DAU

TL;DR

Daily Active Users — the count of unique users who took a meaningful action in the product on a given day.

DAU counts unique users active on a given day. The definition of 'active' matters more than the count itself: 'opened the app' produces inflated numbers, while 'completed the core action' produces a more honest signal.

DAU is most useful for products designed to be used daily — communication, social, productivity. For products with a weekly or monthly cadence (HR tools, finance software), DAU is the wrong frame and WAU or MAU is more meaningful.

Worked example

A B2B Slack-like app reports 184k daily active users on Tuesdays vs 31k on Saturdays — the gap shows usage is work-week-bound, which informs both the engagement push schedule and how investors should benchmark stickiness.

Common pitfalls

• Reporting DAU for products that aren't daily-use.
• Defining 'active' as 'opened the app' rather than 'used a core feature'.
• Ignoring DAU/MAU stickiness in favor of headline DAU.

When this shows up in a pitch deck

Consumer and communication apps include DAU on the Engagement slide; B2B SaaS usually replaces it with WAU or MAU.

Related terms

• MAU — Monthly Active Users — the count of unique users who took a meaningful action in the product within a given month.
• DAU/MAU Ratio — The ratio of daily to monthly active users — a measure of how many days per month the average user shows up.
• Stickiness — A qualitative term for how habitual a product is, often quantified as the DAU/MAU ratio or session frequency.
• North Star Metric — The single metric that best captures the core value the product delivers and the long-term success of the business.
• Retention Curve — A chart showing what fraction of a cohort is still active week-by-week or month-by-month after sign-up.

Use this in your next pitch deck

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