Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)

DAU (daily active users) and MAU (monthly active users) are engagement metrics that count the unique users who perform a meaningful action within a given time window. The definition of "active" should be tied to a core value action — completing a task, sending a message, running a report — not merely logging in, to ensure the metric reflects genuine usage rather than passive sessions.

The DAU/MAU ratio (stickiness) tells you what fraction of monthly users return every day. A ratio of 20 to 25 % is considered strong for most B2B SaaS products, while consumer social apps may target 50 %+. Slack reported a DAU/MAU ratio above 60 % during its high-growth years, which is exceptional even by consumer standards. A declining ratio even with growing MAU suggests your product is attracting users who do not stick around — a leading churn indicator that shows up months before revenue impact.

How to define "active" correctly: The biggest mistake teams make is using a vanity definition like "opened the app." Instead, identify the action that correlates most strongly with long-term retention. For a financial dashboard, that might be viewing a report or categorizing a transaction. For a project management tool, it might be updating a task status. Run a correlation analysis between candidate actions and 90-day retention to find your true activation signal.

DAU/MAU benchmarks by product category:

• Developer tools: 15–25 % (usage is project-driven, not daily)
• Collaboration / messaging: 40–65 % (daily communication habit)
• B2B SaaS dashboards: 20–35 % (daily check-in pattern)
• E-commerce platforms: 10–20 % (transaction-driven, less frequent)
• Consumer social: 50–70 % (high engagement loops)

For subscription businesses, DAU/MAU is a leading indicator of net revenue retention. Customers who engage daily are far less likely to churn than those who log in once a month. Monitoring this metric by cohort and feature area helps product teams prioritize investments that drive habitual usage. When stickiness drops below your category benchmark for two consecutive months, treat it as an early-warning signal and investigate whether onboarding, feature adoption, or product quality is the root cause.

Tracking DAU/MAU effectively requires event-based analytics (Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog) rather than page-view tools. Segment by acquisition channel, user role, and account size to find pockets of low engagement before they become churn. The metric is most useful when combined with retention cohorts — a high DAU/MAU with declining cohort retention means your engaged users are a shrinking core, not a growing base.