Four steps to calculate daily active users, monthly active users, and the DAU/MAU stickiness ratio. Formula, 2024 benchmarks, and tips for product managers.
Last updated: April 2026
DAU and MAU are only useful if everyone on the team agrees on which event counts as active. Pick the action that signals real value, not a passive ping.
Formula
Active user = unique user who fired the chosen value event in the time windowPro tip: Write the definition down in a one-pager and pin it. Drift in the active-user definition is the most common reason DAU/MAU charts mislead the team.
DAU is the number of unique users who fired the active event on a given day. The unit of analysis is the user, not the session, so de-duplicate.
Formula
DAU(day) = count of distinct user IDs that fired the active event on that dayPro tip: For B2B products with weekend drops, report DAU on a weekday-only basis or use a 7-day rolling average. A flat DAU chart with weekly seasonality is harder to read than a smoothed one.
MAU is the number of unique users active across the trailing 30 days. Use a rolling window so the metric updates daily, not just at month-end.
Formula
MAU(date) = count of distinct user IDs active on any of the prior 30 daysPro tip: Calendar-month MAU and rolling 30-day MAU are different metrics. Pick one and stay consistent. Most analytics tools default to rolling.
The stickiness ratio is just DAU divided by MAU, expressed as a percentage. It tells you what fraction of your monthly users come back on any given day.
Formula
Stickiness = (DAU / MAU) x 100%Pro tip: Compare against the right benchmark. Mixpanel's 2024 Benchmarks report puts average stickiness at roughly 37% across all industries (the older 13% figure reflected B2B SaaS specifically). Social and messaging apps typically run 50-70%, productivity tools 25-45%, fintech or e-commerce 15-30%.
Skip the SQL. Use our free DAU/MAU calculator with built-in benchmarks, trend tracking, and category comparisons.
Open Free DAU/MAU CalculatorIt depends on the product category. Mixpanel's 2024 Benchmarks report puts the all-industry average at roughly 37% (the older 13% figure reflected B2B SaaS specifically). Social and messaging apps often hit 50-70% because the use case is multiple-times-per-day. Productivity tools land in the 25-45% range. Fintech and e-commerce typically run 15-30% because users don't need to log in every day. Twenty percent is a common rule of thumb for healthy consumer apps, but check the benchmark for your category before celebrating or panicking.
Rolling 30-day MAU is the modern default because it updates every day and avoids end-of-month spikes. Calendar-month MAU still appears in older reports and investor decks. Whichever you pick, lock it in across the team and don't switch mid-quarter.
The event that signals the user got value. For a chat app, that's sending or reading a message. For a CRM, it's logging activity or updating a record. Avoid passive events like app foreground or push-notification delivery, which inflate the numbers without reflecting real engagement.
Yes. A user who logs in once a month for two seconds counts the same as a user who comes back daily. Pair stickiness with retention curves, session length, and key-action completion to get a fuller picture.
Stickiness is a same-window snapshot. Retention curves track cohorts over time. A high DAU/MAU with a steep retention drop tells you new users churn fast even though current users come back often. Track both.