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LTV to CAC ratio calculator

Turn revenue, margin and churn into customer lifetime value and the LTV:CAC ratio.

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LTV to CAC ratio calculator
Paste your average revenue per customer, gross margin, churn rate and customer acquisition cost, and this calculator works out how long a customer typically stays, what that customer is worth over their lifetime (LTV), and how that value compares to what it cost to acquire them (CAC). Product and growth teams use it to sanity-check unit economics before scaling spend on ads, sales headcount or partnerships.
Enter one line per segment as segment;revenue;margin;churn;CAC — for example a free plan, a paid tier and an enterprise deal — and the tool lines them up side by side so you can see which one actually pays for its own acquisition cost. Period switches revenue and churn between a monthly and a yearly cadence. Discount rate applies a time-value-of-money haircut to future revenue, and expansion revenue accounts for upsells and upgrades that offset churn — both are percentages per period. Pick a currency and switch between a compact table and a plain-text summary.
Every result is measured against the commonly cited 3:1 LTV:CAC benchmark: below 1:1 means acquisition is losing money outright, between 1:1 and 3:1 means the cost of acquisition is too high relative to what a customer brings in, and well above 5:1 can be a sign you are underinvesting in growth. With more than one segment, the summary also names which one has the highest and lowest ratio.
Everything runs in your browser — revenue figures, margins and cost data never leave your device, which makes this safe to use with real internal numbers. Copy the result, download it as a .txt file, or send it straight back into the input to adjust one assumption at a time.
FAQ
What counts as a good LTV:CAC ratio?
3:1 or higher is the commonly cited target for a healthy business — below that, acquisition spend is too high relative to what a customer is worth over their lifetime.
How is average customer lifetime calculated?
As 1 divided by the churn rate for the period you select — a 5% monthly churn rate implies an average lifetime of 20 months. A churn rate of 0% shows an unlimited lifetime, marked '∞'.
What does the expansion revenue option do?
It offsets churn with revenue from upsells and upgrades, which is how many subscription businesses keep their effective churn low and their lifetime value higher than the raw churn rate alone would suggest.
Can I compare more than one segment at once?
Yes. Add one line per segment — a free tier, a paid plan, an enterprise deal — and the summary shows which one has the highest and lowest LTV:CAC ratio.
Is my revenue and cost data uploaded anywhere?
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser — your figures are never sent to a server or stored anywhere outside your device.