12 August 2026 · 6 min read
A practical DAU definition for growing products
Why a useful daily active user metric begins with meaningful behaviour—not simply opening an app.
DAU is only useful when your team agrees what active means. For a marketplace it may be a search, enquiry or completed order. For a work tool, it may be creating, reviewing or sharing something. An app open alone can overstate real use.
Start by listing the behaviours that represent value for the user. Select a small set that can be tracked consistently, then document exclusions such as internal accounts, automated traffic and duplicate identities.
Review the definition when the product changes, but avoid changing it just to improve the trend. A stable, well-documented metric gives teams a dependable basis for decisions.