Glossary · Analytics

Metric Definition

A metric definition is the precise, agreed specification of how a business metric is calculated–which tables, filters, and formulas produce numbers like MRR, churn rate, or active users.

Most "data trust" problems are actually definition problems: finance reports one churn number, the product dashboard shows another, and both queries are technically correct–they just define churn differently. A metric definition settles the question once: churn = subscriptions canceled in month / subscriptions active at month start, excluding trials. Written definitions make numbers comparable across teams and time, and they are equally valuable to AI query tools, which can only give consistent answers to "what's our churn?" if the calculation is pinned down somewhere.

Fig — every answer ships with the tables, rows and SQL behind it.