AARRR – Pirate Metrics – is a popular metrics and analytics framework for online startups developed by Dave McClure, the founder of 500 Startups.

It is based on the assumption that every startup needs to get customers through 5 key stages (AARRR):

Acquisition: users come to the site from various channels

Activation: user enjoy 1st visit: “happy” user experience

Retention: user come back, visit site multiple times

Referral: user like product enough to refer others

Revenue: user conduct monetisation behaviour

The method is explained in more details in this video:

You can also learn more here:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3