thinkhard.SI

Prompt repository Finance & accounting

Calculate unit economics from acquisition cost to payback period

You want to know what it costs to win a customer and how many months of margin it takes to earn that back, worked out from your own figures.

Registry no.
FIN-037
Collection
Finance & accounting
Laid out for
GPT
Score
10 out of 10
Blanks to fill
6

Finance & accountingGPT

The prompt

Score 10 of 10, Excellent

Use it when You want to know what it costs to win a customer and how many months of margin it takes to earn that back, worked out from your own figures.

  • {{business}}
  • {{period}}
  • {{audience}}
  • {{rounding}}
  • {{figures}}
  • {{notes}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
# Role
You help founders and finance teams work out unit economics from their own figures. You show every formula with the real numbers in it, and you label every assumption.

# Goal
Calculate customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), the LTV to CAC ratio and the CAC payback period for {{business}} over {{period}}, for {{audience}}, so that they can see what a new customer costs, what one is worth in gross margin and how long it takes to earn the cost back.

# Success criteria
- Every input traces to a figure I gave, and every result shows its formula and working.
- Assumptions are labeled where they are made, not collected in a footnote nobody reads.
- A good result lets {{audience}} repeat each calculation by hand.

# Method
Use these definitions unless my notes give our own.
- CAC = sales and marketing spend in the period / new customers won in the period. Say which costs were included.
- Monthly gross margin per customer = average monthly revenue per customer x gross margin %.
- Monthly churn rate = customers lost in the month / customers at the start of the month. If I give only an annual rate, convert it with monthly churn = 1 - (1 - annual churn)^(1/12) and label the result as converted.
- Expected lifetime in months = 1 / monthly churn rate. This assumes churn stays constant; say so.
- LTV = monthly gross margin per customer x expected lifetime.
- LTV to CAC = LTV / CAC.
- CAC payback in months = CAC / monthly gross margin per customer.

# Output
1. Summary: up to four sentences with the results.
2. Inputs: a table with the columns Input, Figure, Source (my figures or my notes).
3. Calculations: a table with the columns Metric, Formula, Working, Result. For example: "CAC payback | CAC / monthly gross margin per customer | 1,200 / (80 x 70%) = 1,200 / 56 | 21.4 months". That example shows the form only; use my figures.
4. Sensitivity: LTV and payback at the churn rates and margins listed in my notes, as a table, if I list any.
5. Assumptions and caveats, numbered, such as one-off fees left out of revenue, or spend this period that wins customers next period.
6. Questions for me.

Keep the text outside the tables under 400 words.

# Constraints
- Use only my figures. Do not compare the results with industry benchmarks or a "healthy" ratio unless my notes give one with its source, because a rule of thumb from elsewhere is not evidence about this business.
- Do not estimate a missing input. Leave the metrics that depend on it blank and mark them [INPUT NEEDED: what].
- If spend and new customers cover different periods or channels, say so and do not divide one by the other.
- Keep full precision until the final tables, then round to {{rounding}}.

# Stop rules
If churn or gross margin is missing, calculate CAC only and ask for the missing figures before going further, because LTV and payback both depend on them.

# My figures
"""
{{figures}}
"""

Notes (our own definitions, which spend to include, churn and margin values to test): {{notes}}

Variables

{{business}}
Your business or product, for example "our accounting software for small firms".
{{period}}
The period the figures cover, for example "the last 6 months" or "Q3".
{{audience}}
Who will read it, for example "the founders and our lead investor".
{{rounding}}
How to round results, for example "whole dollars and one decimal for months".
{{figures}}
Sales and marketing spend, new customers, customers at the start of each month and customers lost, average monthly revenue per customer, and gross margin.
{{notes}}
Your own definitions, which costs count as acquisition spend, and churn or margin figures to test. Write "none" if you have none.

Why it works

  • What good looks like. Every metric shows its formula and the arithmetic with your numbers, so anyone can check how the payback period was reached.
  • What to avoid. No benchmark ratios unless you supply one with a source, so the result is judged against your business rather than a rule of thumb.
  • If unsure. A missing churn or margin figure stops the calculation after CAC, instead of producing a lifetime value built on a guess.

How to use it

  1. Press Fill in blanks and type your details into each blank. What you type stays in this browser.
  2. Copy the filled prompt into the AI tool you already use, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, or open it in the Grader or the Prompt Tester here.
  3. Before you rely on it, try it on three or four real examples. The Prompt Tester runs them all at once and shows which ones go wrong.
Use it from code

Get this prompt as JSON from the free REST API, with your own text in the blanks, or let an AI assistant fetch it through the MCP server. No key.

curl -s https://thinkhard.si/api/v1/prompts/unit-economics-cac-ltv

With the MCP server added to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code, call get_prompt with {"prompt": "unit-economics-cac-ltv"}, or just ask for it by name.