Business Analyst · #050 · September 11, 2026 · 1 min read
What are AARRR pirate metrics and how do you use them?
The five funnel stages, the one metric per stage, where funnels actually leak, and the vanity numbers that pretend to be stages: AARRR pirate metrics on one page.
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Your funnel is not a mood board. Five numbers explain the whole product, and most 40-metric dashboards exist to avoid looking at them. AARRR on one page. The print-ready A4 PDF is at the bottom.
The funnel
- Acquisition: they show up.
- Activation: first value felt.
- Retention: they come back.
- Revenue: they pay.
- Referral: they bring friends.
One metric each
- signup / visit: acquisition rate.
- aha within day 1: activation.
- week-4 return: retention, by cohort.
- MRR: revenue that repeats.
- invites sent that convert: referral, the k-factor.
If a stage has three metrics it has none. Pick one rate, give it one owner.
Where it leaks
Activation, usually. Not acquisition: ads hide the hole. Fix activation first, then retention, then go buy traffic.
Read it right
- By cohort: the week they joined, not the blended average.
- Stage / stage: rates, not totals.
- One owner per stage, or nobody moves it.
Anti-vanity
- Page views: not a stage.
- Followers: not a stage either.
- Count stage moves. That is the only progress.
The trap: pouring into a leaky funnel
| Symptom | The reflex | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| flat retention | buy more ads | fix activation first |
| low revenue | raise prices | check week-4 retention |
| no referrals | add a share button | earn a wow moment |
Ads on a leaky funnel rent growth, they do not build it.
Frequently asked questions
What does AARRR stand for?
Acquisition (they show up), Activation (they feel the first value), Retention (they come back), Revenue (they pay) and Referral (they bring friends). Five stages, in order, coined by Dave McClure and nicknamed pirate metrics because of the acronym.
What is one good metric per AARRR stage?
Acquisition: signups divided by visits. Activation: the share of new users reaching the aha moment within day one. Retention: the share of a cohort still active in week 4. Revenue: MRR and the free-to-paid rate behind it. Referral: invites per active user that actually convert. Rates between stages, not totals inside them.
Which AARRR stage should you fix first?
Activation, almost always. Teams fix acquisition first because it is the stage money can buy, but pouring ads into a product where new users never reach the aha moment rents growth instead of building it. Order of operations: activation, then retention, then acquisition.
Why are page views and followers called vanity metrics?
Because they are not stages: a page view moves nobody from acquisition to activation, and a follower count pays no invoice. Progress is a user moving from one stage to the next, so measure the rates between stages and give each one an owner.
Get the free PDF
One page, print-ready, free to share. No signup needed.