At a glance
Daily Active Users is an executive-overview metric tracked from PostHog data. It counts the distinct users who triggered at least one event in a day, the broadest single read on how many real people are touching your store. PostHog derives it from distinct user identities across events, so it is resilient to multi-visit inflation. Watch it for week-on-week trend and as the denominator behind stickiness and retention.
| What it counts | Distinct active users who triggered at least one event in the day, compared against the prior period. |
| Sample type | Backend API data from PostHog active-user insights, refreshed on the standard data refresh. |
| Why it matters | DAU is the headline pulse of audience size. A sustained decline upstream of any conversion change is an early warning that demand is softening. |
| Reading the value | Compare today, 7-day, and 30-day reads against the previous period. Direction matters more than the absolute number. |
| Currency | count |
| Time window | T/7D/30D vsP |
| Alert trigger | drop >15% vsP |
| Sentiment key | ph_dau |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your PostHog data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A representative reading of Daily Active Users for a typical merchant on PostHog. Suppose DAU runs around 9,400 on a normal weekday. After a paid-search budget pause on 02 Jun 26, the 7-day average falls to 7,600, a 19% drop versus the prior period, which trips the alert. Because DAU moved before conversion did, you have a head start on diagnosing demand rather than checkout. Cross-reference Monthly Active Users and Stickiness to see whether the loss is new visitors or returning ones. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to trace upstream causes; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq.Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
ph_mau | Executive sibling: Monthly Active Users. |
ph_stickiness | Retention sibling: DAU as a share of MAU. |
ph_new_vs_returning | Retention sibling: split of the active base. |
ph_retention_d7 | Retention sibling: do active users come back. |
ph_event_volume | Executive sibling: total event volume. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in PostHog’s own dashboard: In PostHog, the DAU trend is a unique-users insight aggregated daily. Open that insight and align the date range and any property filters with the Vortex IQ profile. PostHog’s identity stitching can merge anonymous and identified users, which affects the count. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Identity stitching. PostHog merges anonymous and identified users over time, shifting historical counts. | Variable | Allow for retroactive identity merges. |
| Aggregation unit. Unique users by distinct ID versus by person can differ. | Variable | Match the aggregation setting. |
| Period boundary. Vortex IQ uses rolling windows; PostHog may show calendar days in a different time zone. | Variable | Align time zone and date range. |