DAU, WAU, and MAU: what they mean and how to calculate them

Quick answers

What is DAU? DAU (Daily Active Users) is the count of unique users who performed at least one meaningful action in a 24-hour window. "Meaningful" is the key word — a page load isn't the same as completing a core action. How you define it changes your numbers significantly, so the definition needs to be agreed on before you start tracking.

What is the difference between DAU, WAU, and MAU? DAU counts unique active users in a day, WAU in a rolling 7-day window, MAU in a rolling 30-day window. All three measure the same thing — engagement — over different time horizons. Which one matters most depends on your product's natural usage frequency.

What is the DAU/MAU ratio and what does it mean? The DAU/MAU ratio — also called the stickiness ratio — shows what percentage of your monthly users engage daily. A 20% ratio means roughly 1 in 5 monthly users uses the product on any given day. Higher is better for daily-habit products; for weekly-use products, a lower ratio is expected and not a red flag.

How do I define "active" for my DAU/WAU/MAU calculation? Define "active" as the action that indicates genuine engagement with your product's core value — not just a login or page load. For a task manager, completing a task. For a BI tool, running a query or viewing a dashboard. There's no universal answer; the right definition depends on what your product is actually for.

What does flat MAU with declining DAU mean? Your user base isn't shrinking, but engagement is. New users are masking disengagement in your existing base — acquisition is covering up a retention problem. Cohort analysis in Metabase will show you which group is driving the decline.

How do I track DAU, WAU, and MAU in Metabase? Save each as a separate question in Metabase's SQL editor or build them with the query builder, then add them to a dashboard as trend line charts. The SaaS product metrics guide shows how to build and visualize each one. Define them once in Data Studio so every team uses the same calculation.

How do I get alerted when DAU drops? Set up a Metabase alert on your DAU question — it fires when the value drops below a threshold you set. You find out before the weekly review, not during it.

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Active user metrics are some of the most cited numbers in product analytics — and some of the most argued about. Here's what they actually measure, where they break down, and how to calculate them without starting a fight in the data meeting.

What DAU, WAU, and MAU measure

DAU (Daily Active Users): Unique users who performed at least one meaningful action in a 24-hour window.

WAU (Weekly Active Users): Unique users who performed at least one meaningful action in a rolling 7-day window.

MAU (Monthly Active Users): Unique users who performed at least one meaningful action in a rolling 30-day window.

The operative word in all three is meaningful. A page load is not the same as completing a core action. How you define "active" changes your numbers — a lot. That definition needs to be agreed upon before you start tracking, not after.

The definition problem

Most metric arguments aren't about math. They're about definitions.

"Active" can mean: logged in, opened a session, triggered a specific event, reached a certain engagement threshold. None of these is universally correct. The right definition depends on your product.

For a daily-habit product (a task manager, a communication tool), a login might count. For a product used weekly or monthly (a billing tool, a reporting tool), login-based DAU is almost meaningless — you'd expect low daily engagement by design.

Define "active" as the action that indicates genuine engagement with your product's core value. That definition is your metric. Stick to it.

The DAU/MAU ratio: what it tells you

DAU/MAU — often called the stickiness ratio — shows what percentage of your monthly users engage daily. A 20% ratio means roughly 1 in 5 monthly users uses the product on any given day.

What constitutes a "good" ratio depends heavily on the type of product. Daily-use tools (messaging, task management) should aim high. Weekly-use tools have naturally lower ratios — which is fine, as long as it's stable.

What to watch for

Flat MAU, declining DAU: Your user base isn't shrinking, but engagement is. New users are masking churn or disengagement in your existing base. Cohort analysis will tell you which group is the problem.

Spiking DAU with flat MAU: A campaign or feature launch drove activity, but it didn't expand your active user base. Short-term engagement without retention.

Growing MAU, growing DAU, stable ratio: Healthy scaling — you're adding users without diluting engagement.

Putting it in Metabase

The Metabase blog's SaaS product metrics guide walks through building these metrics with SQL and visualizing them as trend lines. For the Data Studio approach — defining DAU, WAU, and MAU once so the whole team uses the same calculation — see Data Studio. Define the metric once, and every question or dashboard that references it gets the same number.

Set up a metric alert to fire if your DAU drops below a threshold. You'll know about an engagement drop before the weekly review, not after.

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Key takeaways

• DAU, WAU, MAU count unique users who performed a meaningful action — define "meaningful" before you start tracking