one-line definition
DAU/MAU ratio measures how frequently your monthly users engage with your product on a daily basis.
formula: DAU/MAU ratio = Daily active users ÷ Monthly active users × 100
tl;dr
A 20%+ DAU/MAU ratio means strong daily engagement. SaaS tools used for work typically hit 30-50%. If yours is below 10%, users find your product useful but not essential — focus on building daily habits or workflow integrations.
Simple definition
DAU/MAU ratio (also called stickiness) tells you what fraction of your monthly users show up on any given day. It separates products people use as a daily tool from those they visit once a month and forget. For solo founders, this metric reveals whether you have built a habit or just a feature — and habits retain, features churn.
How to calculate it
DAU/MAU ratio = Daily active users ÷ Monthly active users × 100
If you had 1,200 monthly active users in January and an average of 300 daily active users across the month:
DAU/MAU = 300 ÷ 1,200 × 100 = 25%
This means on any given day, about a quarter of your monthly user base is actively using the product. Calculate DAU as the average daily actives over a 30-day window, not a single day's peak.
Example
You build a writing assistant. Your MAU is 800 and your average DAU is 60 — a DAU/MAU of 7.5%. Users love the product when they use it, but they only open it when they have a specific writing task. To increase stickiness, you add a daily writing prompt and a streak counter. Three months later, DAU climbs to 180 with the same 800 MAU — a 22.5% ratio. The product went from occasional tool to daily habit. Retention at 90 days improves from 18% to 41% as a result.
Related reading
Related terms
- Stickiness
- Session Duration
- Retention Cohort
FAQ
What is a good DAU/MAU ratio?+
20%+ is solid for most SaaS tools. Workplace tools used daily hit 30-50%. Social apps aim for 50%+. Below 10% suggests your product is useful but not habit-forming — users come back, but not often.
My product is used weekly, not daily. Is DAU/MAU still relevant?+
For weekly-use products, track WAU/MAU (Weekly Active Users ÷ Monthly Active Users) instead. A reporting tool used every Monday might have a low DAU/MAU but a healthy 60% WAU/MAU. Match the metric to your product's natural usage cadence.