Symptom
The distortion lives in LTV — it sums cumulative revenue across the customer lifetime without revealing when those contributions arrive — making a 22-month payback look identical to a 6-month payback in the headline metric.
You asked
Revenue is realized too slowly — acquisition costs are paid upfront while monthly contributions arrive in small increments extending payback to nearly a year.
Symptom
The distortion lives in LTV — it sums cumulative revenue across the customer lifetime without revealing when those contributions arrive — making a 22-month payback look identical to a 6-month payback in the headline metric.
Cause
LTV growth is driven by customers staying longer at lower monthly contribution rates rather than by higher monthly revenue — the value exists in aggregate but arrives more slowly than the acquisition model assumed.
Impact
Capital is tied up in unrecovered acquisition investment for nearly a year per customer — at current volumes the unrecovered CAC pool is growing and early-churning customers generate permanent losses equal to their CAC minus revenue received.
Revenue is realized too slowly — acquisition costs are paid upfront while monthly contributions arrive in small increments extending payback to nearly a year.
The distortion lives in LTV — it sums cumulative revenue across the customer lifetime without revealing when those contributions arrive — making a 22-month payback look identical to a 6-month payback in the headline metric.
LTV growth is driven by customers staying longer at lower monthly contribution rates rather than by higher monthly revenue — the value exists in aggregate but arrives more slowly than the acquisition model assumed.
Capital is tied up in unrecovered acquisition investment for nearly a year per customer — at current volumes the unrecovered CAC pool is growing and early-churning customers generate permanent losses equal to their CAC minus revenue received.