Their ultimate goal is to control the world; this will be accomplished through three steps. Step one is for the group to attain money. Step two is to create the first mercenary group. Shinobi villages make money for their country, and for the money to be steady it requires war. Because there have not been any large scale wars in approximately the last decade, the ninja villages were being reduced in size.
The five great shinobi villages could handle the downtrend, but the smaller villages could not. Akatsuki will form their own fighting force with no country allegiance. With this force they will undercut all the other villages and fight their battles for cheap. Then using the bijuu they can create new battles and new wars and gain a monopoly over the whole market. In the end they plan to control all the wars and be powerful enough to even collapse the shinobi villages of the large countries, forcing them to rely on akatsuki as well. With all that in hand, the group can achieve step three, to control the world. it should be noted their goal and plans have been explained by pain, the man acting as leader. While pain was separated from the group, he expressed his own desire for the bijuu, to use them to create a powerful kinjutsu.
However pain also reported to tobi, who was revealed to be uchiha madara. What madara wants with the bijuu and powerful sharingan of uchiha sasuke is unknown. He may share pains deadly kinjutsu plan or have his own goal mind
