LTV: Customer Lifetime Value

Average total revenue generated per customer across all their purchases since their first order.

Formula

LTV = Total Customer Revenue ÷ Customer Count

Formula Components

Metric	Definition
Total Customer Revenue	Sum of all order revenue across each customer’s purchase history
Customer Count	Number of unique customers who placed at least one order

Metadata
Type	Currency
Data Source	Shopify
Aggregation	Average

Example

Your store has 2,500 customers who have generated $625,000 in total revenue since they first purchased:

Metric	Value
Total Revenue (All-Time)	$625,000
Unique Customers	2,500
LTV	$250.00

How It Works

LTV calculates the average total revenue per customer across their entire purchase history. It sums all orders for each customer from their first purchase to present, then averages across all customers. Unlike time-bounded LTV metrics (90d, 180d, 365d), this captures full customer lifetime value.

When to Use

Scenario	Action
Evaluating customer acquisition profitability	Compare LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Setting max CPA targets	Use LTV to determine sustainable acquisition spend
Segmenting high-value customers	Identify customers above average LTV for retention programs
Forecasting long-term revenue	Project revenue based on expected customer acquisition

Metric	Relationship
LTV 90d	90-day customer value
LTV 180d	180-day customer value
LTV 365d	Full-year customer value
Unique Customers	Denominator for LTV calculation
AOV	Per-order value vs per-customer value

See all LTV metrics →

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​Formula

​Formula Components

​Example

​How It Works

​When to Use

​Related Metrics

Formula

Formula Components

Example

How It Works

When to Use

Related Metrics