At a glance
Weekly Active Users is the count of unique users who fired at least one tracked event in Amplitude over a rolling seven-day window. It is the steadier cousin of Daily Active Users: by aggregating a full week it smooths out weekday-versus-weekend swings and one-off spikes, giving a cleaner read on the size of your genuinely engaged audience. WAU is also the bridge to monthly numbers and a key input to stickiness, so merchants use it to judge whether real, repeat audience growth is happening underneath the daily noise.
| What it counts | Unique users who triggered one or more tracked events in Amplitude across the rolling seven-day window, deduplicated by Amplitude’s user identity. |
| Sample type | Backend API data from Amplitude, refreshed on the standard data refresh. |
| Why it matters | WAU shows the size of your weekly engaged base with less daily volatility than DAU, making trend reads more reliable for planning and reporting. |
| Reading the value | Compare the 7-day and 30-day windows against the prior period. A rising WAU on a flat DAU means more distinct people are returning across the week. |
| Currency | count |
| Time window | 7D/30D vsP |
| Alert trigger | - |
| Sentiment key | amp_wau |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Weekly Active Users counts the distinct users who logged at least one event in Amplitude across the rolling seven-day window, deduplicated on Amplitude’s user identity so each person is counted once regardless of how many days they were active. Vortex IQ reads this from the Amplitude integration for the current window and compares it against the equivalent prior period. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A representative reading of Weekly Active Users for a typical merchant on Amplitude. Imagine the card shows 41,000 WAU for the current seven-day window against a prior-period baseline of roughly 39,000, a steady climb of around 5%. Daily Active Users over the same stretch looks flat near 8,000, which on its own might suggest stalled growth. The rising WAU tells a different story: more distinct people are touching the store across the week even though any single day looks similar, often a sign that a campaign is widening reach rather than deepening daily habit. Vortex Mind can trace whether the WAU lift is driven by new users or returning ones by cross-referencing the new-versus-returning split, and Ask Viq lets you ask, in plain English, “is my weekly audience growing from new traffic or repeat visits” and get the breakdown without building a cohort chart.Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
amp_dau | Daily Active Users is the higher-frequency counterpart; the gap between them reveals daily habit. |
amp_stickiness_dau_mau | Stickiness (DAU/MAU) puts weekly reach in the context of how often users return. |
amp_event_volume | Total Event Volume should track WAU; a divergence flags an instrumentation issue. |
amp_users | Users gives the broader audience total behind the weekly-active slice. |
amp_returning_users | Returning Users shows how much of the weekly base is repeat rather than first-time. |
Reconciling against Amplitude
Where to look in Amplitude’s own dashboard: Open an Active Users chart in Amplitude and set the interval to Weekly to read WAU directly, or use Event Segmentation with the “uniques” measure aggregated over a seven-day window. The Dashboards section may carry a saved weekly-active chart; confirm its date range, interval, and saved segments before comparing. Amplitude counts unique users, so align its identity resolution with the Vortex IQ profile. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Period boundary. Vortex IQ uses a rolling seven-day window; Amplitude charts may anchor weeks to calendar boundaries or a different start day. | Variable | Match the window definition and week start. |
| Time zone. Amplitude buckets activity by the project time zone; Vortex IQ aligns to the merchant reporting time zone. | Marginal | Confirm both use the same time zone. |
| Filter or segment scope. Profile-level filters (platform, test users, internal traffic) may narrow the Vortex IQ view versus an all-events Amplitude chart. | Variable | Align the segment and event filters. |