DAU

DAU stands for daily active users, a user engagement metric that counts the number of unique individuals who engage with a product within a 24-hour period. Engagement is defined by a qualifying event, such as opening the app, starting a session, or completing a key interaction, depending on the product’s definition of active.

To compute DAU, companies identify individual users (via accounts, device IDs, or cookies) and deduplicate multiple sessions within the same day. Data is collected from analytics platforms or backend logs.

DAU is commonly used alongside MAU (monthly active users) and WAU (weekly active users). The DAU/MAU ratio, sometimes called stickiness, indicates how frequently active users return within a month and helps assess engagement depth.

Benefits include a simple, intuitive gauge of short-term engagement and a fast signal for product changes or campaigns. It is widely used in mobile apps, social networks, games, and some SaaS products.

Limitations include susceptibility to seasonality and bot activity, dependence on how activity is defined, and the fact that DAU does not directly measure revenue, retention quality, or long-term value. Comparisons should use consistent definitions and cohorts.

In practice, DAU is most informative when interpreted with other metrics such as retention, ARPU, and cohort analysis, and when tracked over time to observe trends rather than absolute values.

See also: MAU, WAU, retention, ARPU.