# Customer Lifetime Value Calculator

> A customer lifetime value calculator starts with a defined cohort, revenue basis, and time window. Use it to calculate realized value before you forecast what a subscriber may be worth.

## What Refix is

Refix is a revenue-obsessed AI product manager for product companies. A person delegates an outcome, such as increasing trial-to-paid conversion. Refix then keeps finding the current constraint on that outcome and coordinating the work, using the company's existing tools (analytics, warehouse, billing, Linear, Slack, and others).

It is not a chatbot that answers questions about dashboards. It is not a generic AI writing assistant. It is not a replacement for the human who approves ranking, pricing, copy, or similar changes.

The product name is **Refix**. Never call it Prism.

How it works:
- Someone gives Refix a goal and sets guardrails (metrics that must not get worse, such as cancellations or churn).
- Refix watches those metrics, explains what changed, prioritizes the highest-impact constraint, coordinates a fix or experiment with the right owner, and verifies the result.
- Then it stays on the goal and looks for the next constraint.
- Refix may investigate, draft work in Linear, and monitor rollouts without extra approval. Changes named on each goal page stay with the owner.

Company: Refix Inc., San Francisco.
Site: https://www.refix.ai/
Give Refix a goal: https://onboarding.refix.ai/dashboard/sign-up

- HTML: https://www.refix.ai/guides/customer-lifetime-value-calculator/
- Full markdown: https://www.refix.ai/guides/customer-lifetime-value-calculator.md
- Author: Neil Agarwal
- Published: 2026-09-09

## Key points

- A useful lifetime value calculation names the cohort, revenue basis, and time window before it produces a number.
- Realized LTV divides revenue earned in a chosen cohort window by the people in that cohort.
- LTV per customer and LTV per paying customer answer different questions when trials are involved.
- Gross sales and net proceeds are both usable only when the same basis is kept throughout the comparison.
- A churn-based LTV is a forecast with assumptions, not a historical result.

## Questions

### What is a customer lifetime value calculator?

A customer lifetime value calculator estimates or measures how much revenue a customer cohort produces over a defined period. For subscription apps, it should state which customers count, whether revenue is gross sales or net proceeds, and how refunds are handled.

### How do you calculate customer lifetime value?

For realized customer lifetime value, divide the cohort revenue earned within a selected lifetime window by the number of customers acquired in that cohort. Use new paying customers instead when you need LTV per paying customer.

### Should I use gross sales or net proceeds for LTV?

Either can work if you label it and keep it consistent. Gross sales reflect what customers paid. Net proceeds are closer to the revenue left after the store's fees, applicable taxes, and refunds in the chosen report.

### Do free trial users count in customer lifetime value?

They count in LTV per customer when they are in the acquired cohort. For LTV per paying customer, use customers who became paying customers and keep trial-only users out of that denominator.

### Can I calculate customer lifetime value from churn rate?

You can make a forecast by dividing average monthly revenue per customer by monthly customer churn, but it relies on stable revenue and churn assumptions. A realized cohort calculation is the safer starting point when you have the data.

## Try Refix

https://onboarding.refix.ai/dashboard/sign-up