Marketing & Finance
AARRR Pirate Metrics
Track the startup funnel from acquisition to referral and find the stage that leaks most.
- Time: 10 minutes
- With: Product and growth teams
- You get: A funnel with the weakest stage highlighted
How to use this worksheet
- Pick one cohort or period and use the same group of users at each stage.
- Define each stage in your product: what counts as activated, retained, paying?
- Enter the counts. The tool shows each step's conversion and the biggest drop-off.
- Focus on the weakest stage; improving it lifts everything below it.
Funnel counts
Number of users at each stage for the same period.
Write down where the numbers come from and what would change them.
Prompts and example
Example
Cohort: January sign-ups. Activated means created a first project.
Funnel
Before you finish
- Each stage has a written definition.
- All stages describe the same cohort.
- You chose one stage to improve first.
About AARRR
Dave McClure introduced the pirate metrics: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral. The funnel gives a team shared vocabulary for where users drop out.
Note that the order differs by business. Many products put retention before revenue, others the other way around. Adapt the stages to your model but keep the definitions fixed.
Recommended reading
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- The Startup Owner's ManualSteve Blank & Bob Dorf
Step-by-step guide to customer development and measuring what matters at each stage of the funnel.
- Hacking GrowthSean Ellis & Morgan Brown
Practical framework for optimizing each stage of the AARRR funnel through rapid experimentation.