Warehouse Metric Calculations

When you create a Warehouse Metric, Amplitude provides calculation definitions (Sum, User Average, Min, and Max) that determine how numeric values aggregate from your connected warehouse table.

These calculation types help you choose the right measurement for your specific business or product question.

Sum calculation

Use the Sum calculation to measure total values, for example, total revenue, total purchases, or total number of sign-ups during a period.

This option adds up all numeric values from the selected column (such as revenue or count) across all rows returned from your warehouse query.

Definition

Adds all numeric values from newly imported rows.

Amplitude doesn't apply per-user grouping. Each row contributes its full value to the total.

Example

$$ \text{Sum of Daily Spend = } 2 + 5 + 3 + 10 + 0 + 5 = 25 $$

When to use Sum

Example question:

What's the total revenue generated this month?

User Average calculation

Use the User Average calculation to measure average user-level behavior, for example, the average weekly spend per user or average number of sessions per user.

Definition

Amplitude first aggregates data per user (summing values such as daily spend to get weekly totals), then computes the average of those per-user totals across all users. Each user contributes equally to the final metric.

Example

Step 1: Per-user roll-up (SUM)

Step 2: Average across users

$$ \frac{7 + 3 + 15}{3} = 8.33 $$

Each user contributes one aggregated value (sum) to the final average.

When to use User Average

Example question:

What's the average total spend per user this week?

Min calculation

Use the Min calculation when you need to find the lowest value observed within the selected time window or user group.

This helps answer questions like "What's the minimum purchase amount a user made this week?" or "What's the lowest daily spend among all users?"

Definition

Amplitude first determines each user's minimum value within the selected column and time bucket, then selects the lowest value overall.

Example

Per-user minimums:

$$ \text{Overall Min} = 0 $$

When to use Min

Example question:

What's the minimum spend any user recorded this month?

Max calculation

Use the Max calculation to find the highest value observed within the selected time window or user group.

This answers questions such as "What's the maximum amount a user spent in a day?" or "What's the peak Lifetime Value (LTV) achieved so far?"

Definition

Amplitude first finds each user's maximum value within the selected column and time bucket, then returns the highest value overall.

Example

Per-user maximums:

$$ \text{Overall Max} = 10 $$

When to use Max

Example question:

What's the maximum amount a single user spent in one day?

Summary: Choose between calculation types