Roblox Corp

We manage our business by tracking several operating metrics, including average daily active users (“DAUs”), hours engaged, bookings, average bookings per DAU (“ABPDAU”), average monthly unique payers, and average bookings per monthly unique payer. As a management team, we believe each of these operating metrics provides useful information to investors and others. For information concerning these metrics as measured by us, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”

While these metrics are based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring how our platform is used. These metrics are determined by using internal data gathered on an analytics platform that we developed and operate and have not been validated by an independent third party. This platform tracks user account and session activity, and its accuracy and precision may be and, at times, has been impacted by implementation challenges, methodological limitations, and operational constraints. If we fail to maintain an effective analytics platform, our metrics calculations may be inaccurate. These metrics are also determined by certain demographic data historically provided to us by the user, such as age or gender. If our users provide us with incorrect or incomplete information, then our estimates may be inaccurate. Our estimates also may change as our methodologies and platform evolve, including through the application of new data sets or technologies or as our platform changes with new features and enhancements.

We believe that these metrics are reasonable estimates of our user base for the applicable period of measurement, and that the methodologies we employ and update from time to time to create these metrics are reasonable bases to identify trends in user behavior. Because we update the methodologies we employ to create metrics, our current and future period metrics may not be comparable to those in prior periods. For example, historically our reported age demographics have been based on age information self-reported by our users. However, we have implemented and continue to develop, implement, and test systems to obtain additional user demographic data, including age verification and/or assurance technology, parental consents, and identification verification and we expect to expand age estimation or verification through such systems for users who access voice or text-based chat on the platform in the near future. Starting in the third quarter of 2025, our reported age demographics are based on a hierarchy of data sources, which may include some of the additional data sources noted above, and in which self-reported data will be used only if we do not obtain additional data regarding the age of the user, such as, for example, through age verification. The data sources and the hierarchy we utilize may change from time to time. As a result of these changes, prior period demographics may not be comparable to future ones. Similarly, our metrics may differ from estimates published by third parties or from similarly-titled metrics from other companies due to differences in methodology.

Finally, the accuracy of our metrics may be affected by certain factors relating to user activity and our platform’s systems and our ability to identify and detect attempts to replicate legitimate user activity, often referred to as botting. See the section titled “Risk Factors—Our user metrics and other estimates are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in those metrics may significantly harm and negatively affect our reputation and our business.”

DAUs

We define a DAU as a user who has logged in and visited Roblox through our website or application on a unique registered account on a given calendar day. If a registered, logged in user visits Roblox more than once within a 24-hour period that spans two calendar days, that user is counted as a DAU only for the first calendar day. We believe this method better reflects global engagement on the platform compared to a method based purely on a calendar-day cutoff. DAUs for a specified period is the average of the DAUs for each day during that period. As an example, DAUs for the month of September would be an average of DAUs during that 30 day period.

Other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate DAUs differently. We track DAUs as an indicator of the size of the audience engaged on our platform. DAUs are also broken out by geographic region to help us understand the global engagement on our platform. The geographic location data collected is based on the IP address associated with the account when an account is initially registered on Roblox. The IP address may not always accurately reflect a user’s actual location at the time they engaged with our platform. Prior to the fourth quarter of 2023, we grouped Xbox users into Rest of World for the purposes of our reporting and beginning in the fourth quarter of 2023, Xbox users have been reported in their respective geographies (we note that prior to the fourth quarter of 2023, Xbox users represented less than 2% of our total quarterly DAUs and quarterly hours engaged).

Because DAUs measure account activity and an individual user may actively use our platform within a particular day on multiple accounts for which that individual registered, our DAUs are not a measure of unique individuals accessing Roblox. References to “user” or our “user base” in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q refer to users as described in our definition of DAUs. Additionally, if undetected, fraud and unauthorized access to our platform may contribute, from time to time, to an overstatement of DAUs. In many cases, fraudulent accounts are created by bots to inflate user activity for a particular developer’s content on our platform, thus making the developer’s experience (which refer to the titles that have been created by developers) or other content appear more popular than it really is. We strive to detect and minimize fraud and unauthorized access to our platform. See the sections titled “Risk Factors—Our user metrics and other estimates are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in those metrics may significantly harm and negatively affect our reputation and our business,” and “Risk Factors—Some developers, creators, and users on our Platform may make unauthorized, fraudulent, or illegal use of Robux and other digital goods or experiences on our Platform, including by use of unauthorized third-party websites or “cheating” programs.”

Hours Engaged

We define hours engaged as the time spent by our users on the platform. We calculate total hours engaged as the aggregate of user session lengths in a given period. We estimate this length of time using internal company systems that track user activity on our platform as discrete events, and aggregate these discrete activities into a user session. A given user session on our platform may include, among other things, time spent in experiences, in Roblox Studio, in platform features such as chat and avatar personalization, in the Creator Store, and some amount of non-active time due to limits within the tracking systems and our estimation methodology. User sessions on our platform may be tracked differently across devices and platforms, including mobile, tablet, web, desktop, and game console due to inherent differences in functionality and user behaviors. As we continue to develop new features and products, we expect that our user session calculation will continue to evolve. We continue to review our user session calculation methodologies and may develop alternative calculation methods to increase consistency and accuracy in future periods.

We track hours engaged as an indicator of the user engagement on our platform. Hours engaged are also broken out by geographic region, based on the IP address associated with the account when an account was initially registered on Roblox, to help us understand the global engagement on our platform. The IP address may not always accurately reflect a user’s actual location at the time they engaged with our platform.

We continuously strive to increase the sophistication of our company systems to detect different user activities, including botting, non-active time, and other activities across all devices. As we continue to improve our ability to detect and deter certain user behaviors on the platform and different devices, including unauthorized use of our platform, we may see an impact to our overall hours engaged as our measurement systems evolve and our efforts to reduce botting become more successful.

See the section titled “Risk Factors—Our user metrics and other estimates are subject to inherent challenges in measurement, and real or perceived inaccuracies in those metrics may significantly harm and negatively affect our reputation and our business.”

Bookings represent the sales activity in a given period without giving effect to certain non-cash adjustments, as detailed below. Substantially all of our bookings are generated from sales of virtual currency, which can ultimately be converted to virtual items on the platform. Sales of virtual currency reflected as bookings include one-time purchases or monthly subscriptions purchased via payment processors or through prepaid cards. Bookings are initially recorded in deferred revenue and recognized as revenues over the estimated period of time the virtual items purchased with the virtual currency are available on the platform (estimated to be the average lifetime of a paying user) or as the virtual items purchased with the virtual currency are consumed. Bookings also include an insignificant amount from advertising and licensing arrangements.

We believe bookings provide a timelier indication of trends in our operating results that are not necessarily reflected in our revenue as a result of the fact that we recognize the majority of revenue over the estimated average lifetime of a paying user, which was 27 months as of September 30, 2025. The change in deferred revenue constitutes the vast majority of the reconciling difference from revenue to bookings. By removing these non-cash adjustments, we are able to measure and monitor our business performance based on the timing of actual transactions with our users and the cash that is generated from these transactions. Over the long term, the factors impacting our revenue and bookings trends are the same. However, in the short-term, there are factors that may cause revenue and bookings trends to differ.

We use this non-GAAP financial information to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. We believe that this non-GAAP financial information may be helpful to investors because it provides consistency and comparability with past financial performance. However, non-GAAP financial measures have limitations in their usefulness to investors because they have no standardized meaning prescribed by GAAP and are not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. In addition, other companies, including companies in our industry, may calculate similarly titled non-GAAP financial measures differently or may use other measures to evaluate their performance, all of which could reduce the usefulness of our non-GAAP financial information as a tool for comparison. As a result, our non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only and should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP.

Bookings are also broken out by geographic region based on the billing country of our payers, to help us understand the global engagement and monetization on our platform. The billing address may not always accurately reflect a payer’s actual location at the time of their purchase.

ABPDAU

We define ABPDAU as bookings in a given period divided by the DAUs for such period. We primarily use ABPDAU as a way to understand how we are monetizing across all of our users. ABPDAU is also broken out by geographic region to help us understand the global monetization on our platform.

Average Monthly Unique Payers

We define monthly unique payers as user accounts that made a payment on the platform or redeemed a prepaid card during a given month. A user account that makes multiple purchases during a given month is counted as a single monthly unique payer. Average monthly unique payers for a specified period is the average of the monthly unique payers for each month during that period. Because an individual user may actively pay on our platform within a particular month on multiple user accounts for which that individual registered, our monthly unique payers are not a measure of unique individual payers on Roblox.

Average Bookings per Monthly Unique Payer

We define average bookings per monthly unique payer as bookings in the specified period divided by the average monthly unique payers for the same specified period.