A metric is the measured number and a property is the attribute that describes it. Purchase count is a metric and payment method is a property; a property has no unit or value of its own.

Event property vs. user property?

An event property is attached to one specific action and stays fixed once recorded, such as the amount of that purchase. A user property describes the person's state and is usually the latest known value, such as their current plan.

Property / Dimension

Beginner

Updated Jul 11, 2026 Shahin editorial 2 min read

PronunciationEN/ˈprɑːpərti dɪˈmɛnʃən/

A property, called a dimension in web analytics, is a named attribute on an event or a user that describes context and lets a metric be split by it.

Metrics are the numbers and properties are the attributes you cut them by: revenue by city, sign-ups by device type, sessions by traffic source. Event-based tools have two families: event properties, which belong to a single occurrence and never change, and user properties, which describe the person and are overwritten as the person changes. Whether a historical breakdown uses the value as it stood at event time or the value the user carries today depends on the tool, and getting that backwards is the most common way a breakdown misleads. Very high-cardinality values such as raw URLs with query parameters or unique identifiers make a breakdown unreadable and usually hit tool limits.

FAQ

Sources:Mixpanel — Events and properties