What is a Weekly Active User (WAU)?
A Weekly Active User (WAU) is a metric that counts the number of unique users who engage with a website, app, or platform within a 7-day period.
WAU bridges the gap between DAU and MAU, making it ideal for products with weekly use patterns rather than daily habits.
How to Calculate WAUs
Calculating WAUs involves identifying and counting the unique users who have engaged with your product or service in some way during a given week. As you can imagine, this can vary greatly depending on the website or application.
One of the most common ways to define a weekly active user is simply to count users as active based on their session activity. For example, a user who visits a website or engages with content (clicks, watches videos, etc.) can be considered active.
Beyond just visits to a website, you can also use engagement metrics that meaningfully align with the goals of your website or app. This can include making a purchase, posting a comment, or uploading a photo.
The key is to ensure that each user is only counted once per week, regardless of how many times they engage with your website.
When to Use WAU
WAU is the right metric when your product has a weekly use case rather than requiring daily engagement. This includes B2B tools used during work weeks, productivity apps with weekly workflows, content platforms with weekly publishing cycles, and fitness apps with weekly goal tracking.
| Metric | Time Window | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| DAU | 24 hours | Social media, messaging |
| WAU | 7 days | B2B tools, productivity |
| MAU | 30 days | Travel, banking |
Use WAU when DAU seems too aggressive for your product category, MAU is too forgiving and hides engagement problems, or your product naturally fits a weekly usage pattern.
WAU Ratios
The DAU/WAU ratio shows how often weekly users engage daily. A ratio of 14% (1/7) means users engage about once per week, 28% (2/7) means twice per week, and 43% (3/7) or higher indicates near-daily engagement.
The WAU/MAU ratio shows weekly engagement consistency. A ratio of 25% means users engage about one week per month, 50% means about two weeks per month, and 75%+ means users engage most weeks.
Why Measure WAUs?
Measuring WAUs provides immediate feedback on how engaging a product or service is to its users.
Unlike vanity metrics, which may only show an upward trend without indicating real engagement, weekly active user metrics provide valuable insights into how meaningfully users are engaging with your website or application.
For instance, while an app might boast increasing installs over time, tracking weekly active users can reveal whether these users actually return to the app, engage with its features, and contribute to its growth. This distinction is crucial for guiding product development, marketing strategies, and making informed decisions that drive genuine engagement and revenue.