Product & metrics

AARRR Pirate Metrics

Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue: the growth funnel.

⏱ 10 minBeginnerBy Dave McClureSince 2007

Use it when

Finding where users drop off and what to design next.

You'll walk away with

A funnel with the biggest drop and design levers.

Step 1 · The idea

Five stages every product's growth goes through

In 2007, investor Dave McClure gave a talk called “Startup Metrics for Pirates”. He grouped the metrics that matter into five stages: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue — AARRR, which sounds like a pirate.

For designers, AARRR shows where in the journey your work has the most effect — and which metric to watch. Onboarding moves Activation. Habit design moves Retention.

Some teams add “Awareness” at the start (AAARRR). The idea is the same: find the stage where most people drop off, and fix that first.

The model

Five stages

Acquisition

How do people find us?
Metrics: Visitors, installs, sign-up page views

Example: Design levers: Landing pages, app store screenshots, clear value proposition

Activation

Do they have a great first experience?
Metrics: % who reach the first “aha” moment

Example: Design levers: Onboarding, empty states, first-task success

Retention

Do they come back?
Metrics: Day-7 / day-30 return rate, repeat purchases

Example: Design levers: Habits, reminders, value that grows over time

Referral

Do they tell others?
Metrics: Invites sent, % of new users from referrals

Example: Design levers: Share moments, invite flows, shareable results

Revenue

Do they pay?
Metrics: Conversion to paid, average order value

Example: Design levers: Pricing pages, checkout, upgrade prompts

Step 2 · Try it

Funnel calculator

Enter the number of people at each stage for one month. The biggest drop is highlighted — that's where to focus.

Acquisition: visitors

Activation: activated users

Retention: retained after 30 days

Referral: users who referred someone

Revenue: paying users

Biggest drop: Activation — only 18.0% make it from the previous stage. Improve onboarding: help people reach their first success faster.
Revenue % is shown relative to retained users.

Step 3 · Real examples

One famous example per stage

Real stories often used to teach each stage.

Find friends

People you may know

👤 AmanAdd

👤 SaraAdd

👤 DevAdd

Step 1

Activation: Facebook's “7 friends in 10 days”

Facebook's growth team found users who added about 7 friends in their first 10 days were far more likely to stay. So onboarding focused on finding friends.

Activation

— flattens: good · - - keeps falling

Step 2

Retention: the flattening curve

A good retention curve drops, then flattens: a group of users keeps coming back. If it keeps falling to zero, fix the product before spending on acquisition.

Retention

Get more space

Invite a friend. You both get extra free storage.

Invite friends

Step 3

Referral: Dropbox

Dropbox's two-sided referral reward — more storage for both people — became one of the most famous growth programmes. The reward was the product itself.

Referral

You've used 95% of your free storage

Plus

More space, more features

Upgrade

Step 4

Revenue: freemium upgrade

The upgrade prompt appears when the user feels the limit — at a moment of real need, not at random.

Revenue

Summaries of widely told industry stories; screens are simplified illustrations.

Watch out

Common mistakes

✓ Do

Define activation as a specific “aha” moment
Fix retention before spending more on acquisition
Look at the stage with the biggest drop
Measure by cohort (users who joined the same week)
Design referral into moments of delight

✗ Avoid

Counting sign-ups as success
Vanity metrics like total downloads
Optimising one stage and breaking another
Referral prompts before users get any value
Dark patterns in revenue (hidden fees, hard-to-cancel)

Cheat sheet

AARRR in one screen

ACQUISITION  how people find you        → visitors, installs
ACTIVATION   first great experience     → % reaching the "aha" moment
RETENTION    they come back             → D7/D30 return, repeat use
REFERRAL     they tell others           → invites, % new from referrals
REVENUE      they pay                   → conversion, order value

FOCUS  the stage with the biggest drop · retention before acquisition
DESIGN LEVERS  landing pages · onboarding · habits · share moments · pricing

Use it at work

Figma template

A ready-made canvas for running this framework with your team. Free, editable, and it works in Figma and FigJam.

Figma & FigJam · free

AARRR funnel review

Five-stage funnel
Metrics and conversion per stage
Biggest drop

1Download the SVG, or copy it to your clipboard.
2In Figma or FigJam, drag the file onto the canvas — or paste with ⌘V / Ctrl V.
3Everything arrives as editable layers: type in the boxes, add stickies, duplicate rows.

Download SVGOpen in Figma ↗

Check yourself