Active Users
AnalyticsAlso: DAU · WAU · MAU · Daily Active Users · Monthly Active Users
Quick definition
Active users is the count of unique users who completed at least one engaged session on your site or app within a defined window. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) reports three windows: 1-day (DAU), 7-day (WAU) and 28-day (MAU). An engaged session in GA4 means the user stayed for at least 10 seconds, triggered a conversion event, or viewed two or more pages.
How it varies across Australia
Active user counts vary enormously by business type, audience size and product category. The ratio between daily and monthly active users is generally more useful than the raw count for understanding how sticky a product or content property is. Content-led sites tend to show very different ratios than transactional or SaaS products.
See engagement patterns across Australian industries →The three windows
Unique users with an engaged session in the last 24 hours. A pulse metric for apps and news properties.
Window: 1 dayUnique users with an engaged session in the last 7 days. Useful for products used on a weekly habit.
Window: 7 daysUnique users with an engaged session in the last 28 days. The standard reporting denominator for most businesses.
Window: 28 daysWhat it actually means
Active users sounds like a simple count. It isn't. The number changes depending on which window you pick, how your analytics platform defines an engaged session, and whether you're looking at a web property, a mobile app or a SaaS product.
GA4 changed the default metric from total users (everyone who visited) to active users (everyone who engaged). That means your GA4 numbers look lower than your Universal Analytics numbers for the same traffic. It also means the number is more honest. A user who landed and bounced immediately no longer inflates the count.
The stickiness ratio, DAU divided by MAU, is often more diagnostic than the raw active user number. A high ratio means users are coming back often within the month. A low ratio means you have broad awareness but shallow habit. For apps and content products, this ratio is one of the first things investors and acquirers look at alongside retention rate and churn rate.
For most Australian marketers working in GA4, the 28-day active user count is the default denominator for engagement rate, conversion rate and most other per-user calculations. Changing that window in reports changes every downstream metric, so the choice deserves more attention than it usually gets.
The window you pick changes the number, not the behaviour. Pick the one that matches how often a healthy user actually shows up.
How to calculate it
Active Users = Unique users with at least one engaged session in the window (1, 7 or 28 days)
Worked example. In February your site had 12,400 users with an engaged session in any 28-day period (MAU = 12,400). Of those, 1,860 had an engaged session on an average day (DAU = 1,860). Stickiness ratio = 1,860 divided by 12,400 = 15%. That means on any given day roughly one in six of your monthly active users shows up.
The Australian context
GA4's active user definition became the default for Australian businesses that migrated from Universal Analytics in 2023. Many teams still compare current GA4 active user counts against historical Universal Analytics total user counts and misread the difference as a traffic decline. It is usually a definition change, not a real decline. The engaged session threshold in GA4 (10 seconds minimum, or a conversion event, or two-plus page views) filters out a meaningful share of low-quality visits that Universal Analytics counted as users.
Where people get this wrong
Related terms
Common questions
Why are my GA4 active users lower than my old Universal Analytics users?
GA4 counts only users with an engaged session: at least 10 seconds on site, a conversion event fired, or two or more page views. Universal Analytics counted every session regardless of quality. The drop is a definition change, not lost traffic. Expect GA4 active users to run meaningfully below old Universal Analytics user counts.
Which window should I use for reporting: 1-day, 7-day or 28-day?
Pick the window that matches how often a healthy user naturally returns. Daily publishing properties should report DAU. Weekly tools or newsletters suit WAU. Most ecommerce and content sites default to MAU. Reporting all three together and watching the stickiness ratio tells a richer story than any single window.
What is a good DAU to MAU stickiness ratio?
Consumer apps with strong daily habits often target ratios above 20%. Content and ecommerce sites typically run lower. There is no universal benchmark. What matters is whether the ratio is stable or declining, and how it compares to earlier cohorts within your own product.
How does GA4 define an engaged session?
GA4 marks a session as engaged if the user spent at least 10 seconds on the site, triggered at least one conversion event, or viewed two or more pages or screens. Sessions that don't meet any of those thresholds are counted as bounced and the user is excluded from the active user count for that visit.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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