Free tool, no email required
Customer LTV Calculator
Work out what a customer is genuinely worth to your brand, then see what that number becomes if more of them come back. Enter six figures from Shopify and Klaviyo and this customer LTV calculator returns your contribution lifetime value, your LTV to CAC ratio, how long it takes to pay back acquisition cost, and the annual profit sitting inside a better repeat rate.
Everything runs in your browser as you type. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere, so you can use real numbers.
Free tool, no email required
Customer LTV Calculator
Work out what a customer is genuinely worth to your brand, then see what that number becomes if more of them come back. Enter six figures from Shopify and Klaviyo and this customer LTV calculator returns your contribution lifetime value, your LTV to CAC ratio, how long it takes to pay back acquisition cost, and the annual profit sitting inside a better repeat rate.
Everything runs in your browser as you type. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere, so you can use real numbers.
Gross lifetime revenue: $232.14
Expected lifespan 1.43 years at $39.00 contribution per order
1.15 orders to recover CAC
Contribution LTV minus acquisition cost
3:1 is a common rule of thumb, not a rule. The right ratio depends on your growth stage and margin structure.
What happens if you improve retention
Customer lifespan is 1 divided by your churn rate, so improvements compound rather than add. A small move in repeat rate produces a disproportionately large move in lifetime value.
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Lifespan is derived from repeat rate as 1 / (1 - repeat rate), a standard survival approximation. All figures use contribution margin, not gross revenue.
Use this on your site
Gross lifetime revenue: $232.14
Expected lifespan 1.43 years at $39.00 contribution per order
1.15 orders to recover CAC
Contribution LTV minus acquisition cost
3:1 is a common rule of thumb, not a rule. The right ratio depends on your growth stage and margin structure.
What happens if you improve retention
Customer lifespan is 1 divided by your churn rate, so improvements compound rather than add. A small move in repeat rate produces a disproportionately large move in lifetime value.
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Lifespan is derived from repeat rate as 1 / (1 - repeat rate), a standard survival approximation. All figures use contribution margin, not gross revenue.
Use this on your site
Gross lifetime revenue: $232.14
Expected lifespan 1.43 years at $39.00 contribution per order
1.15 orders to recover CAC
Contribution LTV minus acquisition cost
3:1 is a common rule of thumb, not a rule. The right ratio depends on your growth stage and margin structure.
What happens if you improve retention
Customer lifespan is 1 divided by your churn rate, so improvements compound rather than add. A small move in repeat rate produces a disproportionately large move in lifetime value.
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Based on 5,000 new customers a year
Lifespan is derived from repeat rate as 1 / (1 - repeat rate), a standard survival approximation. All figures use contribution margin, not gross revenue.
Use this on your site
What customer lifetime value actually measures
Customer lifetime value is the profit one customer generates across the whole relationship, not the revenue they pass through your checkout. The distinction matters more than it sounds. Two brands can report the same gross lifetime revenue and have completely different businesses underneath, because one keeps sixty cents on the dollar and the other keeps twenty.
That is why this customer LTV calculator leads with contribution lifetime value: revenue after cost of goods. Contribution is the money that is genuinely available to pay for acquisition, overhead and profit, so it is the only version of the number you can responsibly compare against customer acquisition cost.
How this customer LTV calculator works
Six inputs, one chain of arithmetic, no rounding until the moment a figure is displayed. Customer lifespan is derived from repeat rate as a survival approximation, which is the step most spreadsheets get wrong by treating lifespan as a guess rather than a consequence.
- Customer lifespan = 1 / (1 - repeat rate)
- Gross LTV = average order value x orders per year x lifespan
- Contribution LTV = gross LTV x gross margin
- Profit per customer = contribution LTV - CAC
- LTV:CAC = contribution LTV / CAC
- Months to payback = (CAC / contribution per order) / orders per year x 12
Why lifespan comes out of repeat rate
If thirty percent of customers return each year, seventy percent churn, and the average relationship lasts one divided by that churn rate. Because it is a division, improvements compound instead of adding. Moving repeat rate from thirty to forty percent does not add a third to lifespan, it adds far more, which is why the retention panel in the tool usually surprises people the first time they see it.
Where to find each input
Use a rolling twelve month window for everything so the annual figures stay consistent. Rough numbers are fine on the first pass; the shape of the answer rarely changes.
- Average order value
- Total revenue divided by total orders over the last twelve months, before shipping and discounts. Shopify gives you this under Analytics, or divide net sales by order count.
- Orders per customer per year
- How often an active customer buys in a twelve month window. Take total orders in the period and divide by the number of customers who ordered at least once.
- Repeat rate
- The share of customers who bought again within a year. Klaviyo and Shopify both surface this. If you only have a lifetime figure, rebuild it on a rolling twelve month window so the lifespan maths stays annual.
- Gross margin
- Revenue minus cost of goods, as a percentage. Exclude marketing spend here, because acquisition cost is handled separately by the CAC field.
- Customer acquisition cost
- Paid media plus agency fees divided by the new customers that spend acquired in the same period. Blended CAC is fine to start with. Paid-only CAC will read higher and is the stricter test.
- New customers per year
- Optional. Used only to scale the retention uplift across a full year of acquisition, so you see the annual number rather than the per-customer one.
How to read your LTV to CAC ratio
Below one, every customer you acquire loses money after cost of goods. Between one and three there is a real business but not much room for error. Above three you generally have headroom to spend harder on acquisition.
Treat those bands as orientation rather than a verdict. The right ratio depends on your margin structure, how much working capital sits in inventory, and how long you can wait to get paid back. Always read the ratio next to months to payback: a comfortable ratio that takes eighteen months to arrive is still a cash flow problem, and a thinner ratio that pays back inside a quarter can be the better business.
How to increase customer lifetime value
Every input in the calculator is a lever, but they are not equally easy to move. Margin and average order value are constrained by your product and your buyers. Repeat rate and frequency are marketing problems, which means they are the ones you can actually work on this quarter.
Lift repeat rate
The biggest lever by a distance, because lifespan is a division rather than a multiplication. A post-purchase sequence that earns the second order moves this more reliably than a discount does.
Post-purchase flow playbookRecover customers before they lapse
Nobody cancels an ecommerce relationship, they just quietly stop. Reaching a lapsing customer costs a fraction of acquiring a new one, and the timing is the whole game.
Win-back program playbookRaise purchase frequency
Email and SMS run as two disconnected tools compete with each other. Run as one system they raise orders per year without touching acquisition spend.
Ecommerce email marketingMove the right customers onto subscription
Subscription changes the shape of the curve. Frequency becomes predictable and churn becomes the number you manage week to week.
Subscription retention and growthReward the behaviour you actually want
A loyalty program that funds itself lifts repeat rate without training customers to wait for the next discount.
Loyalty and referral programsCustomer LTV calculator FAQ
Is this customer LTV calculator free?
Yes, and deliberately so. There is no email gate, no sign up and no export wall. The calculation runs entirely in your browser, so none of the figures you type are sent to us, logged, or stored anywhere.
Should customer lifetime value use revenue or contribution margin?
Contribution margin. Gross lifetime revenue flatters every brand equally and tells you nothing about whether your acquisition cost is affordable. Contribution LTV is what is left after cost of goods, which is the money actually available to pay for marketing, overhead and profit. This calculator shows both figures but leads with contribution for that reason.
Why is repeat rate capped at 95 percent?
Because lifespan is 1 divided by churn, a repeat rate of 100 percent implies a customer who never leaves and therefore an infinite lifetime value. The model would return a meaningless number. Capping at 95 percent keeps the output finite. If your genuine repeat rate is that high, treat the lifespan figure as a floor rather than a forecast.
What counts as a good LTV to CAC ratio?
Three to one is the number most people quote, and it is a rule of thumb rather than a law. A high margin brand with patient capital can run profitably below it. A thin margin brand carrying expensive inventory usually needs more headroom. Read the ratio next to months to payback, because a healthy ratio that takes eighteen months to realise is still a cash flow problem.
How often should I recalculate customer LTV?
Quarterly is enough for most brands, plus any time pricing, product mix or acquisition channel changes materially. Repeat rate and CAC both drift, and a lifetime value figure calculated two years ago is usually describing a business that no longer exists.
Can I put this customer LTV calculator on my own site?
Yes. There is a copyable embed snippet above. It is a plain iframe, it carries a link back to this page, and you are welcome to use it on a client site or a resource hub.
Want someone to work the retention lever for you?
The number in the retention panel is the size of the prize. Closing it is a programme of work: post-purchase flows, win-back timing, subscription churn, loyalty mechanics that do not just discount your best customers. That is what BMO Media does for DTC brands.
Request a retention auditWhat customer lifetime value actually measures
Customer lifetime value is the profit one customer generates across the whole relationship, not the revenue they pass through your checkout. The distinction matters more than it sounds. Two brands can report the same gross lifetime revenue and have completely different businesses underneath, because one keeps sixty cents on the dollar and the other keeps twenty.
That is why this customer LTV calculator leads with contribution lifetime value: revenue after cost of goods. Contribution is the money that is genuinely available to pay for acquisition, overhead and profit, so it is the only version of the number you can responsibly compare against customer acquisition cost.
How this customer LTV calculator works
Six inputs, one chain of arithmetic, no rounding until the moment a figure is displayed. Customer lifespan is derived from repeat rate as a survival approximation, which is the step most spreadsheets get wrong by treating lifespan as a guess rather than a consequence.
- Customer lifespan = 1 / (1 - repeat rate)
- Gross LTV = average order value x orders per year x lifespan
- Contribution LTV = gross LTV x gross margin
- Profit per customer = contribution LTV - CAC
- LTV:CAC = contribution LTV / CAC
- Months to payback = (CAC / contribution per order) / orders per year x 12
Why lifespan comes out of repeat rate
If thirty percent of customers return each year, seventy percent churn, and the average relationship lasts one divided by that churn rate. Because it is a division, improvements compound instead of adding. Moving repeat rate from thirty to forty percent does not add a third to lifespan, it adds far more, which is why the retention panel in the tool usually surprises people the first time they see it.
Where to find each input
Use a rolling twelve month window for everything so the annual figures stay consistent. Rough numbers are fine on the first pass; the shape of the answer rarely changes.
- Average order value
- Total revenue divided by total orders over the last twelve months, before shipping and discounts. Shopify gives you this under Analytics, or divide net sales by order count.
- Orders per customer per year
- How often an active customer buys in a twelve month window. Take total orders in the period and divide by the number of customers who ordered at least once.
- Repeat rate
- The share of customers who bought again within a year. Klaviyo and Shopify both surface this. If you only have a lifetime figure, rebuild it on a rolling twelve month window so the lifespan maths stays annual.
- Gross margin
- Revenue minus cost of goods, as a percentage. Exclude marketing spend here, because acquisition cost is handled separately by the CAC field.
- Customer acquisition cost
- Paid media plus agency fees divided by the new customers that spend acquired in the same period. Blended CAC is fine to start with. Paid-only CAC will read higher and is the stricter test.
- New customers per year
- Optional. Used only to scale the retention uplift across a full year of acquisition, so you see the annual number rather than the per-customer one.
How to read your LTV to CAC ratio
Below one, every customer you acquire loses money after cost of goods. Between one and three there is a real business but not much room for error. Above three you generally have headroom to spend harder on acquisition.
Treat those bands as orientation rather than a verdict. The right ratio depends on your margin structure, how much working capital sits in inventory, and how long you can wait to get paid back. Always read the ratio next to months to payback: a comfortable ratio that takes eighteen months to arrive is still a cash flow problem, and a thinner ratio that pays back inside a quarter can be the better business.
How to increase customer lifetime value
Every input in the calculator is a lever, but they are not equally easy to move. Margin and average order value are constrained by your product and your buyers. Repeat rate and frequency are marketing problems, which means they are the ones you can actually work on this quarter.
Lift repeat rate
The biggest lever by a distance, because lifespan is a division rather than a multiplication. A post-purchase sequence that earns the second order moves this more reliably than a discount does.
Post-purchase flow playbookRecover customers before they lapse
Nobody cancels an ecommerce relationship, they just quietly stop. Reaching a lapsing customer costs a fraction of acquiring a new one, and the timing is the whole game.
Win-back program playbookRaise purchase frequency
Email and SMS run as two disconnected tools compete with each other. Run as one system they raise orders per year without touching acquisition spend.
Ecommerce email marketingMove the right customers onto subscription
Subscription changes the shape of the curve. Frequency becomes predictable and churn becomes the number you manage week to week.
Subscription retention and growthReward the behaviour you actually want
A loyalty program that funds itself lifts repeat rate without training customers to wait for the next discount.
Loyalty and referral programsCustomer LTV calculator FAQ
Is this customer LTV calculator free?
Yes, and deliberately so. There is no email gate, no sign up and no export wall. The calculation runs entirely in your browser, so none of the figures you type are sent to us, logged, or stored anywhere.
Should customer lifetime value use revenue or contribution margin?
Contribution margin. Gross lifetime revenue flatters every brand equally and tells you nothing about whether your acquisition cost is affordable. Contribution LTV is what is left after cost of goods, which is the money actually available to pay for marketing, overhead and profit. This calculator shows both figures but leads with contribution for that reason.
Why is repeat rate capped at 95 percent?
Because lifespan is 1 divided by churn, a repeat rate of 100 percent implies a customer who never leaves and therefore an infinite lifetime value. The model would return a meaningless number. Capping at 95 percent keeps the output finite. If your genuine repeat rate is that high, treat the lifespan figure as a floor rather than a forecast.
What counts as a good LTV to CAC ratio?
Three to one is the number most people quote, and it is a rule of thumb rather than a law. A high margin brand with patient capital can run profitably below it. A thin margin brand carrying expensive inventory usually needs more headroom. Read the ratio next to months to payback, because a healthy ratio that takes eighteen months to realise is still a cash flow problem.
How often should I recalculate customer LTV?
Quarterly is enough for most brands, plus any time pricing, product mix or acquisition channel changes materially. Repeat rate and CAC both drift, and a lifetime value figure calculated two years ago is usually describing a business that no longer exists.
Can I put this customer LTV calculator on my own site?
Yes. There is a copyable embed snippet above. It is a plain iframe, it carries a link back to this page, and you are welcome to use it on a client site or a resource hub.
Want someone to work the retention lever for you?
The number in the retention panel is the size of the prize. Closing it is a programme of work: post-purchase flows, win-back timing, subscription churn, loyalty mechanics that do not just discount your best customers. That is what BMO Media does for DTC brands.
Request a retention auditInterested in working with us?
Request a complimentary audit and start building a stronger lifecycle foundation today.
Join the team
Interested in working with us?
Request a complimentary audit and start building a stronger lifecycle foundation today.
Join the team
Interested in working with us?
Request a complimentary audit and start building a stronger lifecycle foundation today.