Contents

10/06/2026

AARRR Metrics Template for a Small Business

Short answer: AARRR splits the path to a sale into five stages: acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue. This page gives you a template to fill in with one number per stage, the place you can find that number today, and the one stage to fix first. If you want the full explanation of the framework, read the AARRR framework explained.

A pipeline of five sections with drops leaking at two of the joints

Where the five stages come from

The framework is known as pirate metrics because "AARRR" sounds like a pirate. Dave McClure presented it in a talk called "Startup Metrics for Pirates" and defined the stages in plain terms: acquisition is users coming to the site from various channels, activation is users enjoying a first visit, retention is users coming back, referral is users liking the product enough to refer others, and revenue is users doing something that makes money (Dave McClure: Startup Metrics for Pirates, slides undated on the copy we read). His examples are about web products. The stages translate to a business that sells services or products to local or national customers if you swap "users" for "people who might buy".

The five stages for a business that sends invoices

  • 1. Acquisition

    How many new people found you this month. Count website visits from search, calls, form fills, walk-ins and referrals from partners, kept in separate rows.

  • 2. Activation

    How many of them took the first useful step: booked a call, asked for a quote, signed up for something. Count the step, not the visit.

  • 3. Retention

    How many customers came back or kept paying. For a repeat-purchase business, count second orders. For a retainer, count customers still active after three months.

  • 4. Referral

    How many new customers were sent by an existing one. Ask every new customer how they found you and write the answer down.

  • 5. Revenue

    How much money came in from the customers you counted above, and how much each customer is worth over a year.

  • The rule that holds it together

    Fix the earliest stage that leaks. More visitors do not help if nobody books a call.

The template

Copy this into a spreadsheet or a notes file. Fill in one month at a time. A rough number you trust beats a precise number you never collect.

Month: ______

1. ACQUISITION  (new people who found us)
   Search / website visits ....... ____   where: analytics or search console
   Phone calls and texts ......... ____   where: phone log
   Referred by a partner ......... ____   where: your notes
   Total new contacts ............ ____

2. ACTIVATION  (took the first useful step)
   Booked a call or asked for a quote ... ____
   Booked, as a share of new contacts ... ____ %

3. RETENTION  (still with us)
   Customers active last month .......... ____
   Of those, still active this month .... ____
   Share kept ........................... ____ %

4. REFERRAL  (sent by a customer)
   New customers who named a referrer ... ____

5. REVENUE
   Revenue this month ................... $____
   Customers who paid ................... ____
   Average per paying customer .......... $____

Weakest stage this month: ______
One change to try next month: ______

How to use it

  1. Fill in last month first. The blanks you cannot fill are the finding: you are not yet tracking that stage.
  2. Compare each stage with the one before it. A large drop between two stages is where customers are leaking.
  3. Pick one stage and one change. Change one thing at a time so you can tell what worked.
  4. Do the same sheet next month and compare the two.

Be careful with small numbers. A change from two bookings to three is a fifty percent jump on paper and may be nothing. Track a few months before you call a trend.

When a second opinion helps

A template tells you where customers leak, not why. If the weakest stage is not obvious, or the numbers are not in one place, an outside view can save months of guessing. Our self-test is a quick way to decide, and you can also contact us for a first conversation with no preparation required.

FAQ

What are the five AARRR metrics?

Acquisition, activation, retention, referral and revenue. Dave McClure's pirate metrics talk defines them as users arriving from channels, enjoying a first visit, returning, referring others and doing something that earns money.

Can a service business use AARRR?

Yes. Replace users with people who might buy. Acquisition becomes new contacts, activation becomes a booked call or a quote request, and revenue becomes paid invoices.

How often should I fill in the template?

Monthly is enough for most small businesses. Weekly numbers are too noisy when you have only a few customers.

Researched and drafted with AI, then reviewed and edited by the site's editors.