Financial Unit Economics

This walks you through the full unit economics analysis: defining your unit (customer, product, transaction), calculating CAC and LTV, assessing contribution margin, running cohort analysis, and interpreting the results. It covers five common patterns (SaaS, e-commerce, marketplace, freemium, enterprise) with specific benchmarks for each. The guardrails are solid: it pushes you to use fully-loaded CAC including sales salaries, track cohorts separately instead of blending metrics, and avoid vanity LTV projections beyond observed data. Most useful when you're evaluating business model viability or trying to figure out if your CAC payback period actually supports growth. The methodology is thorough but assumes you have reasonable data to work with.

skills.sh installs: 198
GitHub stars: 193
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add lyndonkl/claude --skill financial-unit-economics --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Example

Scenario: SaaS startup, $100/month subscription

CAC: $20k spend / 100 customers = $200
Gross margin: ($100 - $20 variable) / $100 = 80%
Monthly churn: 5% -> Average lifetime = 20 months
LTV: $100 x 20 months x 80% = $1,600
LTV/CAC: 8:1 (healthy, >3:1), Payback: 2.5 months (good, <12 months)
Interpretation: Strong unit economics. Can profitably scale marketing spend.

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track your progress:

Unit Economics Analysis Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Define the unit
- [ ] Step 2: Calculate CAC
- [ ] Step 3: Calculate LTV
- [ ] Step 4: Assess contribution margin
- [ ] Step 5: Analyze cohorts
- [ ] Step 6: Interpret and recommend

Step 1: Define the unit

What is your unit of analysis? (Customer, product SKU, transaction, subscription). See resources/template.md.

Step 2: Calculate CAC

SKILL.md on GitHub