What counts as an active user?

Who is excluded from the active user count?

Two groups never appear on the invoice. The first is provisioned users who never sign in. You can import a full staff directory, create every account in advance, and pay nothing for the people who do not show up that month. The second is deactivated accounts. Once an account is deactivated it stops counting from that billing month onward.

This matters most for seasonal and rotational workforces. A retailer who onboards 400 people for a season and keeps 60 year round pays for the 400 only in the months they actually train.

How is active user billing different from per seat licensing?

Per seat licensing charges for the right to have an account. Active user billing charges for use of the account. The difference shows up whenever the number of accounts is larger than the number of people training in a given month.

Under per seat licensing you buy a block of seats up front and pay for it whether or not the seats are used. If you overbuy, the money is spent. If you underbuy, you have to buy more before the next person can be enrolled. Active user billing removes both problems, because the count follows what happened rather than what you predicted.

Does single sign-on change the count?

No. A sign-in through SAML 2.0 or OIDC counts exactly the same as a sign-in with an email address and password. The method is not part of the definition.

This is worth stating plainly because some vendors price identity integration separately or count federated users differently. EmbayLMS does neither.

What happens when someone is deactivated mid month?

If the person already signed in during that billing month, they are counted for that month. Deactivating an account does not refund a sign-in that already happened.

From the following billing month onward they stop counting. Their learning records, completions and certificates stay in the system, so your compliance history is unaffected by removing someone from the active roster.