Free LTV Calculator for Customer Lifetime Value.
Customer Lifetime Value in plain numbers. Average order value, purchase frequency, retention, margin. See revenue LTV, profit LTV, and your max sustainable CAC.
Calculate your LTV
Enter average order value, purchase frequency, retention, and margin. The result updates as you type.
Three numbers, three answers.
Revenue LTV = AOV × Purchases per year × Customer lifespan (years). The simplest version, the one to use until you have two years of cohort data.
Profit LTV = Revenue LTV × Gross margin. The number that actually funds acquisition. A $720 revenue LTV at 40 percent margin is $288 of real profit per customer.
Max CAC = Profit LTV ÷ Target LTV-to-CAC ratio. The default ratio is 3 to 1. At $288 profit LTV, max CAC is $96. Acquire below that and the unit economics support scaling. Above that and you are buying customers you cannot profitably keep.
A subscription coffee brand.
Revenue LTV equals 32 times 9 times 2.5, which is $720. That is the total revenue from one customer across their full relationship.
Profit LTV equals 720 times 0.40, which is $288. That is the gross profit available to fund acquisition, marketing, and operations.
Max sustainable CAC at a 3-to-1 ratio equals 288 divided by 3, which is $96. If blended customer acquisition cost is under $96, paid media can scale safely. Above $96 and the brand is buying customers it cannot keep.
LTV questions, answered.
What is customer lifetime value?
Customer lifetime value, or LTV, is the total revenue a customer brings in across the entire time they buy from you. Basic LTV uses revenue. Better LTV uses gross profit, which strips out cost of goods. The most defensible LTV also discounts future revenue, since a dollar in year three is worth less than a dollar today.
For a startup, the simple version is enough to set acquisition targets. Once you have two years of cohort data, switch to a cohort-based LTV that accounts for actual retention curves.
How do I calculate LTV?
The simplest formula is average order value times purchase frequency per year times customer lifespan in years. Multiply by gross margin to get profit-based LTV.
Example. AOV of $32, nine purchases per year, 2.5 year lifespan equals $720 revenue LTV. At 40 percent margin, profit LTV is $288.
What is a healthy LTV-to-CAC ratio?
The default benchmark is 3 to 1. LTV is at least three times the cost to acquire the customer. Below 3 to 1, your unit economics are thin and you cannot scale paid media safely. Above 5 to 1, you are likely under-investing in growth and could spend more to capture market share.
How is LTV used in paid media decisions?
LTV sets the ceiling on what you can pay to acquire a customer. If profit LTV is $300 and your target LTV-to-CAC ratio is 3 to 1, your max CAC is $100. That becomes your target CPA in Google Ads, your target cost per lead in Meta, and the input to your bidding strategy.
What is the difference between LTV and gross profit?
Gross profit is what a single transaction earns after cost of goods. LTV is gross profit summed across every transaction a customer makes during their lifetime. Gross profit is per order. LTV is per customer.
LTV is your ceiling. PaidSync tells you when you hit it.
LTV lives in your store backend or CRM. PaidSync connects your Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok to Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini, so you can pull live CAC, ROAS, and CPA in plain English.