CAC — cost to acquire one new customer, including sales and marketing spend divided by new logos in the period.
LTV — expected gross profit from a customer over their lifetime, driven by ARPU, churn, and margin.
Runway — months until cash runs out at current net burn (expenses minus recurring revenue).
Churn — percentage of customers or revenue lost in a period; even small monthly rates compound significantly over a year.
LTV:CAC — ratio comparing lifetime value to acquisition cost; many SaaS benchmarks cite 3:1 as a healthy target at scale.

Building a metrics stack

Healthy SaaS businesses track acquisition (CAC), retention (churn), monetization (ARPU, LTV), and capital efficiency (LTV:CAC, payback period) together — not in isolation.

Start with runway and burn if you are pre-revenue or early stage. Add CAC and LTV calculators once you have repeatable acquisition and enough cohort data to measure churn reliably.

Benchmarks vs your context

Rules of thumb like 3:1 LTV:CAC or 18 months runway are starting points. Your ACV, sales motion (PLG vs enterprise), and funding stage change what "good" looks like.

Each calculator page includes a detailed guide and FAQs below the tool. Formulas are documented on our methodology page for auditability.