Understanding On Day1 vs On or After Day1 in Retention Analysis

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In Mixpanel's retention analysis, "On" and "On or After" are two different retention criteria that calculate user retention in different ways.1. "On" Retention: This calculates the percentage of users who come back on a specific time unit (e.g. day, week, month). After a user completes the “A criteria”, they belong to a time unit cohort that corresponds with when they did the “A event” and the Retention report starts counting from the time that particular user performed that “A event”. For the user to be counted as retained, they must return to fulfill the “came back and did B criteria” on a specific and exact time unit relative to when they did the A criteria. For example, day 5 retention is the percentage of users who “came back and did B” exactly on the fifth day after they did the A event. This is useful to understand high-level usage patterns and is recommended when your product relies on users returning in each and every time unit. source2. "On or After" Retention: This calculates the percentage of users who come back on a specific time unit (e.g. day, week, month) or any time unit afterward. A user can fulfill the “came back and did B criteria” on a specific time unit or any time in the future to be counted as retained in “On or After” Retention. This gives you a better sense of how long you are holding on to your users in an absolute sense. It will tell you how many users used your app and then ever returned to find more value. In other words, it’s the opposite of the overall churn of your user base. This is a better fit for most businesses and it is the default calculation for the Retention report. sourceSo, the main difference between "On" and "On or After" retention is that "On" retention requires the user to return on a specific and exact time unit to be counted as retained, while "On or After" retention counts a user as retained if they return on a specific time unit or any time afterward.

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