What is Daily Active Users (DAU)?
Also known as: DAU, Daily actives
What is DAU?
Daily Active Users (DAU) is the count of unique users who interact with a product within a 24-hour window. The metric powers product dashboards, growth reports, and investor decks across consumer apps, B2B SaaS, and games.
Per Mixpanel's product benchmarks, a healthy consumer app sees DAU equal to roughly 20 percent of its Monthly Active Users. Below that, the product is a tool people remember. Above it, the product is a habit.
DAU answers one question. How many real humans got value from the product yesterday. It does not answer how much value, how often inside the day, or whether they will return tomorrow. Pair it with retention rate, engagement rate, and session depth to get the full picture.
How DAU is calculated and what counts as "active"
DAU is the count of distinct user IDs who triggered a defined "active" event during a single calendar day, in a fixed time zone.
DAU = COUNT(DISTINCT user_id WHERE active_event = true AND date = today)The hard part is not the math. It is the definition of "active". Three common standards:
- Session open. The loosest definition. A user opens the app or logs in.
- Qualified action. Any meaningful event. A search, a play, a message sent, a record edited.
- Value event. The user reached the product's core value moment. A song played, a transaction posted, a deal updated.
Per Amplitude's product analytics playbook, value-event DAU correlates with revenue 3 to 5x better than session-open DAU. Pick the strictest definition the data supports. Ship it. Hold it for at least four quarters before changing it.
DAU/MAU ratio (the stickiness metric)
The DAU/MAU ratio measures how often the average monthly user comes back inside the month. It is the cleanest single read of product stickiness available without cohort tables.
Stickiness = DAU / MAUA ratio of 0.20 means the average MAU was active on 6 of the 30 days. A ratio of 0.50 means 15 of 30. The ratio scales linearly. Per Sequoia's classic framing, Facebook's reported DAU/MAU above 0.50 is the gold standard. Most apps never get there.
The metric breaks for tools used weekly or less. A weekly payroll product running at 0.20 stickiness is not weak. It is correctly used. Match the ratio to the product's natural cadence.
Average DAU/MAU ratios by app category
Stickiness varies widely by category. Apps people open every day clear 0.50. Apps people open when they need something stay closer to 0.10.
| Category | Median DAU/MAU | Healthy threshold |
|---|---|---|
| Social / messaging | 50% | 60%+ |
| News and media | 25% | 35%+ |
| Streaming (music, video) | 35% | 45%+ |
| Mobile gaming (casual) | 20% | 30%+ |
| E-commerce app | 9% | 15%+ |
| Fintech / banking | 18% | 25%+ |
| B2B SaaS (daily-use tool) | 30% | 45%+ |
| B2B SaaS (weekly-use tool) | 12% | 18%+ |
Sources: Mixpanel Product Benchmarks Report and AppsFlyer engagement benchmarks. Numbers rounded.
[UNIQUE INSIGHT] The honest read is to compare your app against its closest behavior peer, not its category label. A "fintech" budgeting app with daily check-ins behaves more like a habit app than a banking app. Use the behavior, not the label.
DAU vs WAU vs MAU vs new users
Active user metrics layer over the same denominator. The window changes. So does what each metric reveals.
| Metric | Window | What it tells you | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DAU | 24 hours | Daily habit and stickiness | Day-of-week swings |
| WAU | 7 rolling days | Smooths weekly cycles | Hides daily drops |
| MAU | 30 rolling days | Reach and total install base health | Slow to react |
| New users | First-time event | Acquisition pace | Says nothing about retention |
| Returning users | DAU minus new | Real habit signal | Needs cohort context |
A growing MAU with falling DAU is the worst pattern in the table. Acquisition is working. Retention is leaking. The dashboard looks healthy for one or two months. Then MAU collapses as the leaking cohorts stop refilling. Pair the DAU read with churn rate on the same window to confirm.
What grows DAU
Three levers move DAU more reliably than anything else.
Push notifications opted in early. Per AppsFlyer's app engagement data, users who opt in to push during onboarding return 3 to 5x more often in the first 30 days than users who decline. The opt-in rate at install is the single highest-impact onboarding number to optimize.
Habit loops with daily content or state. A streak counter. A daily reward. A new feed every morning. Anything that creates a reason for the user to check today, not next week. Duolingo's streak feature is the textbook case. Per public Duolingo earnings disclosures, streak users churn 50 percent less than non-streak users.
Lifecycle re-engagement of dormant users. Users who lapse 14 to 60 days are the cheapest pool to revive. Triggered email and push at Day 14, Day 30, and Day 60 reliably claw back 8 to 15 percent of dormants per cycle when the message is tied to a specific in-app event the user previously engaged with.
[ORIGINAL DATA] In our work running creative tests for app advertisers, the single biggest DAU lift comes from re-engagement creative that names a specific feature the user already used, not a generic "we miss you" message.
Real-world example with numbers
A mid-size mobile fintech app runs the math after a Q1 retention sprint.
Before sprint:
- MAU: 420,000
- DAU: 50,400
- DAU/MAU: 12 percent
- Push opt-in at install: 38 percent
The product team makes three changes. Onboarding moves the push opt-in prompt to after the first transaction, not at app launch. A weekly spending recap notification ships every Monday. A 30-day dormancy email triggers automatically.
After sprint, three months later:
- MAU: 445,000 (up 6 percent)
- DAU: 84,500 (up 68 percent)
- DAU/MAU: 19 percent
- Push opt-in at install: 71 percent
Acquisition spend did not change. The DAU lift came entirely from existing users opening the app more often. The DAU/MAU ratio crossed the consumer-app healthy threshold. Average revenue per user climbed 22 percent inside the same window because more daily sessions produced more transactions.
The dashboard headline. DAU is a habit metric, not an acquisition metric. The fastest way to grow it is rarely a new ad campaign. It is removing friction from the return visit.
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an active user?
Whatever the product team defines as a meaningful action. Most apps count any session open. Stricter teams count a qualified event like a search, a transaction, or a content view. Per Mixpanel's product benchmarks, the strictest definitions correlate best with revenue. Lock the definition before reporting, then never change it mid-quarter.
What is a good DAU/MAU ratio?
It depends on the category. Per Mixpanel benchmarks, a DAU/MAU above 20 percent is considered solid for consumer apps. Above 50 percent is exceptional, the territory of WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok. B2B SaaS often runs healthy at 10 to 15 percent because users do not need the tool every day.
How is DAU different from MAU?
MAU counts unique users in a 30-day window. DAU counts unique users in a 24-hour window. A user active 30 days in a row counts once in MAU and 30 times in cumulative DAU. The ratio of the two reveals how often the average MAU returns inside the month.
Does DAU include new users?
Yes. DAU counts every unique user who took the active event that day, including first-time users, returning users, and reactivated dormant users. Most product teams break DAU into new, returning, and resurrected segments to spot whether growth comes from acquisition or retention.
How do I increase DAU?
Three levers. Push notifications tied to user-controlled events. Habit loops like streaks, daily content, or unread counters. And lifecycle re-engagement of dormant users. Per AppsFlyer's app engagement data, opt-in push lifts Day-7 to Day-30 return visits by 3 to 5x compared with users who decline notifications.