Daily Active Users (DAU)
What is DAU?
DAU refers to the count of individual users who perform a meaningful action within your product each day. What qualifies as “active” should be defined by your product’s core value proposition—it could be logging in, creating a report, sending a message, or completing a key action.
For B2B SaaS, DAU is more relevant for products with daily workflows (e.g., collaboration tools, CRMs, analytics platforms). It's often used alongside MAU and stickiness (DAU/MAU ratio) to evaluate user retention and engagement.
Why It Matters in B2B SaaS
- Indicates depth and consistency of product usage
- Correlates with customer satisfaction and stickiness
- Helps detect churn risk or user drop-off early
- Informs product development and usage-based pricing
- Acts as a leading indicator of expansion potential
How to Measure DAU
Formula: DAU = Count of unique users who performed a qualifying action on a given day
- Define what “active” means for your product – Choose one or more meaningful product actions
- Track user IDs performing those actions daily – Use product analytics tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, or Segment
- Exclude bots or system-generated activity – Clean your data for accuracy
- Segment DAU by account type, role, plan, or region – Identify usage patterns and adoption gaps
- Visualize DAU trends over time – Daily, weekly averages, or in combination with MAU
Best Practices to Improve DAU
- Incentivize habitual use – Build daily workflows and “sticky” product experiences
- Personalize in-app experiences – Serve relevant content, reports, or actions based on role or behavior
- Use usage reminders and alerts – Encourage return visits via email, in-app, or mobile notifications
- Integrate into customer workflows – Make your product indispensable, not optional
- Monitor drop-offs and dormant users – Trigger reactivation nudges or CS interventions
- Pair with NPS or CSAT – Identify if low DAU stems from dissatisfaction
DAU isn more than a vanity metric, it’s a pulse check. When thoughtfully defined and tracked, it reveals the strength of your product’s grip on user behavior. In a crowded SaaS landscape, daily relevance beats feature depth.