement: * Let's say the chart is set to "Monthly" and the time period is set to "Last 6 Months". Are the frequency buckets showing the average monthly frequencies across those last 6 months? Or are they showing frequencies within that 6 month range? To phrase another way: Because the chart is set to Monthly, is it looking at how frequently users perform the event each month over your set time period and then giving you the average? Or is it saying over the last 6 months, this many users have performed this event this many times within that whole 6 month time frame? 2. My larger goal is to establish an "engaged" threshold for monthly performance of a certain event. So an engaged user is someone who performs this event X many times a month. Is this chart the best place to find that # (and if so, what is the best practice for setting it)? If not, what other charts would be helpful for this? Looking at the median or average # of times that event is performed a month per user?

Interpreting the frequency measurement on Segmentation charts

I have two questions around the Frequency measurement:

Let's say the chart is set to "Monthly" and the time period is set to "Last 6 Months". Are the frequency buckets showing the average monthly frequencies across those last 6 months? Or are they showing frequencies within that 6 month range? To phrase another way: Because the chart is set to Monthly, is it looking at how frequently users perform the event each month over your set time period and then giving you the average? Or is it saying over the last 6 months, this many users have performed this event this many times within that whole 6 month time frame?

2. My larger goal is to establish an "engaged" threshold for monthly performance of a certain event. So an engaged user is someone who performs this event X many times a month. Is this chart the best place to find that # (and if so, what is the best practice for setting it)? If not, what other charts would be helpful for this? Looking at the median or average # of times that event is performed a month per user?

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Amplitude_Admin

Hey there! Thanks for reaching out. Your message has created a ticket in Zendesk, ticket ID: 382660. One of our team members will be reaching out here with more information shortly.

Amplitude_Admin

Hi Melanie,

Thanks for your patience! Happy to help.

Is there a specific chart you are working with that you could provide? If not, then lets use this demo chart for the discussion: https://app.amplitude.com/analytics/demo/chart/new/42pdrfvo

In this case, each stacked area segment represents a "frequency bucket." Each data point represents the number of users contained in that bucket. In this iteration of the chart "the last 6 months" date range is plotted out in monthly intervals. So the monthly data points are the aggregate count of users for the respective month, not the entire 6 month period. For example, the data point in the attached screenshot would be interpreted as "in August 2025, 91 users performed Any Event 3 times".

Just in case you're looking at a bar chart iteration, like this one: https://app.amplitude.com/analytics/demo/chart/new/9uy0ffj4, the user counts there are an aggregate for the entire date range. For example, the data point in the attached screenshot would be interpreted as "Over the last 6 months, 27,234 users performed Any Event between 11-20 times". So any users that performed "Any Event" with this frequency (e.g. at least 11 times but max 20 times) would fall into the 11-20 times bucket.

* * *
The Frequency metric can definitely help you identify users who perform events with a certain frequency (e.g. X amount of times in a given date range or interval), however, it won't tell you what the inflection point is (e.g. how many times makes an engaged user). The Usage Interval metric on the Retention chart is a better analysis to use for this case. You can read more about this metric in the documentation below:

- Build a usage interval analysis: https://amplitude.com/docs/analytics/charts/retention-analysis/retention-analysis-usage-interval
- Interpret your Retention Analysis chart: Usage interval: https://amplitude.com/docs/analytics/charts/retention-analysis/retention-analysis-interpret-usage

* * *
Regarding, how to look at median and average # of times performed per user you can use these metrics:

- The Average metric on the Event Segmentation chart plots the average # of times per user an event is performed: https://app.amplitude.com/analytics/demo/chart/new/10fyz4dy. ou can read more about how this Average is calculated in the documentation linked here: https://amplitude.com/docs/analytics/charts/event-segmentation/event-segmentation-choose-measurement#average
-

Amplitude doesn’t currently have a built-in Median measurement, however you can use a custom formula like:

FREQPERCENTILE(event, 0.5)

which works as a way to calculate the median number of events. https://app.amplitude.com/analytics/demo/chart/new/yiob56qo. Here is the documentation on the FREQPERCENTILE() metric: https://amplitude.com/docs/analytics/charts/event-segmentation/event-segmentation-custom-formulas#freqpercentile

I hope this helps to clarify! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Jacenda

Melanie Borinstein

Thanks Jacenda! I was originally looking at a bar chart so it's helpful to know I can see the stacked version to not have it aggregated.

Melanie Borinstein

I think usage interval is not quite what I'm looking for as that seems to be focused on the time between events as opposed to the number of events. So it matters more to me to say that a user who performs X action 5 times is our engaged threshold as opposed to most users having a 3 day interval between events.

Amplitude_Admin

Hi Melanie,

My pleasure! Also, thanks for the clarification — that makes total sense. If your goal is to define engagement as “a user performs this event X times per month,” then Frequency is the right tool to use.

While Amplitude doesn’t automatically define an “engaged threshold,” a common approach is to use the Frequency distribution (with a Monthly interval) to see how users naturally cluster (for example, most users may perform the event 1–2 times per month, while more engaged users perform it 5+ times).

If you want an additional benchmark beyond the average, you can also use percentile formulas like `FREQPERCENTILE(event, 0.5)` to estimate the median frequency, or higher percentiles (0.75, 0.9) to identify more engaged or power users.

From there, many teams choose a cutoff and validate it by building a cohort of users who meet that frequency and comparing their retention or conversion over time.

Hope this helps clarify! Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,
Jacenda

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