What are DAU, WAU and MAU?

What counts as active

"Active" has to be defined, and the definition changes the number more than anything else. Options from loosest to strictest:

• Any event, including opening the app.
• A pageview or screen view after sign-in.
• A core action: sent a message, edited a document, placed an order.

The core-action definition is usually the useful one, because it tracks value rather than visits. Whatever you choose, keep it fixed; changing it resets every trend.

Stickiness and the DAU/MAU ratio

Average DAU divided by MAU says how many days a typical monthly user shows up. A ratio of 0.5 means the average monthly user is active about every other day; 0.1 means about three days a month.

What is good depends on the product. Messaging and social apps aim for daily use; a tax tool or a travel booking site is used a few times a year and will have a low ratio while being perfectly healthy. Compare with your own history and between user groups.

A distribution is often more telling than the ratio: how many users were active 1 day this month, 2 days, … 30 days. Power users show up as a bump on the right.

Active users in TapCub

In TapCub's active-user analysis you pick the activity definition — any event or a specific one — and view daily, weekly and monthly actives. Additional views show:

• Lifecycle — each period's actives split into new, returning and resurrecting, with dormant users shown as a negative bar.
• Stickiness — how many users were active N days per period.
• Slipping away — users inactive for 7, 14, 30, 60 or 90 days.
• Times of day — active users by weekday and hour in the site's time zone.

With identified mode on, active users are counted per person across devices and platforms.

Common mistakes

• Counting passive events. Background syncs and push receipts make everyone "active".
• Adding DAUs to get MAU. MAU counts distinct people across the month; summing days counts the same people many times.
• Growth with flat stickiness. Rising MAU with a falling DAU/MAU ratio often means new users are not sticking.

Related guides: Engagement Metrics and Product Health Metrics. See also product usage analytics.

See also: Check active users.