Tagada
Ecommerce OS · Info Products7 min readUpdated November 2, 2026

LTV and CAC for an Info Product Business: How to Calculate and Improve Them

How to calculate LTV and CAC for courses, coaching and memberships, on collected revenue: payment plans, refunds, disputes and platform fees included.

Nick Bonnassies, CMO at Tagada · checked against 10 sources

Article summary

TL;DR

LTV is the gross profit a buyer brings over time: course, upsells, renewals and every installment collected, minus platform and processing fees, refunds and disputes. CAC is everything you spend to win a new buyer, divided by new buyers. Aim for LTV at least 3 times CAC, and judge payment plans on what you collect, not the sticker price.

  • The common target is 3:1 with a 3 to 6 month payback: practitioner guidance from Eightx, not a measured course benchmark (March 2026).
  • Recurly reports a 4.99% median annual churn for "Education" subscriptions, the highest of its six industries, with 1.69% involuntary (July 2026 data).
  • Stripe found that 25% of lost subscriptions are lost to failed payments (January 2024).
  • Platform fees eat into LTV before processing: 7.5% per sale on Teachable Starter, 5% on Podia Mover (November 2026).
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This guide is part of our playbook on the best ecommerce platform for info product businesses. The general guide, for any business: custom ecommerce checkout.

The formulas

Use the same ones every month, split by front-end offer.

MetricFormulaNotes
LTV, one-time courseCourse price + (each upsell price × take rate) + later purchases, all × net marginOver 12 months, from your own cohorts
LTV, membership or coaching retainerMonthly price × net margin ÷ monthly churn1 ÷ churn is the average lifetime in months
LTV, payment planSum of installments actually collected × net marginNever the full plan price
CAC(Ads + agency, creative, webinar and launch tools, sales team cost) ÷ new buyersNew buyers only
Payback (months)CAC ÷ gross profit per buyer per monthFor a one-time sale: compare CAC with first-order profit
LTV:CACLTV ÷ CACRead it with payback, never alone

"Net margin" here means revenue minus platform fees, processor fees, refunds, dispute losses and the cost of delivery (coaching hours, community moderation, support).

Fig. 1Six formulas, the same every month

  1. LTV, one-time course

    Course price + (each upsell price × take rate) + later purchases, all × net margin. Over 12 months, from your own cohorts.

  2. LTV, membership or coaching retainer

    Monthly price × net margin ÷ monthly churn. 1 ÷ churn is the average lifetime in months.

  3. LTV, payment plan

    Sum of installments actually collected × net margin. Never the full plan price.

  4. CAC

    (Ads + agency, creative, webinar and launch tools, sales team cost) ÷ new buyers. New buyers only.

  5. Payback (months)

    CAC ÷ gross profit per buyer per month. For a one-time sale: compare CAC with first-order profit.

  6. LTV:CAC

    LTV ÷ CAC. Read it with payback, never alone.

Split by front-end offer.

Watch out

For high-ticket coaching, delivery is not free. If a $3,000 program includes 12 calls, the coach's time belongs in the margin, or the LTV is flattered.

Count collected revenue, not the sticker price

Digital products have almost no cost of goods, so it is tempting to call price "profit". These leaks decide the real number.

LeakWhat to subtractPublished figure
Platform feeA share of each sale on some plansTeachable Starter 7.5%, Podia Mover 5%, 0% on higher plans4Teachable, Pricing, read November 2, 20265Podia, Pricing, read November 2, 2026
Processor feePer transactionPodia lists Stripe or PayPal at 2.9% + 30¢5Podia, Pricing, read November 2, 2026
RefundsFull refunds within your guarantee, partial refunds afterYour own data
DisputesThe sale, plus a feeWhop charges $15 per dispute6Whop docs, Fees, read November 2, 2026; Teachable lists a $15 chargeback fee4Teachable, Pricing, read November 2, 2026
Unpaid installmentsInstallments not collected after retriesYour own data
Failed renewalsMembers who leave because a card failed25% of lost subscriptions, per Stripe3Stripe, on failed payments and lost subscriptions, January 23, 2024

Fig. 2What comes off the sticker price

7.5%

Teachable Starter platform fee per sale

2.9% + 30¢

Stripe or PayPal fee, as listed by Podia

$15

Whop fee per dispute

25%

Lost subscriptions due to failed payments, per Stripe

Teachable and Podia pricing, Whop docs, read November 2, 2026; Stripe, January 23, 2024.

Visa caps one dispute type for you: under condition 13.5, a dispute on a cancelled service is "limited to the unused portion of the cancelled service"7Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, edition of October 24, 2026, dispute condition 13.5, Table 11-118. That partial loss still comes off LTV.

Worked example: course, payment plan and membership

Illustrative figures, not benchmarks. Net margin set at 90% of revenue for all three.

Course with upsellsSame course on a 3-payment planMembership
Sticker price$4973 × $179 = $537$39 per month
Extra revenue30% take a $47 bump, 10% take a $297 upsell: +$43.80NoneNone
What you collect$540.80$179 + 92% × $179 + 85% × $179 = about $495.808% monthly churn, about 12.5 months: $487.50
LTV (net)about $487about $446about $439
CAC ceiling at 3:1about $162about $149about $146

Fig. 3Net LTV per buyer, same course, three ways to sell it

  1. Course with upsells487 USD
  2. 3-payment plan446 USD
  3. Membership439 USD

Source: Worked example above, 90% net margin

The plan and the membership lose to collection and churn.

Illustrative example: the worked figures above, not benchmarks.

Two lessons. A payment plan sells more, but each plan buyer is worth less than the sticker suggests, so set its CAC ceiling on collected revenue. A membership only beats a one-time sale if churn stays low and failed renewals are recovered.

Example

If your 3-payment plan has a 15% drop-off by the third installment, cutting it to 8% raises plan LTV by about $11 per buyer at this price, without any extra ad spend. That is the job of failed payment recovery.

Benchmarks you can cite

MetricValue
LTV:CAC target3:1 healthy, 4:1 to 5:1 strong (Eightx practitioner guidance, March 2026)1Eightx, LTV:CAC Ratio: What It Is, Why 3:1 Matters, How to Fix It 2026, March 17, 2026
CAC payback3 to 6 months healthy (Eightx, March 2026)1Eightx, LTV:CAC Ratio: What It Is, Why 3:1 Matters, How to Fix It 2026, March 17, 2026
Subscription churn, Education4.99% annual median (3.30% voluntary, 1.69% involuntary) (Recurly, July 2026 data)2Recurly, Churn rate benchmarks, July 2026 data, read November 2, 2026
Subscriptions lost to failed payments25% (Stripe, January 2024)3Stripe, on failed payments and lost subscriptions, January 23, 2024
Order bump take rate"30-40% on average" (SamCart platform data, vendor figure)8SamCart, The complete guide to order bumps, 2026, read November 2, 2026

No public source publishes a measured LTV, CAC or refund rate for online courses or coaching with its method. Figures on vendor blogs come without a sample.

How to raise LTV

  1. Add a second offer at checkout: an order bump before payment, a one-click upsell after.
  2. Package related products: course plus templates, or tiers, as bundles.
  3. Collect every installment: retries and card updates on payment plans and memberships.
  4. Offer a continuity step: a membership or community after the course ends.
  5. Reduce refunds at the source: honest sales pages and onboarding that gets buyers into lesson one.

Each step raises what a buyer is worth without more ad spend.

How to lower CAC

  1. Raise conversion before raising spend: traffic but no sales.
  2. Send real purchases to ad platforms from the server: server-side tracking.
  3. Measure CAC by channel and by offer, webinar and evergreen apart: ad attribution.
  4. Test the checkout, not only the ad: checkout A/B testing.

How Tagada helps

Raise LTV, collect every installment and measure CAC

SideWhat Tagada does
Raise LTVOrder bumps and one-click upsells; memberships and subscriptions with trials, cycles and retries
Protect LTVAutomatic retries on failed renewals: 5 attempts over 21 days9Tagada docs, Subscriptions (Node SDK), read November 2, 2026; "Route to the processor most likely to approve it, retry on decline"
Measure CACServer-side events to Meta, Google and TikTok
Lower CACA/B tests on offers and checkout; Apple Pay and Google Pay

"If you sell something real, we will get you paid." TagadaPay lists info products, coaching and online courses among its industries, with "enhanced review for regulated verticals"; "Most merchants are live under 24 hours"10TagadaPay, homepage, read November 2, 2026.

On failed renewals, TagadaPay routes each payment "to the processor most likely to approve it" and reports a "+18% approval uplift"10TagadaPay, homepage, read November 2, 2026. Pricing starts "From 2.9% + $0.29"10TagadaPay, homepage, read November 2, 2026.

Plans are on the pricing page. On the payment side, see info product processing fees and reserves.

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Raise LTV, collect every installment and measure CAC

Updated on November 2, 2026

Nick Bonnassies

CMO at Tagada

CMO at Tagada. Before Tagada, Nick built direct-to-consumer brands that generated over $115M in sales, raised over $25M in crowdfunding and sold two of them. He also works as a fractional CMO on marketing operations and AI systems.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate LTV for an online course?

Add the course price, each upsell price multiplied by its take rate, and later purchases over 12 months, then apply your net margin after platform fees, processor fees, refunds and disputes. For payment plans, use the installments you actually collect. Calculate it per front-end offer, from your own buyer cohorts.

What is a good LTV to CAC ratio for a course or coaching business?

3:1 is the common target, and 4:1 or better is strong, according to Eightx's practitioner guidance. It is a rule of thumb, not a course benchmark. Check payback too: a launch that pays back in weeks can run below 3:1 if cash flow allows.

How much should I spend to acquire a coaching client?

Work back from LTV. Divide the net value of a client (program fees collected, minus delivery time and fees) by 3 to get a CAC ceiling. A program with payment plans needs the ceiling set on collected revenue, since some installments will not be paid.

Do platform fees go into CAC or LTV?

Into LTV, through the margin. They are a cost of each sale, not of acquiring the buyer. Teachable Starter takes 7.5% and Podia Mover 5% per sale, before processing fees (November 2026).

Do payment plans increase LTV?

They usually raise the number of buyers, not the value of each one. Each plan buyer is worth the installments you collect. Recover failed installments with retries and card updates, and compare plan and pay-in-full buyers as separate cohorts.

Sources

Checked November 2, 2026
  1. Eightx, LTV:CAC Ratio: What It Is, Why 3:1 Matters, How to Fix It 2026, March 17, 2026
  2. Recurly, Churn rate benchmarks, July 2026 data, read November 2, 2026
  3. Stripe, on failed payments and lost subscriptions, January 23, 2024
  4. Teachable, Pricing, read November 2, 2026
  5. Podia, Pricing, read November 2, 2026
  6. Whop docs, Fees, read November 2, 2026
  7. Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, edition of October 24, 2026, dispute condition 13.5, Table 11-118
  8. SamCart, The complete guide to order bumps, 2026, read November 2, 2026
  9. Tagada docs, Subscriptions (Node SDK), read November 2, 2026
  10. TagadaPay, homepage, read November 2, 2026

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