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Ask HN: What % active users should I expect for my free web app

by quadrant6 on 6/14/11, 10:21 PM with 1 comments

After launching a free web app about a year ago, it's sitting on around 5% active users (used it within last 2 days).

Although I could and plan to do more to increase uptake, should I take that percentage as fairly typical? or quite bad. It seems low to me. I would have thought more like 10%.

  • by pedalpete on 6/15/11, 3:11 AM

    I think it is difficult to judge based on a % only situation.

    If you only have 100 users and you're only get 5 users coming back in the last two days, you might not have hit a market fit.

    If you've got 10k users, that's a different story.

    But I wouldn't use a 2 day window, as I think that is too short.

    I'd use monthly active users (how many users login once a month) or weekly. That should be a more valuable metric.

    Again, this depends on exactly what your service does, your target market, how often you expect them to login, but 5% doesn't sound bad to me for a 2 day window.

    What happens when you extend the window?