DAU (Daily Active Users) and MAU (Monthly Active Users) count how many distinct people engage with your product in a day versus a month. Dividing DAU by MAU produces the stickiness ratio: the fraction of your monthly user base that shows up on any given day. A higher ratio means users are returning more often and forming a real habit around the product, rather than using it once a month out of necessity.
Count the number of unique users who take a meaningful action on a given day (DAU) and the number of unique users who do the same over a trailing 30-day window (MAU). Divide DAU by MAU and express it as a percentage: that is your stickiness ratio.
The ratio indicates how strong a habit your product has built. A higher ratio means users return more frequently, which correlates with lower churn risk and a product that has become part of someone's routine rather than an occasional tool.
You have 15,000 daily active users and 50,000 monthly active users. DAU/MAU is 15,000 divided by 50,000, or 30%. That means, on average, users visit roughly once every three days.
Social and messaging apps typically see 50% or higher, since checking them daily is the whole point of the product. General productivity tools typically run 20% to 40%, reflecting workday usage patterns. Products used monthly by nature, like financial planning or HR tools, typically run 10% to 20%, and a low ratio there is not necessarily a bad sign.
Defining active loosely, for example counting a pageview instead of a meaningful action, which inflates both DAU and MAU without reflecting real engagement.
Not keeping the definition of active consistent over time, which makes the ratio meaningless for tracking trends, and counting bots or spam accounts, which especially distorts DAU if your product has any open signup flow.
On the traction slide, show DAU/MAU with a trend line over the last two to four quarters, for example: DAU/MAU 32% (+5pp quarter over quarter) on 50,000 MAU. Add a retention curve alongside it if retention is strong, since the two metrics reinforce each other.
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