Stickiness
STIK-ee-nes
How frequently users return to a product, typically measured as the DAU/MAU ratio.
Stickiness measures how often users come back. The most common measure is the DAU/MAU ratio: the percentage of monthly active users who use the product on any given day. A higher ratio means users visit more frequently.
Stickiness is a proxy for habit formation. A product that users check daily (email, Slack, dashboards) is stickier than one they visit monthly (expense reports, quarterly reviews). Sticky products have higher retention, lower churn, and stronger network effects because daily usage creates habits that are hard to break.
Improving stickiness requires giving users a reason to come back every day. Notifications, daily digests, collaborative features, and real-time data all create daily touchpoints. But forced stickiness (spamming notifications) backfires. The product must deliver genuine value on each visit.
Examples
A monitoring tool improves stickiness.
DAU/MAU ratio is 18%. The team adds a daily health digest email that links to the dashboard. Users start checking the dashboard every morning. DAU/MAU increases to 32%. The feature created a daily habit.
A company compares stickiness across user segments.
Admin users have 60% DAU/MAU. Developer users have 25%. Viewer users have 5%. The product is very sticky for power users but not for casual users. The team focuses on giving viewers more reasons to engage daily.
High stickiness correlates with expansion revenue.
Analysis shows that accounts with DAU/MAU above 40% expand at twice the rate of accounts below 20%. The customer success team uses stickiness as a health indicator and proactively engages low-stickiness accounts.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good stickiness ratio?
It depends on the product category. Communication tools (Slack, email): 50%+. Daily-use productivity tools: 25-40%. Weekly-use B2B tools: 10-20%. The benchmark is products in your category, not social media apps.
How do you make a product stickier?
Create daily value: dashboards with real-time data, notifications about meaningful events, collaborative features that require daily interaction. The key is giving users a genuine reason to return, not just reminding them the product exists.
Related terms
Metrics tracking how many unique users engage with a product daily and monthly, used to measure engagement and stickiness.
The depth and frequency with which users interact with a product, beyond just logging in.
A chart showing what percentage of users continue using a product over time, revealing whether the product has lasting value.
The moment when a new user experiences the core value of a product for the first time, making them likely to return.
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