Growth
DAU/MAU (Daily / Monthly Active Users)
Two engagement metrics: Daily Active Users (unique users who took a meaningful action that day) and Monthly Active Users (same, over a 30-day window). Their ratio measures stickiness.
In plain English
How many people use your product every day vs how many use it at least once a month. If a lot of monthly users also show up daily, the product is sticky.
Example
A team-collaboration SaaS has 100,000 MAU and 35,000 DAU. Stickiness ratio = DAU/MAU = 35%. That's strong for B2B SaaS — people are using it most workdays. A social product would aim higher (50%+); a tax tool would be lower (5%, but that's fine).
Formula
Stickiness = DAU / MAU
Why it matters
Stickiness predicts retention better than raw user counts. A product with 100k MAU and 5% stickiness has fewer daily-engaged users than a product with 30k MAU and 30% stickiness. Investors look at this ratio when sizing the long-term retention story.
Common mistakes
- Defining 'active' as 'logged in' rather than 'took a meaningful action' — inflates DAU with users who opened the app and bounced
- Comparing DAU/MAU across products with different intended cadences (a daily journal app vs a quarterly tax tool)
- Optimising DAU/MAU by sending more notifications — drives short-term engagement but kills retention
- Reporting DAU/MAU in isolation; needs to be paired with cohort retention to be useful