Use it right here
No download needed - run your numbers through the three gates now. Sign in to save them to your brand and pick them up again in your dashboard. The calculator has its own home at the unit economics calculator, alongside the rest of the free calculators.
Prefer the spreadsheet?
Most brands scale on a blended CAC, a flattering open-ended 'lifetime' LTV, and confuse contribution dollars with profit. The Excel version runs the same model as Section 26 with the full working: returns-settled contribution margin per order, then the three gates - the Floor (profitable today?), the Payback (when does the cash come back?) and the Value (nCAC against contribution LTV at a window you set) - then the part most tools skip, the bridge from contribution down to EBITDA. Plug in your numbers and you will see, in order, whether the customer pays back and whether the whole business clears its overhead.
What's inside
- Returns-settled contribution margin per order
- Your order shape: first order value vs repeat order value, so Gate 1 runs on the order your nCAC actually bought
- Gate 1 - the Floor: first-order contribution after nCAC
- Gate 2 - the Payback: months until your cash comes back
- Gate 3 - the Value: nCAC against contribution LTV at a window you set, not open-ended 'lifetime'
- The EBITDA bridge: why contribution dollars are not profit dollars
Who it's for
Founders who want one honest read on whether a customer is worth acquiring and whether the business underneath actually makes money - not a flattering blended dashboard.