Should LTV be calculated before or after delivery cost?

Calculate it on cash first, net of refunds and chargebacks. Keep delivery cost as its own line, as a share of revenue; at Acquisition Ace it stays under 5%. Mixing the two into one number makes it harder to see whether the back end improved or the cost moved.

Should LTV include payment plan installments that have not been paid yet?

No. Count cash collected only. Unpaid installments belong in a receivables report. If you count contract value, a cohort full of stopped payment plans looks as healthy as one that paid in full, and you will overspend on acquisition against money you never received.

Do refunds come off LTV?

Yes, at full value, against the cohort the client joined in. Chargebacks come off too, with their fees. Subtracting them per cohort shows which intake months carried a sales or onboarding problem. Two or three refunds per 100 new clients is normal; under five is a good rate.

How often should I recalculate LTV?

Monthly, per cohort. A cohort's LTV keeps rising for as long as its clients buy extensions, upsells and resells, which can run up to two years. One lifetime number for the whole business hides whether recent cohorts are doing better or worse than older ones.

How to calculate LTV for a coaching business with payment plans, refunds and resells.

LTV in coaching is cash collected per client across every offer, minus refunds. The formula, a worked example and the payment-plan traps.

Most coaches collect about $5,000 per client, once. One client in a program we run paid 24 times, $52,382 in total, in Stripe.

Both numbers are lifetime value, LTV: what a client pays you over their whole time with you. The second one only shows up when you calculate it per client, across every offer, from the payment processor.

What is the formula for LTV in a coaching business?

Cash collected from a cohort, minus refunds and chargebacks, divided by the clients in that cohort. A cohort is every client who first paid in the same month. Cash means money that landed in Stripe or Whop, not the contract total.

Line	What goes in	Where it comes from
Front-end cash	Every payment on the first program: paid in full, or the installments actually received	Stripe or Whop, by customer
Back-end cash	Extensions, upsells, resells, downsells and continuity payments	The same customers, later dates
Refunds	Money returned, full or partial	The processor's refunds report
Chargebacks	Disputes lost, plus their fees	The processor's disputes report
Clients	Everyone who made a first payment that month	Count of new customers in the cohort

LTV per cohort = front-end cash plus back-end cash, minus refunds and chargebacks, divided by clients.

How do payment plans change the number?

They make the contract value lie. A client on a six-installment plan who paid three has paid half, and LTV counts half. Signed revenue belongs in the sales report. Collected revenue belongs in LTV.

For new clients we would rather take an upfront payment, $6K to $12K, than monthly. Beginners on monthly plans stop paying, you feel it in cash flow, and the team ends up chasing money.

Very high-ticket monthly offers, from $1.5K a month, are the exception, for entrepreneurs who are already further along. There LTV is the monthly price times the months stayed, plus whatever they buy next.

How do refunds and chargebacks come off?

At full value, against the cohort the client joined in. A refund in month two lowers that cohort's LTV. That is useful, because it shows which intake months carried a sales or onboarding problem.

In very big offers we see one or two refunds a month. Per 100 new clients, two or three is normal, and under five is a good rate. A lot of chargebacks is usually a sales problem: the closer promised something the program does not do.

Where do resells and upsells go?

Into the same client's line, on the date they were paid. That is where LTV moves. When the next offer is relevant, up to 30% of all clients buy it. Among clients who reached the result, it is 40% or more.

Extensions count too. Clients close to the goal who want a bit more time buy one. Extensions and next offers stretch how long a client stays by another 30%, up to 50%, depending on the offer.

Most coaches sell one package and never solve what comes after it, so the average LTV sits around $5K. Once someone hits the goal, the next thing to sell is their next problem. And if we get them there in three months instead of six, we can upgrade them sooner. That raised LTV more and faster.

Diego Miescher

Founder

Result from a named client with written permission. Typical clients of this cohort saw a range of outcomes; nothing here is a guarantee. How we handle claims.

What does a worked example look like?

Here is an example cohort with invented round numbers. It shows the arithmetic only and is not a client's data.

Line	Example cohort of 40 clients
Front-end cash collected	$228,000
Extensions and resells, months 4 to 12	$96,000
Refunds	$14,000
Chargebacks and fees	$4,000
Net cash	$306,000
LTV per client	$7,650

Example only. Recalculate the same cohort every month; the back-end line keeps growing while clients buy again.

In the first months, a cohort's LTV sits close to the front-end price. A year later, if the back end works, it is well above it. Video Business Academy went from about $4K per client to $50K and more, with clients staying two to three years.

What do you do with the number?

First, set what you can spend to win a client. If you collect $50,000 per client rather than $5,000, spending $1K to acquire one is easy. Back-end sales carry no ad cost at all.

Second, compare cohorts. The intake month with the low LTV points at the month something broke, in sales, onboarding or the next offer. A single lifetime average for the whole business hides that.

Further reading: Retention math: why 10% to 3% churn is 3.3x LTV · How to calculate the back-end KPIs: the formulas

This week. Export last year's payments from Stripe by customer. Group customers by the month of their first payment. Add every payment, subtract refunds and disputes, and divide by the count. That is your first LTV per cohort.