Daily Active Users (DAU) measures how many unique users engage with your product, app, or platform within a 24-hour period. While the concept sounds simple, DAU has become one of the most scrutinized metrics in the technology industry for good reason.
What Counts as “Active”?
The definition of “active” varies by product. For a social media app, it might mean opening the app and viewing content. For a productivity tool, it could mean creating or editing a document. For a game, it might require completing at least one action or level. Companies define this threshold based on what constitutes meaningful engagement with their core product experience.
Why DAU Matters
It measures habit formation.
Products with high DAU relative to their total user base have successfully embedded themselves into users’ daily routines. A fitness app you open once a month isn’t part of your life. One you open every morning is indispensable.
It reveals product stickiness.
You can acquire millions of users through marketing spend, but if they don’t come back daily, you have a leaky bucket. DAU helps distinguish between products people try and products people need.
It correlates with revenue potential.
Users who engage daily see more ads, are more likely to convert to paid subscriptions, and generally generate more revenue over their lifetime. This is why investors pay close attention to DAU growth trajectories.
It provides early warning signals.
A declining DAU often precedes other problems. Users vote with their time, and if they’re spending less of it with your product, something is wrong, even if other metrics haven’t caught up yet.
DAU in Context
DAU rarely tells the whole story on its own. Most companies track it alongside Monthly Active Users (MAU) to calculate the DAU/MAU ratio, which indicates what percentage of monthly users engage daily. A messaging app might have a 60-70% ratio, while a travel booking app might see 3-5%, and both can be perfectly healthy for their category.
The metric also matters more for some business models than others. Consumer social apps live and die by DAU. Enterprise software might care more about weekly active users. E-commerce sites might focus on monthly purchase frequency instead.
Understanding your DAU, what drives it up or down, and how it compares to similar products gives you insight into whether you’re building something people genuinely want to use, or just something they thought they wanted when they signed up.
