See whether you make more from a customer than it costs to win one. Works for subscriptions, services and products, and explains every number as you go.
LTV:CAC compares two numbers every business should know: customer lifetime value (LTV), the profit one customer brings over the whole relationship, and customer acquisition cost (CAC), what it costs to win that customer. If LTV is well above CAC, growth pays for itself; if not, you are buying customers at a loss. This free calculator works out both, plus your ratio and CAC payback, and explains each input, so you can plug in honest numbers whether you run a subscription, a service or a product.
Your acquisition spend divided by the customers it won gives CAC.
For subscriptions: monthly revenue, margin and lifespan. For products: order value, margin and repeat purchases.
See LTV:CAC and how many months it takes to earn CAC back.
This calculator is a taste of what Klairova does. Run real campaigns, track every click to every sale, send rate cards and invoices, and get paid in 160+ currencies. Free to use.
Around 3:1 is a widely-used healthy benchmark: a customer is worth about three times what it cost to acquire them. Below 1:1 means you lose money on each customer. Much higher than 3:1 can mean you are underspending on growth and leaving room to acquire faster.
For a subscription or service, LTV is roughly monthly revenue × gross margin × average months a customer stays (and average lifespan ≈ 1 ÷ monthly churn). For a product, it is average order value × gross margin × how many times they buy over the relationship. Using margin, not just revenue, keeps it honest.
CAC payback is how many months of a customer's margin it takes to earn back what you spent to acquire them. Shorter payback means you recover cash faster and can reinvest in growth sooner. It matters most for subscriptions, where revenue arrives over time.
On Klairova your sales, subscriptions and payouts live in one place, so the revenue and customer numbers behind LTV and CAC are easy to pull and keep current.