How sticky is the app?
№ 075 · DAU/MAU stickiness
Definition
MetricDaily active users divided by monthly active users
Unit% (DAU/MAU)
Daily active users divided by monthly active users. Above 50% is exceptional, 20-30% is typical. Build daily as DAU/MAU ratio. Rising trend means usage frequency growing. Example: 28% Q1, 34% Q4 (stickiness improving with new daily-trigger features).
- DAU/MAU
- Stickiness ratio. Daily active users divided by monthly active users. Shows how many days a month the average user shows up.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| under 10% | 15-25% for consumer apps; ~20% is the standard 'healthy' line, meaning the average monthly user shows up about 6 of 30 days | 30%+; daily-habit consumer categories run 50%+ (public comps: Facebook ~68%, Snapchat ~51%) |
Consumer mobile apps, 2024-2026, Mixpanel benchmark data plus public-company filings; rolling 30-day MAU is the modern default and end-of-month calendar MAU inflates or deflates the ratio depending on acquisition timing. · Published averages disagree wildly because of composition and definition: an older Mixpanel figure of 13% reflected a B2B-heavy sample while the 2024 cross-industry average of 37% is skewed by social and messaging apps. The 15-25% consumer band reconciles those. Active-user definition drift is the most common reason the chart misleads.
| Category | Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social / messaging | under 35% | 50%+ | 60%+ |
| Gaming | under 15% | 20-50% wide band by genre | 40%+ |
| Fintech / banking | under 12% | 15-30% | 36-38% (APAC banking, LATAM wealth super-apps) |
| Commerce / marketplace | under 8% | ~20%, often 1-2 active days per month | user returns 4-5 days per month (elite marketplaces) |
When it looks bad
Stickiness declining while MAU grows, meaning acquisition is masking engagement decay; the two lines scissor apart.
MAU up 40% in six months while DAU/MAU slides from 24% to 14%; daily actives are barely moving.
What to do about it
- Fix the active-user definition to a value action and freeze it; definition drift is the most common cause of misleading stickiness charts, and the 13% vs 37% published spread shows how much definitions move the number.
- Benchmark against the category median, not the 20% folk rule; a booking app at 12% can be healthy while a social app at 25% is failing (Mixpanel category data).
- Cut incentive-driven and low-intent installs that inflate MAU without daily intent; a smaller, denser denominator is worth more than a bigger ratio-diluting one.
- Pair this card with the L30 power-user curve; DAU/MAU is one blended number and cannot tell you whether a daily core exists or is eroding (a16z framework).
Sources
- Mixpanel Category and region stickiness: LATAM fintech wealth 38%, APAC fintech banking 36%, NA AI products 21%, insurance rarely above 27% mixpanel.com ↗
- PM Toolkit (citing Mixpanel benchmarks) Mixpanel 2024 cross-industry average ~37% (social-skewed); 2026 figures put B2B SaaS ~31% and ecommerce ~20%; social/messaging often 50-70% pmtoolkit.ai ↗
- MetricHQ (Klipfolio) Average DAU/MAU across SaaS B2B and B2C 13% in the older Mixpanel cut; B2C social apps 20-50% metrichq.org ↗
- PostHog Facebook ~68% (Q1 2023), Snapchat ~51%, MetaMask ~25%, League of Legends ~6% posthog.com ↗
- GameAnalytics Publishes average DAU/MAU and stickiness by genre for mobile games as a benchmark distribution gameanalytics.com ↗
- Mixpanel Median commerce products see users 1-2 days per month; elite two-sided marketplaces 4-5 (dated, flagged) mixpanel.com ↗
- Vmobify Messaging/social 50%+, gaming ~20-50%, fintech and B2B SaaS ~10-25%, ecommerce lower; ~20% is the common consumer 'good' baseline vmobify.com ↗