Addiction Metric
IntermediateThe addiction metric is the ratio of daily active users to monthly active users, showing how many days a typical user comes back within a month.
It is another name for the DAU to MAU ratio, and its output translates directly into days: a ratio of 0.2 means the typical user was active on about six days out of thirty. Its serious limitation is that it is a single average that hides the mix, since the same value can come from a small daily core plus a mass of one-time users, which makes it misleading without a split between casual and core users. The natural ceiling also depends on what the product is for, so comparing a social network with a tax filing system says nothing.
How it is calculated
Addiction metric = daily active users ÷ monthly active users
The numerator is normally the average daily active users across the same thirty days rather than one arbitrary day, and the denominator is the distinct users active at least once in that window. The output is a ratio between zero and one and is only meaningful when the definition of active is identical on both sides.