Snap will make monthly users its main metric in 2027 as North American daily users fall 6%

Snap said on November 4, 2026, that it will change the number it asks investors to judge it by. Starting with its first-quarter 2027 results, global monthly active users will become its primary audience metric, with revenue per monthly user as its main measure of monetization. For the third quarter, the Snapchat owner reported 977 million monthly users and 495 million daily users, each up 4% from a year earlier.

The change comes as daily users shrink in the region where Snap earns the most from each one. North American daily users averaged 92 million, 6% fewer than a year earlier and level for three quarters. Europe slipped 1% to 98 million. All the growth came from the rest of the world, up 9% to 305 million.

Finance chief Doug Hott said in prepared remarks that monthly users give the most complete view of the community Snap serves, which he said is approaching one billion people a month. He added that the company does “not intend to optimize Snapchat around daily use at the expense of long-term value for our community.”

Daily and monthly users

Hott said daily engagement has historically been stable as a share of monthly engagement, and the past five quarters fit that: daily users have stayed at about half of monthly users. A global monthly total would not show where people are, though, and that matters for revenue. In the third quarter, Snap earned $11.07 per daily user in North America, $3.69 in Europe and $1.13 in the rest of the world, and North America produced 59% of revenue (our calculation). The remarks do not say whether Snap will keep publishing daily users by region.

Subscriptions grow faster than advertising

Advertising revenue grew 4% to $1.37 billion, and chief executive Evan Spiegel said its growth “remains below our ambitions.” Chief commercial officer Ronan Harris said direct response advertising grew strongly but upper-funnel brand advertising fell from a year earlier.

Other revenue, mainly subscriptions, rose 84% to $349.7 million, or 20% of the total, up from 13% a year earlier (our calculation). Paid subscribers passed 30 million across Snapchat+, Memories Storage and Lens+. Snap reported 24 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, and a year ago said Snapchat+ alone was approaching 17 million. Thirty million is about 3% of monthly users (our calculation).

Total revenue rose 14% to $1.72 billion. Net income was $56 million, against a loss of $104 million a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP profit measure, rose to $383 million from $182 million. For the fourth quarter, Snap guided to revenue of $1.95 billion to $1.985 billion, which would be growth of about 14% to 16% (our calculation).

The youth-safety question

Snap repeated its warning that scrutiny of youth-related issues could bring significant changes to its products, higher legal costs and damage to user growth. Its quarterly report cites Australia's ban on social media accounts for children under 16, in force since December 2025, and proposed or enacted restrictions in the UK, the EU and EU member states. It also says thousands of plaintiffs are pursuing claims that its platform and those of competitors are addictive and harmful, and says it believes it has meritorious defenses. Snap settled the first four bellwether trials in a coordinated California proceeding on confidential terms, and the next are scheduled for March 2027.

Also on November 4, the European Commission published an outside study it had procured for its proposed KIDS Act. Its summary says 1 in 3 children aged 9 to 11 across 6 European countries report having a social media profile, and that costs of age checks for online services “are likely to remain modest for most services and to decrease over time.” The Commission notes that the study does not assess the proposal itself or any specific provider.