Let’s talk money. How much does it cost to serve a customer, how much do they pay, and does the math work? Spoiler: it works really well. For the non-finance folks: CAC is Customer Acquisition Cost (what we spend to get a customer), LTV is Lifetime Value (total revenue from a customer over their lifetime), and gross margin is the percentage of revenue left after covering direct costs.
Metric 100 Customers 1,000 Customers 10,000 Customers Avg revenue/customer $450/mo $475/mo $525/mo Monthly revenue $45,000 $475,000 $5,250,000 Infrastructure costs $3,500/mo $25,000/mo $150,000/mo Data enrichment $3,000/mo $20,000/mo $150,000/mo AI API costs $4,000/mo $30,000/mo $200,000/mo Total COGS $10,500/mo $75,000/mo $630,000/mo Gross margin 77% 84% 88% CAC ~$150 ~$300 ~$500 Avg retention 10 months 11 months 13 months LTV $4,500 $5,225 $6,825 LTV:CAC 30:1 17:1 14:1
Cost Category Monthly Per Customer Infrastructure (Vercel, Supabase, etc.) $3,500 $35 Data enrichment (Apollo API) $3,000 $30 AI API costs (Claude) $4,000 $40 Total COGS $10,500 $105 Avg revenue/customer $450 Gross profit/customer $345
Cost Category Monthly Per Customer Infrastructure $25,000 $25 Data enrichment $20,000 $20 AI API costs $30,000 $30 Total COGS $75,000 $75 Avg revenue/customer $475 Gross profit/customer $400
Timeframe Primary Channels CAC Why Months 1-6 Community, content, word-of-mouth ~$150 Near-zero paid acquisition Months 6-12 + Product Hunt, referrals, podcast appearances ~$200 Organic + some content costs Months 12-18 + Paid channels, partnerships ~$300 Scaling requires paid acquisition Months 24+ + Small sales team for Scale tier ~$500 Enterprise-adjacent accounts
30:1 LTV:CAC at 100 customers is driven by near-zero acquisition cost from community-based distribution. This is the structural advantage of building for technical founders who actively share tools that work for them.