Metrics glossary

Understand the nuances between metric labels for each message channel across the OneSignal ecosystem to accurately interpret messaging performance.

Overview

OneSignal records metrics at each step of a message’s lifecycle — from when OneSignal hands the message to a third-party provider (FCM, APNs, Twilio, or an email ESP) through delivery, engagement, and any follow-up events. In-app messages and Live Activities have different lifecycles, which are covered in their own sections below.

Use this page to reconcile numbers across the dashboard, API, CSV exports, and Event Streams, or when building internal reports.

Each channel section contains:

1. Terms: the glossary of metrics and their definitions.
2. Delivery lifecycle: a visual representation of where each metric is captured.
3. Metrics mapping: the name of each metric across every OneSignal surface (dashboard, API, CSV, Event Streams).

In the mapping tables, columns are surfaces (where the metric appears) and rows are concepts (what the metric represents).

Channel metrics comparison

Different channels have different delivery states and engagement metrics. The table below lists which metrics apply to each channel.

Channel	Sent	Delivered	Failed	Rejected	Remaining	Clicked	Opened	Bounced	Confirmed Receipt	Read	Impressions	Unsubscribed	Reported as Spam	Suppressed	Frequency Capped
Push	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅
Email	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌
SMS/RCS	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌
In-app	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Live Activity	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌	❌	❌

• Some metrics have both Total and Unique variants in the per-channel tables. This applies to Opens (email) and Clicks (email, SMS/RCS, in-app).

Push terms

Metric	Definition
Sent	The number of push notifications sent from OneSignal, including both those successfully sent to the push provider and failures. This is a composite metric.
Audience	The number of Subscriptions in the targeted Segment(s).
Remaining	The number of Subscriptions in the target audience that haven’t yet received the push notification (queued or in flight). Appears on the dashboard delivery report.
Delivered	The number of push notifications successfully sent to and accepted by the push provider (FCM, APNs, HMS).
Confirmed Receipt	The number of push notifications confirmed as received by the device, verified by the OneSignal SDK. See Confirmed Delivery for platform-specific details and requirements.
Unsubscribed	The number of push Subscriptions that did not receive the push notification because they uninstalled the app, cleared browser data, or opted out of push and have not opened the app since. OneSignal will not attempt to send to these Subscriptions in future messages unless they re-subscribe.
Failed	The number of push Subscriptions that did not receive the push notification because of an error. OneSignal will attempt to send to these Subscriptions in future messages.
Clicked	The number of push Subscriptions that clicked the push notification. Push notifications can only be clicked once.
Frequency Capped	The number of push Subscriptions that did not receive the push notification due to frequency cap settings.

Push lifecycle

Push metrics mapping

Dashboard

Term	Delivery Report Stat Cards	Delivery Report Timeseries Chart	Journey Node Report Stat Card	Journey Node Report Timeseries Chart	Audience Activity	Engagement Trends
Sent	Sent	❌	Sent	Sent	❌	❌
Audience	Audience	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered
Confirmed Receipt	Confirmed Receipt	Confirmed Receipt	Confirmed Receipt	Confirmed Receipt	Confirmed receipt	❌
Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	❌	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed
Failed	Failed	❌	Failed	Failed	Failed	❌
Clicked	Clicked	Clicks	❌	Clicked	Clicked	Clicked
Influenced Opens	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Frequency Capped	Capped	❌	Capped	Capped	❌	❌

API, CSV, and Event Streams

Term	View Message(s) API1	Notifications CSV	Event Streams
Sent	❌2	sent	❌
Audience	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	successful	delivered	message.push.sent
Confirmed Receipt	received	confirmed_receipt	message.push.received
Unsubscribed	failed3	failed3	message.push.unsubscribed
Failed	errored3	errored3	message.push.failed
Clicked	converted	converted	message.push.clicked
Influenced Opens	influenced_opens	❌	❌
Frequency Capped	frequency_capped	frequency_capped	❌

¹ The API also includes per-platform metrics for all fields except remaining (for example, ios_clicked, android_clicked).

² The composite Sent metric does not have a direct field in the View Message(s) API. To derive it, sum successful + failed + errored. Audience activity exports also do not include a Sent field.

³ In the View Message(s) API and Notifications CSV, the field name failed represents unsubscribed subscriptions and errored represents delivery errors (what the dashboard calls Failed). This naming is preserved for backward compatibility.

Email terms

Metric	Definition
Sent	The number of emails sent from OneSignal, including both those successfully sent to the email service provider and failures. This is a composite metric.
Audience	The number of Subscriptions in the targeted Segment(s).
Remaining	The number of Subscriptions in the target audience that haven’t yet received the email (queued or in flight). Appears on the dashboard delivery report.
Delivered	The number of emails successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox server.
Failed	The number of emails unable to be delivered to the inbox, excluding bounces. May include failures reported by the ESP or OneSignal delivery failures.
Suppressed	The number of emails blocked due to prior bounces or spam reports to protect sender reputation. Only recorded for apps configured to use OneSignal email.
Bounced	The number of emails rejected due to invalid addresses, full inboxes, sender reputation, or DMARC issues. These addresses are added to a Suppression List, either managed by OneSignal or a third party ESP.
Reported as Spam	The number of recipients who marked the email as spam. These addresses are added to a Suppression List, either managed by OneSignal or a third party ESP.
Unsubscribed	The number of recipients who opted out of receiving emails.
Total Opens	The total number of times the email was opened, including repeats.
Total Clicks	The total number of times a link in the email was clicked, including repeats.
Unique Opens	The number of individual Subscriptions who opened the email. Used with Delivered to calculate the open rate.
Unique Clicks	The number of individual Subscriptions who clicked a link in the email. Used with Delivered to calculate the click rate.

Total vs Unique clicks and opens

Unique clicks and opens are counted once per Subscription, regardless of how many times that user opens or clicks the same email. Total clicks and opens count every interaction, including repeats from the same user.

Email lifecycle

Email metrics mapping

Dashboard

Term	Delivery Report Stat Cards	Delivery Report Timeseries Chart	Journey Node Report Stat Card	Journey Node Report Timeseries Chart	Audience Activity	Engagement Trends
Sent	Sent	Sent	❌	Sent	❌	❌
Audience	Audience	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered
Failed	Failed	Failed	Failed	Failed	Failed	❌
Suppressed	Suppressed	Suppressed	Suppressed	Suppressed	Suppressed	❌
Bounced	Bounced	Bounced	Bounced	Bounced	Bounced	❌
Reported as Spam1	Reported as Spam	Spam	Reported as Spam	Spam	Complained	❌
Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed
Total Opens	Total Opens	Total Opens	Total Opens	Total Opens	❌	❌
Total Clicks	Total Clicks	Total Clicks	Total Clicks	Total Clicks	❌	❌
Unique Opens	Unique Opens	Unique Opens	Unique Opens	Unique Opens	Opened	Opened
Unique Clicks	Unique Clicks	Unique Clicks	Unique Clicks	Unique Clicks	Clicked	Clicked

¹ The dashboard uses different labels for the same metric across surfaces: Reported as Spam (stat cards, Journey stat cards), Spam (timeseries charts), and Complained (Audience Activity). All refer to recipients who marked the message as spam or junk.

API, CSV, and Event Streams

Term	View Message(s) API	Notifications CSV	Event Streams
Sent	platform_delivery_stats.email.successful	❌	message.email.sent
Audience	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	platform_delivery_stats.email.received	email_delivered	message.email.received
Failed	platform_delivery_stats.email.failed	email_failed	message.email.failed
Suppressed	platform_delivery_stats.email.suppressed	❌	message.email.suppressed
Bounced	platform_delivery_stats.email.bounced	email_bounced	message.email.bounced
Reported as Spam	platform_delivery_stats.email.reported_spam	email_reported_spam	message.email.reported_as_spam
Unsubscribed	platform_delivery_stats.email.unsubscribed	email_unsubscribed	message.email.unsubscribed
Total Opens	platform_delivery_stats.email.opened	email_opened	message.email.opened
Total Clicks	platform_delivery_stats.email.clicked	email_clicked	message.email.clicked
Unique Opens	platform_delivery_stats.email.unique_opens	email_unique_opens	❌
Unique Clicks	platform_delivery_stats.email.unique_clicks	email_unique_clicks	❌

SMS/RCS terms

Metric	Definition
Sent	The number of messages sent from OneSignal, including both those successfully sent to Twilio and failures. This is a composite metric.
Audience	The number of Subscriptions in the targeted Segment(s).
Remaining	The number of Subscriptions in the target audience that haven’t yet received the message (queued or in flight). Appears on the dashboard delivery report.
Delivered	The number of messages successfully delivered to the carrier as reported by Twilio. Metrics are categorized further to distinguish between SMS/MMS and RCS.
Failed	The number of messages that failed to be sent to Twilio.
Suppressed	The number of messages not sent to the Subscriptions because they opted out of receiving messages from the sender.
Rejected	The number of messages not delivered by the carrier due to number blockage, velocity blockage, or the recipient is on a block list. This is a derived metric and is the sum of provider errors and provider failures.
Provider Errored	The number of Subscriptions for which Twilio failed to send the message.
Provider Undelivered	The number of Subscriptions for which Twilio sent the message but failed to deliver it.
Read (RCS only)	The number of Subscriptions who read an RCS message.
Total Clicks	The total number of times a link in the message was clicked, including repeats.
Unique Clicks	The number of unique link clicks across all links in the message. Counted once per Subscription.
Replied	The number of keywords received by OneSignal, excluding consent keywords.
Unsubscribed	The number of opt-out keywords received by OneSignal.

SMS/RCS lifecycle

SMS/RCS metrics mapping

Dashboard

Term	Delivery Report Stat Cards	Delivery Report Timeseries Chart	Journey Node Report Stat Card	Journey Node Report Timeseries Chart	Audience Activity	Engagement Trends
Sent	Sent	Sent	Sent	Sent	❌	❌
Audience	Audience	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered
Failed1	Failed	❌	Failed	❌	Failed & Rejected	❌
Suppressed	Suppressed	❌	Suppressed	❌	Suppressed	❌
Rejected1	Rejected	❌	Rejected	❌	Failed & Rejected	❌
Provider Errored2	❌	Failed (Errored)	❌	Failed (Errored)	❌	❌
Provider Undelivered2	❌	Failed (Undelivered)	❌	Failed (Undelivered)	❌	❌
Read	Read	Read	Read	Read	Read	Read
Total Clicks	Total Clicks	❌	Total Clicks	❌	❌	❌
Unique Clicks	Unique Clicks	❌	Unique Clicks	❌	❌	❌
Replied	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	Replied (keywords)
Unsubscribed	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	Unsubscribed

¹ Audience Activity combines Failed and Rejected into a single Failed & Rejected bucket. Stat cards and Journey stat cards show them separately.

² Delivery Report timeseries charts break the provider-side failures into Failed (Errored) and Failed (Undelivered), which map to Provider Errored and Provider Undelivered. Stat cards roll these up under Failed.

API, CSV, and Event Streams

Term	View Message(s) API	Notifications CSV	Event Streams
Sent	platform_delivery_stats.sms.successful	❌	message.sms.sent
Audience	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	platform_delivery_stats.sms.provider_successful	❌	message.sms.delivered
Failed	platform_delivery_stats.sms.failed, platform_delivery_stats.sms.errored3	failed, errored3	message.sms.failed
Suppressed	platform_delivery_stats.sms.suppressed	❌	❌
Rejected	❌	❌	❌
Provider Errored	platform_delivery_stats.sms.provider_errored	❌	❌
Provider Undelivered	platform_delivery_stats.sms.provider_failed	❌	message.sms.undelivered
Read	❌	❌	❌
Total Clicks	❌	❌	❌
Unique Clicks	❌	❌	❌
Replied	❌	❌	❌
Unsubscribed	❌	❌	❌

³ The sum of failed and errored — both recorded in OneSignal’s internal system when attempting to send to Twilio — is surfaced as Failed in the dashboard.

In-app terms

Metric	Definition
Impression	The number of times an in-app message successfully displayed to a Subscription. Depending on your in-app settings, a single Subscription may register multiple impressions.
Card Impressions	The number of times a card within a carousel was displayed on a device. A carousel message will have multiple cards, but not all cards may be viewed by each user. Only applies to carousels.
Total Clicks	The number of times a button block, image block, or background was clicked. It does not include the “Close Button” clicks.
Unique Clicks	The number of unique clicks across all buttons, images, and backgrounds in the message. Counted once per Subscription.

In-app lifecycle

There is no delivery lifecycle to consider. All metrics captured for an in-app message are from the device through the OneSignal SDK.

In-app metrics mapping

Dashboard

Term	Delivery Report Stat Cards	Journey Node Report Stat Card	Journey Node Report Timeseries Chart	Audience Activity	Engagement Trends
Impressions	Impressions	Impressions	Impressions	Impression	Impressions
Card Impressions	Card Impressions	Card Impressions	❌	❌	❌
Total Clicks	Total Clicks1	Total Clicks1	❌	❌	❌
Unique Clicks	❌2	❌2	❌	Clicked	Clicked

¹ We filter out “Close Button” clicks out of Total Clicks on the IAM Delivery Report stat card.

² While we don’t have a label on the dashboard for unique clicks, we show unique clicks count alongside the CTR.

Event Streams

Term	Event Streams
Impressions	message.iam.impression
Card Impressions	message.iam.page_displayed
Total Clicks	message.iam.clicked
Unique Clicks	❌

Live Activities terms

Metric	Definition
Sent	The number of Live Activity updates sent from OneSignal, including both those successfully sent to the push provider (APNs) and failures. This is a composite metric.
Delivered	The number of Live Activity updates successfully sent to and accepted by the push provider (APNs).
Confirmed Receipt	The number of Live Activity updates confirmed as received by the Subscriptions, verified by the OneSignal SDK. See Confirmed Delivery for platform-specific details and requirements.
Unsubscribed	The number of push Subscriptions that did not receive the Live Activity update because they uninstalled the app, cleared browser data, or opted out of push and have not opened the app since. OneSignal will not attempt to send to these Subscriptions in future messages.
Failed	The number of push Subscriptions that did not receive the Live Activity update because of an error. OneSignal will attempt to send to these Subscriptions in future messages.
Clicked	The number of clicks on a Live Activity update.

Live Activities lifecycle

Live Activities metrics mapping

Dashboard

Term	Delivery Report Stat Cards	Audience Activity	Engagement Trends
Sent	Sent	❌	❌
Delivered	Delivered	Delivered	Delivered
Confirmed Receipt	❌	❌	Confirmed Receipt
Failed	Failed	Failed	Failed
Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed	Unsubscribed
Clicked	Total clicks	Clicked	Clicked

API, CSV, and Event Streams

Term	View Message(s) API	Notifications CSV	Event Streams
Sent	❌	❌	❌
Delivered	successful	delivered	message.live_activity.sent1
Confirmed Receipt	❌	confirmed_receipt	message.live_activity.delivered1
Failed	errored2	errored2	message.live_activity.failed
Unsubscribed	failed2	failed2	message.live_activity.unsubscribed
Clicked	❌	❌	message.live_activity.clicked

¹ The Event Streams names are shifted relative to the dashboard concepts: message.live_activity.sent maps to Delivered (accepted by APNs), and message.live_activity.delivered maps to Confirmed Receipt (acknowledged by the device). Wire report pipelines to the concept, not the literal event name.

² As with push, the View Message(s) API and CSV field failed represents unsubscribed subscriptions and errored represents delivery errors (Failed).

FAQ

Why don’t my dashboard and API counts match for push?

The dashboard Sent metric is a composite — it equals Delivered + Unsubscribed + Failed. The View Message(s) API does not return a direct sent field; sum successful + failed + errored to get the equivalent value.

Why does the Push API return failed for unsubscribes and errored for delivery errors?

The field names are preserved from an earlier version of the API. In the View Message(s) API and Notifications CSV, failed means the subscription is no longer reachable (uninstalled, cleared browser data, or opted out) and errored means a delivery error that OneSignal will retry. The dashboard labels these as Unsubscribed and Failed respectively.

What’s the difference between Total Opens and Unique Opens?

Total Opens counts every open event, including repeat opens from the same recipient. Unique Opens counts each recipient at most once. The same pattern applies to Total Clicks vs Unique Clicks for email, SMS/RCS, and in-app messages.

Why does the Live Activities message.live_activity.sent event map to Delivered instead of Sent?

The event name is historical. message.live_activity.sent fires when APNs accepts the activity update (the Delivered concept), and message.live_activity.delivered fires when the device acknowledges receipt (the Confirmed Receipt concept). Use the mapping table above when configuring downstream analytics.

Why does Twilio’s delivery count sometimes differ from OneSignal’s Delivered for SMS/RCS?

OneSignal’s Delivered metric reflects carrier-confirmed delivery reported back by Twilio. Differences usually come from messages that are still in flight at the time you compare, late status callbacks from carriers, or messages that moved to Provider Undelivered after an initial acceptance. See the SMS/RCS lifecycle above for where each state is captured.

How do I map dashboard labels for SMS Failed to the timeseries chart?

The stat cards show a single Failed bucket, while the timeseries chart splits provider-side failures into Failed (Errored) (Provider Errored) and Failed (Undelivered) (Provider Undelivered). Audience Activity combines Failed and Rejected into Failed & Rejected.

Related

Analytics overview

Tour the dashboards, APIs, and export tools OneSignal provides for measuring performance.

Confirmed Receipt

Platform requirements and SDK setup for the Confirmed Receipt metric on push and Live Activities.

Event Streams

Stream real-time message events to your warehouse using the event names in this glossary.

Engagement trends

Review aggregate engagement over time using the metrics defined here.

Exporting data

Export the Notifications CSV and other data sets referenced in the mapping tables.

Journey analytics

Measure conversion and drop-off across multi-step Journeys using Journey node reports.