What MAU, WAU and DAU measure
DAU — unique users in a day. Used for high-frequency products: news apps, messengers, grocery delivery.
WAU — unique users in a week. Suits products with weekly cycles: work tools, e-commerce with weekly purchase patterns.
MAU — unique users in a month. The standard for most SaaS products and e-commerce apps.
The defining condition is the same in all three: one user counts once per period, however often they return.
Stickiness: the key derived metric
Stickiness = DAU / MAU × 100%
Example:
DAU = 15,000
MAU = 120,000
Stickiness = 12.5% → the user opens the app about 4 days out of 30
| Product type | Normal stickiness |
|---|---|
| Grocery delivery | 20–35% |
| Fashion e-commerce | 5–15% |
| Electronics retail | 3–8% |
| B2B SaaS | 15–30% |
MAU growth without retention is a trap
A common mistake is optimising MAU through aggressive acquisition without looking at retention. If 30-day retention fell from 25% to 12%, MAU growth is deceptive: the audience widens and evaporates.
Tip: read MAU by cohort. The cohort of a given month shows how many acquired users remain active after one, two and three months. A healthy product has cohorts that flatten at a positive level.
The limits of the metric
MAU says nothing about the quality of the action. Someone who opened the app and closed it counts the same as someone who placed an order. For e-commerce it is often more useful to track purchasing MAU — users who made at least one purchase in the month.