Daily Active Users (DAU)

Daily active users (DAU) is the number of unique users who are active in an app or on a website in a single day. The number only means something once the business states clearly what counts as “active.”

What is DAU?

DAU counts people, not visits. Someone who opens the app 5 times in a day is still 1 DAU. The hard part is defining “active,” and every platform picks its own version:

• GA4 counts someone as an active user when they have an engaged session, or when the system logs a first visit to the website, a first app open or engagement time (Google Analytics Help, Dimensions and metrics, accessed October 2026).
• App Store Connect counts Active Devices: the number of devices with at least one session in the period, where a session lasts 2 seconds or longer (Apple, accessed October 2026). Apple counts devices, not people.
• Meta defines a DAP (daily active person) as a registered, logged-in user who visited at least one of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp that day.

For your own product, pick an action tied to real value. A banking app might count people who log in successfully. An English-learning app might count people who finish at least one lesson. Opening the app for 3 seconds and closing it usually tells you nothing.

How to calculate DAU and the DAU/MAU ratio

DAU = Number of unique users who performed the “active” action that day

In monthly reports, people usually use average DAU: add up each day’s DAU and divide by the number of days. Meta reports it the same way, as an “average for June.”

DAU is often set next to MAU to see how “sticky” a product is. GA4 defines DAU/MAU as the percentage of users active in a day out of those active in the last 30 days. A DAU of 15,000 and an MAU of 100,000 gives a ratio of 15%, meaning the average user comes back about 4.5 days a month (15% × 30 days).

2024 to 2026 update: Meta now reports only DAP

In its Q4 2023 earnings release, Meta still published all four metrics: Facebook DAU of 2.11 billion, Facebook MAU of 3.07 billion, DAP of 3.19 billion and MAP of 3.98 billion (Meta, Q4 2023 results, February 2024). By the Q2 2026 release, the only unique-user metric left was DAP: 3.60 billion people on average in June 2026, up 3% year over year (Meta, Q2 2026 results, July 2026).

According to the notes in its Q2 2026 earnings slides, Meta has to match multiple accounts across multiple apps to the same person to count DAP (Meta, Earnings presentation Q2 2026, July 2026). A business with both an app and a website runs into the same problem: count each platform separately and you count some people twice.

Example: a promotion lifts DAU (hypothetical)

An e-wallet runs a 7-day cashback promotion. DAU climbs from 50,000 to 80,000, then drops back to 52,000. Looking at the total, the promotion left behind only 2,000 DAU. Splitting by new and returning users (GA4 has both metrics built in) shows whether the jump came from existing users coming back for the reward or from new users. From there, track retention for the new group at day 7 and day 30.

DAU vs. MAU vs. session

See the session entry for how GA4 splits sessions.

Frequently asked questions

How is DAU different from app installs?

An install happens once. DAU counts the people who still open and use the app on a given day. An app with 1 million installs but a DAU of 20,000 has lost most of the people who installed it.

Which apps should not use DAU as their main metric?

Apps people only need a few times a month, such as booking flights or buying insurance. For these, MAU or the number of transactions per month gives a more accurate picture.

If you want your app campaigns judged on active users instead of installs, see Adtek’s App User Acquisition solution or contact Adtek.