ToolStack
Engagement Metric

Product Stickiness (DAU/MAU)

Product stickiness is the DAU/MAU ratio — the fraction of your monthly active users who also use your product on any given day. It's the most concise single-number measure of how deeply embedded your product is in users' daily lives. A stickiness of 50% means the average MAU uses the product every other day. Stickiness above 20% for B2B SaaS is considered healthy; consumer apps aim for 50%+.

Formula
Stickiness = DAU ÷ MAU × 100

Note: Use consistent definitions for "active" in both DAU and MAU. Mixing definitions (e.g. logins for MAU, qualified actions for DAU) produces a meaningless ratio.

Healthy range

B2B SaaS: 20–40% stickiness; consumer social: 50–70%

Warning signs

Stickiness < 10% for a daily-use tool means most users are not habitually engaged

Benchmarks by segment

SegmentBenchmark
Slack / daily collaboration tools50–70% stickiness
B2B SaaS project management15–30% stickiness
Consumer social apps40–65% stickiness
Mobile games (casual)20–40% stickiness

How to improve Stickiness

1

Find and double down on the features correlating with high individual stickiness — these are your habit-forming loops

2

Introduce daily or weekly recurring value moments: digest emails, progress summaries, or streaks

3

Reduce friction in the returning-user flow — the fewer taps to get back to value, the higher the stickiness

4

Build integrations with tools users open daily (Slack, email, calendar) so your product surfaces in existing habits

Common measurement mistakes

!Optimising stickiness by adding annoying notifications that pull users in but don't deliver value — hurts NPS and long-term retention
!Comparing stickiness across products with different natural usage cadences — a quarterly budgeting tool will always look "less sticky" than a messaging app
!Using DAU/MAU as a headline metric without understanding the distribution — a bimodal user base (power users + casuals) averages into a misleading middle

Tools for measuring Stickiness

#1
Amplitude
4.5Free tier

Best-in-class behavioral analytics with powerful event segmentation, funnel analysis, and retention charts that go far deeper than Google Analytics

#2
Mixpanel
4.6Free tier

Best-in-class event-based analytics with intuitive funnel, retention, and flow reports that surface actionable insights quickly

#3
FullStory
4.5Free tier

Best-in-class autocapture technology — captures every click, scroll, and interaction without manual event tagging, enabling retroactive analysis on historical data

#4
PostHog
4.6Free tier

All-in-one product analytics platform combining analytics, session replay, feature flags, A/B testing, surveys, and a data warehouse — replacing multiple point solutions

#5
Heap
4.4Free tier

Autocapture eliminates the need for manual event instrumentation — every click, pageview, and form interaction is tracked automatically from day one

#6
Statsig
4.7Free tier

All-in-one platform combining feature flags, A/B testing, product analytics, session replay, and web analytics — eliminating the need for separate tools

Frequently Asked Questions

Is stickiness more important than MAU growth?

Generally yes at early stage. Growing MAU without stickiness means you're filling a leaky bucket. Products with high stickiness grow organically through word-of-mouth. Prioritise stickiness until you've hit sustainable engagement, then scale acquisition.

Can stickiness be too high?

Rarely a problem, but artificially high stickiness driven by compulsive design patterns (dark patterns, addiction loops) can attract regulatory scrutiny and create ethical concerns. Aim for stickiness that reflects genuine daily value.

Related metrics

Daily Active Users (DAU)Monthly Active Users (MAU)Retention Rate