Daily Active Users
The number of unique users who engage with a product on a given day, measuring habit formation and the depth of daily engagement.
FAQs
What is a good DAU/MAU ratio for a SaaS product?
It depends on the intended use frequency. Daily-use tools (Slack, productivity apps, trading platforms): target 40–70% DAU/MAU. Weekly-use tools (project management, analytics): 15–30%. Monthly-use tools (accounting close, payroll): 5–15%. Comparing DAU/MAU to the product's intended use cadence is more meaningful than absolute benchmarks — a tax tool with 10% DAU/MAU during non-filing months isn't a product health concern.
How do you improve DAU without just sending more push notifications?
Sustainable DAU improvement comes from making the product more valuable for daily use: adding features that create daily jobs-to-be-done, building habit loops (triggers, actions, rewards), improving notification relevance and timing (rather than volume), developing collaborative features that create social obligations, and ensuring the core daily use case is faster and more frictionless than alternatives.
What is WAU and when is it preferred over DAU or MAU?
WAU (Weekly Active Users) is used for products with a natural weekly use cadence — project management tools, content creation platforms, or professional tools aligned with the work week. It avoids the volatility of daily measurement (weekends show lower DAU for professional tools) while capturing more signal than monthly. DAU, WAU, and MAU together paint a complete engagement picture across different time horizons.
Related Terms
Monthly Active Users
The number of unique users who engage with a product at least once within a 30-day period, measuring product reach and engagement.
Engagement Score
Composite metric quantifying how actively a customer uses a product, predicting retention and expansion.
Activation Rate
Percentage of new users who complete a key action that predicts long-term retention.
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers or revenue lost within a given period due to cancellations or non-renewals.