DAU/MAU Ratio Calculator

Take your average daily active users over a period and divide by your monthly active users for the same period, then multiply by 100. For example, 12,000 average DAU divided by 50,000 MAU equals 0.24, or 24 percent stickiness. Use a consistent definition of active (an event that represents real value, not just an app open) and average your DAU across the month rather than picking a single peak day, otherwise the ratio overstates engagement.

It depends heavily on the product category. For social and messaging apps that earn a place in a daily habit, 50 percent and above is strong and the best products reach 60 to 70 percent. For most consumer apps, 20 percent is a respected benchmark, popularized by Facebook early on, and anything above that signals genuine habit. For B2B SaaS and tools used in a weekly or monthly workflow, 10 to 20 percent can be perfectly healthy because the natural usage cadence is not daily. Always judge the ratio against your product type, not a universal number.

Stickiness is a leading indicator of retention and, ultimately, revenue. Users who form a daily or near-daily habit churn far less, are cheaper to retain, and are more likely to upgrade and refer others. A rising DAU/MAU ratio usually precedes improvements in long-term retention curves, while a falling ratio is an early warning that your product is sliding toward being a tool people forget. For investors and founders alike, stickiness is one of the clearest signals that a product has found a real place in users lives.

The ratio is a blunt instrument. It hides the difference between a small group of power users who visit daily and a broad base that visits occasionally, since both can produce the same average. It is also a poor fit for products with a naturally non-daily cadence, like tax software or a quarterly reporting tool, where a low ratio is expected and fine. And it says nothing about depth of engagement within a session. Use DAU/MAU alongside cohort retention curves and a power-user curve (the histogram of days active) for a complete picture.

Focus on building a habit loop: a trigger that brings users back, an action that is easy to complete, and a reward that feels worth it. Practically, that means well-timed and genuinely useful notifications, surfacing fresh or personalized content each visit, streaks and progress mechanics where they fit, and removing friction from the core action. Just as important, make sure you are measuring an active event that reflects real value, then improve the first-week experience, because the habit that drives daily use is almost always formed in the first few sessions.

No, though they are related. Retention measures whether a given cohort of users keeps coming back over time, usually shown as a curve from day 0 to day 30 and beyond. DAU/MAU is a single snapshot of how concentrated usage is within a month across your whole base. A product can have decent retention but a low DAU/MAU ratio if users return weekly rather than daily. The two are complementary: retention tells you if users stay, stickiness tells you how often they engage while they do.