CAC & LTV Calculator
Calculate customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and the LTV:CAC ratio.
Assumptions used in this calculation
- LTV based on projected behavior: Customer lifetime value is a forward-looking estimate from assumed average purchase value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan; it is not derived from observed cohort retention data, so actual LTV may differ from the projection.
About this calculator
Marketing spend can look successful just by counting new signups, but that number is meaningless without knowing what each customer actually costs to acquire and what they're worth over time — a business can be growing its customer base while quietly losing money on every single one. This calculator takes marketing spend and new customers to compute Customer Acquisition Cost (spend ÷ new customers), and average purchase value, purchase frequency and customer lifespan to compute Customer Lifetime Value, then divides the two to produce the LTV:CAC ratio that actually determines whether the acquisition spend is paying off. Manually tracking and dividing these figures across marketing periods is tedious and easy to get wrong when mixing up total spend versus per-customer figures. This calculator is built for founders and marketers checking whether paid acquisition is sustainable, comparing channels or campaigns, and deciding whether to scale up or pull back marketing spend based on a single, decision-ready ratio.
Worked example
₹5,00,000 spend, 200 customers, ₹1,500 avg purchase, 4x/year, 3-year lifespan
Result: CAC = ₹2,500, LTV = ₹18,000, ratio = 7.2:1
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