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August 22, 2025
May 13, 2025

How Ahrefs bootstrapped to $150M ARR

Ahrefs just gave their team a bonus worth 43% of their annual salary. No VC funding. No hype. Just sustainable growth and generous leadership.

The company has been bootstrapped and profitable from day one. This year, they increased their employee bonus pool from 3% to 5% of ARR. And with $150M in annual revenue… well, the math speaks for itself.

We broke down how they did it:
→ How they scaled without outside funding
→ What they built — and when
→ What makes their team execution so effective

Thanks to Tim Soulo for the inspiration (yes, this idea started in a LinkedIn comment thread), and to the entire Ahrefs team for proving that profitability and generosity can scale together.

👇 Dive into the full breakdown below.

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