Why does my CAC payback look faster even though cash isn't coming back?

Teams see the reported payback metric compressing — from seven months to five, or from nine to six — and read it as evidence that the acquisition model is worki

The distortion lives in the difference between recognized revenue and collected cash.

The signal to watch: the gap between GA4-reported cohort revenue and Stripe payout volume for the same acquisition cohort in the same month.

This is a measurement architecture problem, not an acquisition strategy problem.