AARRR Pirate Metrics — free online maker
Acquisition to referral: find the one funnel stage that is quietly leaking. Guided prompts on every block, autosave in your browser, and one-click PDF export.
30-45 minutes to a first draft5 blocks How to fill it in
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What is the AARRR Pirate Metrics?
AARRR breaks a product's growth into five funnel stages — Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral — and asks you to attach one honest metric to each. Dave McClure proposed it as an antidote to vanity metrics: page views and signups feel good, but only stage-by-stage conversion tells you where growth actually dies.
The discipline is one metric per stage, each with a current value. A funnel with numbers immediately shows its weakest stage, and the weakest stage is the only one worth working on — improving acquisition while activation loses 80% of arrivals is paying to fill a leaking bucket.
Created by Dave McClure (500 Startups) in his 2007 talk 'Startup Metrics for Pirates' — the name comes from saying AARRR out loud. It remains the default funnel model for SaaS and consumer product teams.
Use it when…
- Deciding which growth problem to work on this quarter
- Replacing vanity metrics with stage-by-stage conversion
- Onboarding a new growth hire onto how the product actually grows
- Before spending on acquisition — check the bucket for leaks first
The 5 blocks, in the order to fill them
- 1
Acquisition
How do people find us, and what does each channel cost?
Every channel that brings visitors: search, content, paid, social, PR, partnerships. For each, note volume, cost per visitor, and — critically — quality, measured by how well that channel's visitors convert downstream.
How to fill this block - 2
Activation
Do new users reach the moment of first value?
Activation is the first experience of real value — not the signup, the moment the product does what they came for. Define that moment precisely for your product (first report generated, first message sent, first search that worked), then measure what fraction of signups reach it and how long they take.
How to fill this block - 3
Retention
Do they come back without being pushed?
The proportion of users still active after a week, a month, a quarter — measured by cohort, because a blended average hides everything. Retention is the most honest stage in the funnel: it cannot be bought, and it compounds.
How to fill this block - 4
Revenue
Where does money actually enter, and what is a user worth?
Conversion to paying, average revenue per user, and lifetime value against acquisition cost. The stage-level question is whether the unit economics close: LTV comfortably above CAC, and payback inside a survivable window.
How to fill this block - 5
Referral
Do users bring other users?
How many new users each existing user generates — through invitations, sharing, word of mouth, or the product being visible in use. Referral is the only stage that lowers acquisition cost as it grows.
How to fill this block
Worked AARRR examples
Complete, realistic canvases with an analysis of what each one reveals. Open one on its own page, or load it straight into the editor above.
AARRR FAQs
What does AARRR stand for?
Acquisition (how users find you), Activation (whether they reach first value), Retention (whether they come back), Revenue (whether and how they pay), and Referral (whether they bring others). Dave McClure introduced the model in 2007 as 'Startup Metrics for Pirates' — the acronym is the pirate noise.
Which AARRR stage should I work on first?
The weakest one, which for early products is almost always activation or retention rather than acquisition. Spending on acquisition while activation loses most arrivals is filling a leaking bucket. Put a real number on every stage first; the priority usually becomes obvious the moment the funnel has numbers in it.
What is the difference between activation and acquisition?
Acquisition gets someone to show up — a visit or a signup. Activation is when they first experience the product's actual value: the first report generated, the first message delivered, the first successful search. Many products with 'growth problems' acquire perfectly well and lose everyone in the gap between those two moments.
How is AARRR different from a marketing funnel?
A classic marketing funnel ends at purchase. AARRR treats purchase as the fourth of five stages: retention sits above revenue because subscription economics collapse without it, and referral closes the loop by turning existing users into an acquisition channel. It is a product-growth model, not just a sales pipeline.