The metric that anchors every Series A diligence
- 3x
- Healthy LTV/CAC ratio target
- 100%
- Of investors check unit economics
- 12
- Languages supported
- Free
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Free founder calculator
Customer lifetime value, calculated
Drop in your ARPU, gross margin, and churn. We give you LTV the way investors model it, so your unit economics survive due diligence.
- Standard LTV formula investors recognize
- Gross margin adjusted, not vanity LTV
- Free. Localized in 12 languages. No card.
Used by founders raising on unit-economics conversations at every stage.
Created by founders from top global accelerators
How it works
Three numbers. One clean LTV. Zero unit-economics anxiety.
- 01
Drop in ARPU, gross margin, churn
Average revenue per user per month, your gross margin percentage, and your monthly customer churn rate.
- 02
We apply the standard formula
LTV = ARPU * gross margin / monthly churn. Same formula every investor uses to evaluate SaaS economics.
- 03
See your LTV/CAC potential
Plus how the LTV scales if you reduce churn by 1 point or increase gross margin by 5 points.
See what you'll get
Clean LTV plus the underlying assumptions investors will probe. Sign up to calculate yours.
Sample result
Customer LTV$3,000Lifetime gross profit per customer. ARPU times gross margin divided by monthly churn.
Expected customer lifetime20 months1 divided by monthly churn rate. The average time a customer stays before canceling.
LTV/CAC if CAC = $7504.0xHealthy. Above 3x is investor-ready. Below 3x signals weak unit economics.
Sign up to calculate your own LTV and benchmark against your sector.
Why investor LTV looks different from your LTV
Founders calculate vanity LTV. Investors calculate diligence LTV. Four moves to make sure yours survives both.
01
Always use gross margin, not revenue
Vanity LTV ignores cost of revenue. Diligence LTV adjusts for gross margin. If your gross margin is 60% (low for SaaS, normal for consumer), your real LTV is 60% of the revenue-based number. Investors do this math themselves and will catch you if you do not.
02
Use trailing 12-month churn, not best-month churn
Picking your best churn month inflates LTV by 3 to 5x. Investors will ask for monthly cohort retention curves. Use the trailing 12-month average so the number holds up under cross-questioning.
03
Don't claim LTV until you have 12 months of data
Below 12 months of customer history, LTV is a guess. Investors know this. Pre-Series A founders should quote payback period (CAC payback in months) instead, since it requires less data and is harder to game.
04
Target LTV/CAC above 3, payback under 12 months
Investor-ready SaaS unit economics: LTV/CAC above 3x (4x for Series A), CAC payback under 12 months (under 6 for top-tier). Below 2x or over 18 months payback, the business model needs work before raising.
Frequently asked questions
Why divide by monthly churn instead of using a fixed time horizon?
Dividing by churn naturally models the expected customer lifetime. A 5% monthly churn implies a 20-month average lifetime. Fixed horizons under-count long-tail customers and over-count short ones. The churn-based formula is the standard for a reason.
Does this work for non-SaaS businesses?
Yes for any recurring-revenue model: subscription, marketplace, consumer SaaS. For one-time-purchase businesses, LTV is gross profit per transaction times expected number of transactions. Different math; we will add a one-time variant soon.
What if my churn is irregular?
Use the trailing 12-month average. Cohort-based churn is more accurate but harder to compute. Investors accept both as long as your method is consistent.
What is a healthy LTV for early-stage SaaS?
Depends on price point. SMB SaaS: $2k to $10k LTV is normal. Mid-market: $10k to $50k. Enterprise: $50k+. The absolute number matters less than LTV/CAC ratio and payback period.
How do I improve LTV?
Three levers: increase ARPU (upsell, pricing), increase gross margin (reduce COGS), or reduce churn (better onboarding, retention). Churn reduction has the biggest LTV impact for most SaaS startups.
Keep going
LTV alone is incomplete. Pair it with CAC and payback.
Round Funded
Diligence-ready numbers. Raise-ready you.
Round Funded gives you the calculators, the investor list, and the outreach so unit economics conversations close rounds. Track every diligence call in one pipeline.