Purchase Frequency Calculator

How it is calculated

Purchase frequency is the average number of orders each buying customer placed in a period: frequency = total orders ÷ unique customers. Count every order in the period once, and count each customer once however many orders they made. The result is a plain number of orders per customer, shown with two decimals, along with the two counts you entered. Both inputs are counts of whole things, so fractions show no result; unique customers must be at least 1. The tool also requires orders to be at least the number of customers, because every unique customer placed at least one order; a smaller order count shows no result, so the frequency is always 1.00 or higher. The period (month, year) is whichever one your two numbers share, so the frequency only means something for that same window.

Common mistakes

• Counting every order twice or counting items instead of orders. A single basket with five products is one order, not five.
• Entering unique customers for a different period than the orders, such as all-time customers against this year's orders. Both must cover the same dates.
• Counting registered accounts or visitors instead of buyers. A customer who signed up but never ordered inflates the denominator, and if it pushes the customer count above the order count the tool shows no result.
• Entering total customers with duplicates, such as one person with two email addresses. Duplicates make the frequency look smaller than it really is.
• Swapping the two fields. Orders go first and customers second; reversed, the customer count exceeds the order count and no result appears.