At a glance
Monthly Active Users is an executive-overview metric tracked from PostHog data. It counts the distinct users who triggered at least one event across a rolling 30-day window, the broadest measure of your active audience over a month. Because it smooths out daily noise, MAU is the steadier line to watch for genuine audience growth or decline, and it is the denominator behind your stickiness ratio.
| What it counts | Distinct active users over a rolling 30-day window, compared against the prior period. |
| Sample type | Backend API data from PostHog active-user insights, refreshed on the standard data refresh. |
| Why it matters | MAU is the slow, reliable read on audience size. Sustained MAU growth is the clearest sign your top of funnel is widening. |
| Reading the value | Compare the 30-day and 90-day reads against the prior period. Trend matters more than any single month. |
| Currency | count |
| Time window | 30D/90D vsP |
| Alert trigger | - |
| Sentiment key | ph_mau |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your PostHog data. 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 Monthly Active Users for a typical merchant on PostHog. Suppose MAU sits around 142,000 and rises to 158,000 over the next 30 days, an 11% gain against the prior period, after a content campaign launched on 05 May 26. Because MAU smooths daily swings, the rise is a credible sign the audience genuinely grew rather than a one-day spike. Cross-reference Daily Active Users for the short-term shape and Stickiness to see whether the larger base is also more engaged. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to trace upstream causes; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq.Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
ph_dau | Executive sibling: Daily Active Users. |
ph_stickiness | Retention sibling: DAU as a share of MAU. |
ph_new_vs_returning | Retention sibling: split of the active base. |
ph_retention_d30 | Retention sibling: do users return after 30 days. |
pos_users | Audience sibling: total users. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in PostHog’s own dashboard: In PostHog, MAU is a unique-users insight aggregated over a rolling 30-day window. Open that insight and align the window and property filters with the Vortex IQ profile. As with DAU, PostHog’s identity stitching influences the unique-person count. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Rolling vs calendar. Vortex IQ uses a rolling 30-day window; a calendar month gives a different figure. | Variable | Match the window type. |
| Identity stitching. Anonymous-to-identified merges adjust historical unique counts. | Variable | Allow for retroactive merges. |
| Filter scope. Property or cohort filters narrow the active population. | Variable | Align the filters. |