A "streak" feature increases retention

I've noticed this feature on Product Hunt too. It had me coming back every day for a long time. They even made a game out of it with a leaderboard for the longest active streaks.

Yes for streak! It prompts me to go back to the app and see me improve.

Although Duolingo is not the optimal way to learn languages, I really admire how they incorporated gamification into their product. Streak is a perfect example of it.

For more inspiration, I do recommend the "How Duolingo reignited user growth" article, where they share the story behind their significant growth.

We have been thinking of implementing a 'streaks' feature too on our global community, but my one fear is that it can have the opposite effect. While yes, duolingo's streak feature kept me active for 188 days straight, as soon as I missed a day, it was all lost, and I didn't return for months because it upset me so much that I lost my streak.

For this reason, we are thinking of implementing instead of a daily streak, a weekly streak only, and the streak itself resets after 12 weeks, i.e. every quarter. This way, it's easier to reach the streak by being active weekly instead of daily, and even if you mess up, you only have to wait a few weeks and EVERYONE gets their streaks reset.

What do you guys think? Will this work?

This is significant for an application that requires users to be frequently active in order to achieve optimal results. I included this feature right in the first version of my app.

This is excellent. I’m working on a B2C startup and have been considering a streak feature. This definitely adds weight to that direction. I wonder, though, if there is any way to predict the maximum amount of time is between actions for a streak. For example, check in daily works. But does check in weekly for a different type of application? The article all seemed to point to daily. Just food for thought.

Gamification has always proved to be effective for direct consumer based businesses. Basically, it gives the user a reward (dopamine hit) which makes them want to come back again, and thus increasing the user retention.

Interesting! I like this because even when you're aware about it (i.e. when you know that this is done to bring you back on the app) you still want to "play"

Will think about adding it or adding other "gamification"
I think it can also be useful when you want to quickly bring your users to the "Aha" moment. You could use gamification to guide them or make them do things in the app that lead them to the "Aha" moment. At this point they see the value of your product/service and become much more likely to subscribe/use the product

Interesting, will consider adding a streak feature in my app. Is there anything you should take into consideration before adding such feature? Like how "easy" should it be to keep the streak? etc.

Yes, this kind of tactic definitely increases engagement.

You can essentially choose what the optimisation is and have your customer optimise that for you.

A great example is Todoist Karma. Their free plan is limited in the number of projects and the optimisation for their customers is to create more tasks and projects!

So naturally customers lead themselves into a situation where they feel like they are the ones telling themselves they need to upgrade.

Genius!

Yess , I am planning to add streak feature in my app .I got inspiration from the games I play 😂,
Like login rewards, daily missions etc ..

Absolutely, introducing a "streak" feature can be a game-changer for retention. It taps into our innate desire for consistency and accomplishment, making us more likely to engage regularly.

Works sure for B2C.

helpful

But in B2B there is no use of Streak.

nice!

This inherently doesn't work if you are in B2B which is 80% of founders.

In B2B people don't care about a streak, they care about getting their work/job done. If your tool helps accomplish that they will come back to it every day or every week depending on the frequency of your use-case.

By encouraging ongoing engagement, a "streak" feature improves retention. Users are more likely to return frequently to keep up a streak if they regularly use an app or platform. The user's attachment to the service is strengthened by this ongoing interaction, which also reinforces a habit. Strikes inspire psychological incentives that increase retention rates by giving people a sense of accomplishment and advancement. The streak feature successfully promotes sustained usage and ongoing engagement by capitalizing on people's desire for achievement and continuity.

But does it not depend on the product you have too? For example, I am working in a knowledge base platform, and I don't know if I can add it there, and if yes, where lol

I always thought that this feature was a little bit redundant but then I think about my 2,700 snap streak I have with my friend so maybe I shouldn't think that.

I wondered about adding a gamification feature like this to my web app trimmr.ai but unsure how to properly reward users. Could discounts on subscription work?

Yes, we have a streak feature in our app that launched today on Product Hunt, actually! "Heights AI Coach".

This feature is new, but we've had a number of gamification features for years now, and I've built an app in the past that used a streak feature, which made a measurable positive impact on retention.