DAU/MAU Ratio

The DAU/MAU ratio compares Daily Active Users (DAU) to Monthly Active Users (MAU) to measure how sticky and habitual your product is. A ratio of 50% means that half of your monthly active users engage with your product every single day. Higher ratios indicate stronger daily habit formation and generally correlate with lower churn and higher lifetime value.

formula.sh

DAU/MAU Ratio = (Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users) × 100

> Daily Active Users (DAU) — unique users who perform a meaningful action on a given day
> Monthly Active Users (MAU) — unique users who perform a meaningful action in the trailing 30 days
> The ratio is typically averaged over a month to smooth daily variance
> "Meaningful action" must be defined per product — not just a login, but genuine value-generating usage

example

example.sh

Project management SaaS with 10,000 MAU. Average daily active users over the month: 4,200.

(4,200 / 10,000) × 100

→ 42% DAU/MAU ratio. Slack benchmarks at ~50%; Facebook historically ~65–70%; most B2B SaaS targets 25–40%.

why it matters

DAU/MAU ratio is the leading indicator of retention that shows up before churn does. A declining DAU/MAU ratio typically precedes subscription cancellations by 30–90 days. Customers who stop using the product daily often stop paying months later. DAU/MAU gives you the window to intervene.

The ratio also reveals whether you have built a habit-forming product or a features-on-demand product. Tools like Slack, Notion, and Linear achieve high DAU/MAU because they are integrated into daily work workflows. Tools that users open only when they need a specific report or output naturally have lower ratios — and correspondingly higher churn risk.

For consumer apps, 50%+ DAU/MAU is elite. For B2B SaaS, benchmarks depend heavily on use case: daily workflow tools target 40–60%, weekly workflow tools target 20–40%, monthly reporting tools may naturally sit at 5–15%.

common mistakes

✗Defining "active" as any login rather than meaningful engagement — this inflates the ratio and hides disengagement.

✗Applying consumer DAU/MAU benchmarks to B2B SaaS; a monthly reporting tool achieving 15% DAU/MAU may be perfectly healthy given its natural usage pattern.

✗Tracking DAU/MAU at the aggregate level only — segment by pricing tier, team size, and industry to find which segments have dangerous engagement gaps.

pro tips

✓Set up automated alerts when a paying account's DAU/MAU ratio drops below a threshold for two consecutive weeks — trigger a customer success outreach immediately.

✓A/B test onboarding flows using DAU/MAU at day-7 and day-30 as success metrics; they predict 6-month retention better than any other early signal.

✓Build DAU/MAU segmented by feature usage to identify which product areas drive habitual engagement and invest accordingly.

the mrrsucks take

DAU/MAU is how your product votes on itself. Low ratio means users remember you exist about as often as they remember to floss — occasionally, guiltily, and only when something hurts.

faq

What is a good DAU/MAU ratio for SaaS?+

For daily workflow tools (messaging, project management): 40–60% is strong. For analytics and reporting tools: 15–30% is normal. For monthly billing or compliance tools: 5–15% may be appropriate. Context determines what "good" means.

How is DAU/MAU different from retention rate?+

Retention rate measures whether customers keep paying. DAU/MAU measures how intensely they engage. High DAU/MAU predicts high retention rate because habitual users churn far less. But you can have decent retention with low DAU/MAU if switching costs are high.

The churn spiral›

related metrics

./install-the-daemon

$9. 365 roasts. one public endpoint of pure shame.