Counts of unique users who engage with a product within a given time window — daily, weekly, or monthly — used to measure the actual size of an engaged user base, as distinct from total registered users.
Why it matters
Total signups is a vanity number if most of those people never come back. DAU/WAU/MAU show how many people are genuinely using a product in a given window, which is a far more honest read on product health and stickiness.
In a sentence
"We have 50,000 registered accounts, but MAU is closer to 8,000 — that gap is what we're actually trying to close."
Related terms
- Often confused with: Total registered users, total signups (a much larger, less meaningful number that includes people who signed up once and never returned).