Cheat Sheet

Growth Metrics Cheat Sheet: 50+ Metrics Every PM Should Track

The AARRR Framework

Metrics without structure are just noise. The best product teams organize their dashboards to reflect the user's journey through the product. The industry standard is the Pirate Funnel: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue.

Below is the definitive dictionary for Indian Product Managers to ensure you are speaking the same mathematical language as your data engineering team.

1. Acquisition Metrics (Finding Users)

Goal: Measure the cost, efficiency, and volume of bringing new users to the doorstep of your product.

• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The total cost of acquiring a new purchasing user.
  Formula: (Total Sales + Marketing Spend) / Number of New Paying Customers.
  Indian Benchmark: Mass consumer apps (₹50-₹200). Mid-market B2B SaaS (₹15,000-₹40,000). Fintech varies wildly based on CIBIL targets.
• CPT (Cost Per Trial): Crucial for SaaS. The cost to get a user to start a free trial.
  Formula: Total Marketing Spend / Number of New Trial Signups.
• Organic vs Paid Ratio: The percentage of users arriving via SEO/Direct vs ad networks.
  Why it matters: If your paid ratio exceeds 70%, your growth is extremely fragile to algorithm changes on Meta/Google.
• Install-to-Signup Rate: The top-of-funnel mobile metric.
  Formula: (Users who create an account / Total App Installs) * 100.
  Indian Benchmark: Highly dependent on OTP friction. Aim for >85%.

2. Activation Metrics (The Aha! Moment)

Goal: Measure how effectively the product delivers its core value proposition to a new user for the very first time.

• Activation Rate: The percentage of acquired users who hit your defined "Aha!" milestone.
  Formula: (Users who completed the Core Action / Total New Signups) * 100.
  Indian Benchmark: B2B SaaS (30-45%). B2C Consumer (20-50%).
• Time-to-Value (TTV): How long it takes a user to reach the Activation milestone.
  Formula: Median time elapsed between Signup Timestamp and Activation Event Timestamp.
  Target: Minutes for consumer apps; under 24 hours for B2B SaaS.
• Setup Completion Rate: Different from activation. Did they finish the onboarding checklist?
  Formula: (Users finishing step N / Users starting step 1) * 100.

3. Engagement Metrics (Depth of Habit)

Goal: Measure how often and how deeply users interact with your product after they are activated.

• DAU / WAU / MAU: Daily, Weekly, or Monthly Active Users.
  Warning: You must strictly define "Active". Logging in is vanity; executing a core action is reality.
• DAU/MAU Ratio (Stickiness): Measures habituation.
  Formula: (DAU / MAU) * 100.
  Indian Benchmark: WhatsApp is >80%. Good gaming apps hit 20-25%. E-commerce usually hovers at 10-15%.
• Average Session Length: Time spent per session.
  Formula: Total duration of all sessions / Total number of sessions.
• MAT (Monthly Active Transactors): The gold standard for Fintech and E-commerce.
  Formula: Number of unique users who executed a successful financial transaction in a 30-day window.

4. Retention & Churn Metrics (The Leaky Bucket)

Goal: Measure the product's ability to keep users returning over the long term.

• N-Day Retention: Did the user return on exactly Day N?
  Formula: (Users active on Day N / Users acquired on Day 0) * 100.
• Unbounded Retention: Did the user return on Day N *or any day after*?
  Why it matters: Essential for tools like MakeMyTrip or Tax software that lack a daily use case.
• Customer Churn Rate: Percentage of customers lost.
  Formula: (Customers lost during period / Total customers at start of period) * 100.
• Revenue Churn Rate: Percentage of revenue lost (critical for SaaS with tiered pricing).
  Formula: (MRR lost to downgrades & cancellations / MRR at start of period) * 100.

5. Revenue Metrics (Unit Economics)

Goal: Measure the financial health and sustainability of the user base.

• ARPU (Average Revenue Per User): Total Revenue / Total Active Users.
• LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): The total predicted profit from a user.
  Formula: ARPU × Gross Margin % × Average Customer Lifespan (in months).
• LTV:CAC Ratio: The ultimate health metric for startups.
  Rule of Thumb: 3:1 is healthy. 1:1 means you are losing money on operations. >5:1 means you are growing too slowly and need to spend more on marketing.
• NRR (Net Revenue Retention): Revenue retained from existing customers.
  Formula: (Starting MRR + Expansion MRR - Downgrade MRR - Churn MRR) / Starting MRR.
  Target: World-class B2B SaaS (like Snowflake) achieves >120% NRR.

6. Referral Metrics (The Viral Loop)

Goal: Measure organic growth driven by user advocacy.

• NPS (Net Promoter Score): "How likely are you to recommend us?" (Scale 0-10).
  Formula: % Promoters (9-10) - % Detractors (0-6).
• K-Factor (Virality): How many new users each existing user brings in.
  Formula: Number of Invites Sent per User × Conversion Rate of those Invites.
  Target: >1.0 means exponential, explosive viral growth. Anything >0.2 is very healthy for an Indian consumer app.