MRR, ARR, LTV, CAC, Churn — all the numbers investors and operators care about, calculated instantly from your inputs.
LTV (Customer Lifetime Value) divided by CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is one of the most critical SaaS metrics. A ratio below 1x means you're losing money on every customer. Below 3x means your unit economics are marginal. Above 5x typically indicates you should be spending more on growth. Most VCs look for 3x+ before Series A.
2% monthly churn sounds small, but it compounds to 26.8% annually — meaning you lose over a quarter of your customers every year just to stay flat. To grow at 20% annually with 2% monthly churn, you need to replace 26.8% of customers plus add 20% more. That's a significant acquisition burden that makes reducing churn far more valuable than increasing acquisition.
A common benchmark is above 3x. Ratios below 3x can signal expensive acquisition or weak retention, while much higher ratios can indicate under-investment in growth.
Annual churn is not monthly churn multiplied by 12. It is compounded: 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12, which usually results in a higher annualized loss rate.
CAC payback estimates how long it takes to recover customer acquisition spend from gross profit generated by that customer. Many SaaS teams target under 12 months.
Strong SaaS numbers matter most when you can turn them into a convincing fundraising narrative and operator summary.