MAU (Monthly active users)
Monthly active users (MAU) is the number of distinct users who perform a meaningful action in your product during a month, a broad measure of your active base.
MAU is the number of unique people who used your product in a month. It is the standard measure of the size of your engaged audience, and the denominator for stickiness. Because a month is long, MAU is forgiving: someone who used the product once counts as much as someone who lives in it, which is why it should never be your only engagement metric.
How to calculate MAU
Count distinct users with at least one qualifying action in a calendar month, or in a rolling 28 or 30 day window. Rolling windows avoid short months making you look worse.
Example: your SaaS has 1,500 registered users. In June, 900 did something that counts (created a report, say), including 150 who joined that month. MAU is 900. If 600 of those 900 were also active in May, about 67% are returning users, which says more about health than the count alone.
Why it can mislead
- It is cumulative over time, so a loose definition of active inflates it. Be strict and keep the definition fixed.
- It hides frequency. 900 MAU could be 900 daily users or 900 people who opened the app once.
- It is not revenue. A free-heavy product can have a large MAU and few paying accounts.
Pair it with DAU (the DAU/MAU ratio gives stickiness) and with retention. Li Jin and Andrew Chen make the point that single numbers like these flatten the variation among users, which the power user curve shows.
For small SaaS
In B2B, count active accounts alongside active users. Ten active seats in one account is one customer's health, and that is what predicts renewal. If your pricing is per seat, MAU is also a direct proxy for expansion potential, so compare active seats to paid seats.
Related terms
Sources
- Power User Curve, Li Jin and Andrew Chen, a16z
- DAU/MAU ratio, Eppo