The 3 Numbers Investors Ask For First
Every SaaS founder eventually faces "the question" from an investor: What are your unit economics? If you can't rattle off CAC, LTV, and payback period in under 10 seconds, you're leaving money on the table.
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Your CAC is total sales & marketing spend divided by new customers acquired. Break it down by channel (paid ads, content, sales reps, referrals) to see where your money works hardest.
Formula: Total Marketing Spend / New Customers
2. Lifetime Value (LTV)
LTV = (ARPU × Gross Margin) / Monthly Churn Rate
A healthy SaaS has LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 or higher.
3. Payback Period
Months needed to recover CAC. Under 12 months is good; under 6 months is excellent.
I built a SaaS Unit Economics Calculator — Google Sheets that handles all these calculations automatically. Plug in your numbers, get instant investor-ready metrics. There's also a free PDF cheat sheet with formulas and benchmarks to get started.
Happy building!
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