DAU / MAU and stickiness
DAU and MAU are the two most quoted activity metrics in any product. DAU (daily active users) is the number of unique users active on a given day; MAU (monthly active users) is the number of unique users active across a rolling 30-day (or calendar-month) window. Their ratio, DAU/MAU, is the standard measure of stickiness — how habitually your user base returns.
How it is calculated
DAU = unique active users on day D
MAU = unique active users over the trailing 30 days
Stickiness = DAU / MAU
Stickiness is read as a percentage. A DAU/MAU of 0.50 means the average monthly user shows up about 15 days a month — extremely high, typical only of messaging or social. A value of 0.10 means roughly 3 days a month, normal for many content and utility apps. The number you should expect depends entirely on the product’s natural frequency.
The one definition you must pin down is “active.” Is it an app open? A meaningful action? Counting passive background pings inflates DAU and quietly distorts every downstream comparison, so define an active event and apply it consistently.
Why it matters
DAU/MAU captures engagement that retention curves alone can miss. Two products can have identical day-30 retention but very different stickiness if one is used daily and the other monthly. Stickiness is a leading indicator: it tends to move before revenue does, because users who open the product more often have more chances to convert, progress and spend. It is also a clean, single-number health check for live-ops and leadership dashboards.
In games and apps
For games, DAU is the heartbeat — it reacts immediately to live-ops events, content drops and outages, which makes it a fast operational signal. MAU smooths that noise and frames the addressable base. Watching DAU, MAU and their ratio together separates a real audience increase from a temporary spike: a content event that lifts DAU but not MAU pulled existing users in more often rather than bringing new ones. Pair stickiness with retention rate for the full engagement picture.
In Keentics
Keentics computes DAU, MAU and stickiness over your raw events, with “active” defined the way your product actually works, and lets you trend and segment them by version, channel and country. They sit alongside cohort analysis and retention so engagement and return behavior live in one place. See the game analytics feature and the pricing page for details.
Related: Active users · ARPPU · ARPU · Attribution