---
title: "Period comparison — Metrics for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Show change against the previous period, or compare against any range with compareTo() — for value and progress metrics."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/metrics-for-laravel/comparison
language: en
---

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# Period comparison

Value and Progress metrics can compute period-over-period change. withChangeAgainstPreviousPeriod() compares against the immediately-preceding window:

```php
use App\Models\User;
use RoundlyConsulting\Metrics\Enums\Period;
use RoundlyConsulting\Metrics\Facades\Metrics;

Metrics::value()
    ->count(User::query())
    ->range(Period::Today)
    ->withChangeAgainstPreviousPeriod()   // vs. yesterday
    ->toArray();
// result => ['value' => 42.0, 'previous' => 30.0, 'change' => ['percentage' => 40.0, 'is_increase' => true]]
```

## The previous window

| Range | Compared against |
| --- | --- |
| `7 … 365` | The N days before the current window |
| `TODAY, YESTERDAY` | The day before |
| `WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD` | The same elapsed span of the previous week, month, quarter or year |
| `THIS_WEEK … THIS_YEAR` | The whole previous week, month, quarter or year |
| `LAST_WEEK … LAST_YEAR` | The period before that |
| `CUSTOM` | A window of exactly the same length that ends one second before it starts — whole days when the end is a bare date |
| `ALL` | No comparison |

The ALL range has no bounded window, so only the value is returned.

## Compare against any range

compareTo() compares against any period instead — and implies withChangeAgainstPreviousPeriod(). The comparison period resolves as-is, in the metric’s timezone:

```php
use RoundlyConsulting\Metrics\Enums\Period;

Metrics::value()
    ->count(Order::query())
    ->range(Period::ThisMonth)
    ->compareTo(Period::LastYear)   // vs. the whole previous calendar year
    ->toArray();

// The same month a year ago — an explicit custom window
Metrics::value()
    ->count(Order::query())
    ->range(Period::ThisMonth)
    ->compareTo(Period::Custom, '2025-09-01 00:00:00', '2025-09-30 23:59:59')
    ->toArray();
```

## Progress change

Progress metrics add the previous value’s progress and a change block with the percentage change and the deltas in value and in progress points — a ProgressResult is also a ValueResult, so change() returns the percentage:

```php
Metrics::progress()
    ->sum(Order::query(), 'total')
    ->target(10000)
    ->range(Period::MonthToDate)
    ->withChangeAgainstPreviousPeriod()
    ->toArray();
// result => [
//     'value' => 8200.0, 'progress' => 82.0,
//     'previous' => 6500.0, 'previous_progress' => 65.0,
//     'target' => 10000.0, 'avoid' => false,
//     'change' => ['percentage' => 26.0, 'is_increase' => true, 'progress' => 17.0, 'value' => 1700.0],
// ]
```

The change percentage is measured against the size of the previous value, so its sign always follows the direction of the change: from -100 to -50 is +50. From a previous value of zero it is 100 for a rise, -100 for a fall and 0 when the value stays at zero. change.is\_increase is true when the current value exceeds the previous one. Without a comparison, previous, change.percentage and change.is\_increase are null — on a progress metric every change field is.

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