aDAU vs MAU: Comparing Pricing Models for Identity Infrastructure
Blog post from Ory
The text explores the differences between Monthly Active Users (MAU) and average Daily Active Users (aDAU) as pricing models for identity infrastructure, highlighting how each model impacts billing. MAU measures unique users authenticating at least once in a billing month, which can lead to inflated costs due to spike sensitivity and cost misalignment, as it does not reflect actual usage patterns. In contrast, aDAU averages unique authenticated users per day over the billing period, offering a more accurate reflection of resource consumption and cost alignment. Real-world examples demonstrate how aDAU can significantly reduce costs, especially in applications with variable traffic or low-frequency authentication, by tracking closer to the actual compute load. Industry data indicates that most internet applications fall within a DAU/MAU ratio of 6% to 20%, with aDAU often resulting in substantial savings compared to MAU-based billing. The Ory Network adopts aDAU-based billing, which aligns more closely with authenticated usage and offers predictable costs by consolidating various environments under a single subscription, making it advantageous for applications with high user engagement.
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