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CAC & LTV Calculator (Ecommerce Unit Economics)

Reasoning

The number every ecommerce founder needs and the books can't give you: how much you can afford to pay for a customer. Set your order value, margin, and repeat rate against your ad spend, and it solves CAC, a contribution-based LTV, the LTV:CAC ratio, payback period, break-even ROAS, and your maximum profitable CAC — with a sensitivity table showing how the ratio and payback move as CAC changes. Built for DTC and online stores.

LTV : CAC

2.0×

LTV $161 · CAC $80 — 3:1 is healthy

CAC payback

14.9 mo

2.2 orders to recover CAC

Max profitable CAC

$54

At 3:1 you're over by $26

LTV is built on contribution margin — what a customer actually returns after COGS, fees and shipping — not gross revenue. Set your order economics and what you spend to acquire, and it solves CAC, LTV, payback and the most you can profitably pay. Everything updates live, and the download recomputes the formulas in Excel.

Customer economics

Contribution margin / order$36
Lifetime orders / customer4.5
Lifetime value (contribution)$161
Lifetime revenue (reference)$293

Acquisition

Total acquisition cost$24,000
CAC (cost per customer)$80

Ad efficiency

Break-even ROAS1.8×
Your ROAS, first order1.0×

Your ceiling

Max profitable CAC$54
Profit per customer (LTV − CAC)+$81

If your CAC changed…

ScenarioCACLTV : CACPayback (orders)Payback (mo)Profit / customer
CAC −20%$642.5×1.811.9 mo+$97
CAC −10%$722.2×2.013.4 mo+$89
As-is$802.0×2.214.9 mo+$81
CAC +10%$881.8×2.516.4 mo+$73
CAC +20%$961.7×2.717.9 mo+$65

These are the outputs of your spend. Model the acquisition funnel that drives them →

Want this on your real numbers? Wauvel builds it straight from your QuickBooks.

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