SQL LOWER

The mirror of UPPER — converts every letter to lowercase, most commonly used to normalize emails before comparing them.

What & Why

LOWER(text) converts letters to lowercase. It is useful for normalizing values such as acquisition channels before comparison or grouping, so casing differences do not create separate categories.

See How It Works

BUSINESS QUESTION

Growth wants acquisition channels normalized to lowercase.

id	created_at	country	channel	plan	activated_at	churned_at
101	2024-01-15 09:10:00+00	US	organic	pro	2024-01-16 14:25:00+00	NULL
102	2024-02-10 11:05:00+00	CA	paid	free	NULL	2024-03-20 10:00:00+00
103	2024-03-12 16:35:00+00	GB	referral	pro	2024-03-13 08:15:00+00	NULL
104	2024-04-01 13:20:00+00	US	organic	free	2024-04-03 12:00:00+00	NULL

EXAMPLE QUERY

SELECT
  LOWER(channel) AS normalized_channel,
  COUNT(*) AS users
FROM growth.users
GROUP BY normalized_channel
ORDER BY users DESC, normalized_channel;

RESULT — exact output from the displayed Queryflo rows

normalized_channel	users
organic	2
paid	1
referral	1

LOWER keeps the actual normalized growth-user channel groups.

Intermediate business practice