Written by Krisztián Stark
Key takeaways
- ARPDAU is one day of revenue divided by the users who were active that day, so it reacts within a day to any change.
- Split ARPDAU by revenue source and by country, and read it as a 7-day average so weekday swings do not fool you.
- Rewarded video adds small, steady amounts per view, while an offerwall adds larger, burstier amounts that are confirmed later.
What does ARPDAU mean?
ARPDAU stands for average revenue per daily active user. It is the revenue a product earned on one day divided by the number of people who used it that day. If a game earns $1,200 on Tuesday from 30,000 daily active users (DAU), its ARPDAU for Tuesday is $0.04.
Game studios and app publishers use ARPDAU as their daily monetization pulse: it shows the effect of a new ad placement, a price change, or a holiday event within a day, long before a monthly figure would.
The ARPDAU formula
ARPDAU = revenue on day D / daily active users on day DTwo definitions decide whether your ARPDAU can be compared with anything:
- Which revenue. Ads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, offerwall earnings, or all of them. Use net revenue, after app store and partner shares, because that is the money you can spend on growth.
- Who counts as active. Anyone who opened the app, or only users who did something meaningful, such as starting a level. Pick one rule and keep it, or a jump in ARPDAU may only be a change in counting.
Since ad and offer revenue swings between weekdays and weekends, most teams also track a 7-day rolling ARPDAU: the last seven days of revenue divided by the sum of the last seven days of DAU.
Illustrative day: a puzzle game with 40,000 DAU
On one Thursday a puzzle game has 40,000 daily active users. It earns $520 from rewarded video, $760 from in-app purchases, and $320 in credited offerwall earnings, $1,600 in total. ARPDAU is $1,600 ÷ 40,000 = $0.040. Split by source, rewarded video brings $0.013, purchases $0.019, and the offerwall $0.008 per daily active user. The game is invented; splitting the number by source is the habit worth copying.
ARPDAU vs ARPU
| ARPDAU | ARPU | |
|---|---|---|
| Period | One day | Any period, usually a month |
| Divided by | Users active that day | Users active in the period, often monthly active users |
| Reacts to changes | Within a day | Slowly |
| Best for | Testing placements, prices, and events | Comparing months and setting acquisition budgets |
Do not multiply ARPDAU by 30 to get a monthly ARPU. Most monthly users are not active every day, so that shortcut overstates ARPU, often by several times. The two are linked through stickiness, the ratio of DAU to monthly active users (MAU):
Monthly ARPU = average ARPDAU x days in the month x (average DAU / MAU)With an ARPDAU of $0.04, 30 days, and a DAU/MAU ratio of 20%, monthly ARPU is $0.04 × 30 × 0.20 = $0.24, not $1.20. What is ARPU? covers ARPU, ARPPU, and how cohort ARPU leads to a maximum cost per install.
What drives ARPDAU up or down
- Country mix. Ad prices and offer payouts differ widely between countries, so a burst of installs from lower-paying markets can lower ARPDAU while total revenue rises. Track ARPDAU per country.
- Platform. iOS and Android users often monetize differently. Report them separately.
- Ad volume and price. For ad revenue, ARPDAU equals impressions per DAU × eCPM ÷ 1,000. More placements raise the first term, a better mediation setup or fill rate raises the second.
- Share of paying users. A starter pack that converts more players into buyers can move ARPDAU more than any ad change.
- New versus returning users. New users usually spend less in their first days. A big acquisition push can lower ARPDAU for a week, which is not a monetization problem.
How offerwalls and rewarded ads move ARPDAU
Rewarded formats raise ARPDAU without forcing ads on people, but they add revenue in different shapes.
- Rewarded video pays for each completed view. Its contribution is the share of DAU who watch, times views per watcher, times eCPM ÷ 1,000. It is steady, and it hits a ceiling once users reach your daily view cap.
- An offerwall pays for completed offers. Its contribution is the share of DAU who open the wall, times the share who complete an offer, times the average payout. Fewer users take part, but each completion is worth far more than a view, and some results are confirmed days later or reversed.
Illustrative add-on: what an offerwall adds per DAU
Out of every 1,000 daily active users, 40 open the offerwall and 10% of them complete an offer, so 4 completions a day. At an average of $1.20 earned per completion, that is $4.80 per 1,000 DAU, or $0.0048 of ARPDAU. The rates are made up for the example; the offerwall earnings calculator runs the same sum on your own numbers.
To see what a new format really adds, compare 7-day ARPDAU before and after launch on the same weekdays, and check that purchase revenue did not fall at the same time. Offerwall vs rewarded video compares the two formats in depth, and eCPM vs RPM explains why per-impression prices alone cannot rank them.
Common ARPDAU mistakes
- Reading one day in isolation; a weekend or an outage can move it a lot.
- Counting pending offerwall earnings as revenue. Use credited earnings, and subtract reversals on the day they happen.
- Celebrating a higher ARPDAU that came from losing casual users, because DAU fell faster than revenue.
Adding offerwall revenue to your daily numbers with Sharklio
The Sharklio offerwall sends your server a signed postback when a user’s result is credited, and another one if a result is later reversed. Log each one with its date and you can add offerwall revenue to your own ARPDAU report by day, country, and platform, net of reversals. Offers are matched to each user’s country and device, and users are paid in your own virtual currency. There is no minimum traffic to apply; see how the offerwall works or start at Sharklio for publishers.
Related terms: DAU/MAU ratio and retention rate.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate ARPDAU?
Divide the revenue from one day by the number of users who were active that day. $900 of revenue from 25,000 daily active users is an ARPDAU of $0.036.
What is a good ARPDAU?
There is no universal figure, because it depends on the genre, the countries, and the business model. A useful ARPDAU is one that, added up over a user’s active days, stays above what you pay to acquire that user.
Is ARPDAU the same as ARPU?
No. ARPDAU covers one day and divides by that day’s active users. ARPU covers a longer period, usually a month, and divides by everyone active in it.
Should offerwall revenue be included in ARPDAU?
Yes, but use credited earnings on the day they are credited, and subtract reversals. Report it as its own line as well, so you can see what the offerwall adds.
