DAU/MAU ratio

The DAU/MAU ratio divides daily active users by monthly active users to express what fraction of your monthly user base engages with the product on any given day. A ratio of 50% means that half of your monthly users are active daily. A ratio of 10% means only one in ten monthly users visits on a typical day.

The ratio is a measure of product stickiness: how habitual and essential the product has become in users' lives. High stickiness means users depend on the product daily, which translates to stronger retention, lower churn, and better monetisation opportunities. Low stickiness means users engage infrequently, which correlates with higher churn risk and lower engagement depth.

DAU/MAU is particularly useful because it normalises for product size. A product with 100 DAU and 1,000 MAU has the same stickiness ratio (10%) as a product with 10 million DAU and 100 million MAU. This makes it comparable across products of very different scales.

The ratio also provides insight into the user base composition. A 20% ratio means the average user visits about 6 days per month (30 days x 0.20). A 50% ratio means the average user visits about 15 days per month. This interpretation helps you understand the natural usage rhythm of your product.

Divide the average DAU for a period by the MAU for the same period. Use a trailing 30-day window for both. If average DAU over the past 30 days is 15,000 and MAU is 50,000, the ratio is 30%.

Using average DAU rather than a single day's DAU smooths out day-of-week effects and anomalies. Weekday DAU for business tools is typically much higher than weekend DAU, so using a single Monday would overstate stickiness while using a single Sunday would understate it.

Some organisations calculate the ratio weekly (DAU/WAU) to measure weekly stickiness, which is appropriate for products with weekly rather than daily usage rhythms. A project management tool that most users engage with three to four times per week might have a low DAU/MAU but a strong DAU/WAU.

The DAU/MAU ratio decomposes into the factors that drive daily return behaviour. Improving the ratio requires understanding why users come back each day and what prevents others from doing so.

The tree shows that stickiness is driven by three forces: triggers that bring users back daily (notifications, team activity, fresh content), the natural frequency of the use case (some products are inherently daily, others are not), and the switching cost that locks users into the product. Products that combine strong daily triggers with deep workflow integration achieve the highest DAU/MAU ratios.

1. 1

   Create daily triggers through notifications and digests

   Daily email digests, push notifications for team activity, and alerts for relevant changes give users a reason to return every day. Design notifications to provide value, not just to drive opens.

2. 2

   Build collaborative features that require daily participation

   When teams use a product together, social pressure and collaborative workflows create natural daily engagement. Features like comments, @mentions, and shared dashboards drive team-based daily return.

3. 3

   Expand the number of use cases per user

   A user who uses your product for one task might visit weekly. A user who uses it for three tasks visits daily because at least one task needs attention each day. Broaden the product's utility for each user.

4. 4

   Deliver fresh, relevant content daily

   Products that surface new insights, data, or content daily give users a reason to check in. Personalised dashboards, activity feeds, and recommendation engines create daily novelty. Tracking session duration alongside DAU/MAU helps assess whether return visits are deep or superficial.

5. 5

   Reduce friction in the return experience

   Fast load times, saved state, and contextual deep links make returning easy. If it takes three clicks to reach the relevant screen, users will not come back for small tasks.