Overview
The Calculator is a business-intelligence calculator with built-in and custom formulas, built to model pricing, margins, and growth scenarios in real time. It answers one question fast: do the numbers work?
CAC, LTV, ROAS, break-even — the numbers that decide whether a channel is worth it — without wrestling a spreadsheet. Enter what you know and get a clear answer you can act on.
How it works
Rather than a blank grid, you choose the metric you want and fill in what you know. Everything downstream recalculates as you type.
- Choose the metric you want to work out.
- Enter your known inputs — spend, revenue, conversions, price, cost.
- Read the result, then adjust inputs to test scenarios on the spot.
Pricing & margin
The everyday maths of buying and selling, handled without a spreadsheet.
- Price and margin — what you keep after cost of goods, at a given price.
- Discount maths — what a promotion actually costs you once it lands.
- Profit and loss — the plain arithmetic of what came in against what went out.
Small changes in margin move lifetime value more than most people expect. It is worth testing before you touch price.
The growth metrics
From a small set of inputs the Calculator derives the numbers that decide whether growth is healthy.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) — spend divided by new customers.
- LTV (Lifetime Value) — margin-adjusted revenue per customer over their lifespan.
- LTV:CAC ratio — the headline efficiency number; healthy businesses target 3:1 or better.
- ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) — revenue generated per unit of spend.
- Payback period — how long until a customer earns back their acquisition cost.
- Break-even — the point where revenue covers cost.
Custom formulas
The built-in formulas cover the common cases, but every business has a number that only matters to it. Custom formulas let you define that calculation once and reuse it, instead of rebuilding it in a spreadsheet each quarter.
- Encode the metric your business actually runs on.
- Keep the definition consistent so the number means the same thing every time you look at it.
Reading the results
Treat the output as a directional model, not an audited P&L. It is only as good as the inputs.
- An LTV:CAC below 1 means you lose money on every customer — fix the funnel before you scale spend.
- A long payback period ties up cash and slows how fast you can reinvest.
- Change one input at a time. It is the only way to see which lever actually moves the outcome.
From Calculator to Simulator
The two tools answer different questions. The Calculator tells you whether the unit economics work today; the Growth Simulator tells you where they take you over time. Use the Calculator to set honest inputs, then hand them to the Simulator to project them forward.
Saving & exporting
The Calculator saves your work automatically to your browser’s local storage as you go — there is no save button to remember. Because that storage is tied to one browser on one device, exporting is how you back up or move your work.
- Export writes your current data to a file you can keep or transfer.
- Import loads a previously exported file back in — useful on a new device.
- Keep periodic exports of anything you would hate to lose; local storage is convenient, but it is not a backup.
The Tutorials walk through a full backup-and-move, step by step. For the underlying rules, see Importing & exporting.