Back to site
>>> free calculator

Unit economics, honestly.

Plug in 7 numbers and see exactly where your acquisition cost, margins, and payback stand against other brands in your category. You'll walk away knowing which metric to fix first.

7 inputs · 30 seconds

input // unit economics
Your Business
Benchmarks change by ~5-10x between categories. Pick the closest fit.
Net revenue across all channels. Used to compute MER (marketing efficiency ratio).
Acquisition
All marketing: paid media, influencer, creative, agencies, in-house marketing payroll. This computes blended CAC, the most reliable measure at $10M+ DTC scale.
First-time purchasers across all channels, organic and paid combined.
Repeat & AOV
Net of discounts and returns.
Average orders per cohort, over 2 years.
Margins
Revenue minus COGS.
Fulfillment, shipping, payment processing.

Your Unit Economics

.
.

.

.

>>> recommended next step

.

.

Book a Founder Hour →

>>> operator read: three checks

First-Order Profitability
.
.
.

>>> first-order economics

Per customer, against the first purchase. The math behind the diagnosis above.
CAC Payback Period
.
How long until contribution margin from a cohort covers the cost of acquiring it.
.
LTV : CAC Ratio
.
The headline that tells you whether the business compounds.
.
Your LTV:CAC vs category .
...
See the underlying mechanics
Blended CAC
.
.
.
vs category .
...
MER
.
.
Revenue divided by total marketing spend.
vs category .
...
24-Mo LTV
.
.
Contribution dollars per customer over 24 months, net of COGS and per-order variable costs.
How the benchmarks are sourced

Benchmarks current as of May 2026. Refreshed per category against published 2026 peer data plus operator notes from 200+ founder conversations.

CAC, MER, gross margin, LTV:CAC: Eightx 2026 vertical reports (CAC by ecommerce vertical, CPG gross margin by category, ad-spend % by stage), Foundry CRO 2026 LTV:CAC benchmarks, A2X 2026 ecommerce P&L report.

Confidence flags: Beauty, Supplements, Pet, F&B benchmarks are high-confidence (multiple 2026 sources converge). Home and Electronics gross margins are operator estimates without a clean 2026 CPG breakout.

Scope limit: This tool focuses on unit economics. Valuation and exit multiples are deal-specific and belong in one-on-one conversations.

Generated at commercecatalyst.ai/unit-economics-calculator · Commerce Catalyst, Founder Advisory