F19 — Acquisition, Retention & LTV

What It Costs to Get a User, and What They Are Worth

This page answersDo the unit economics survive contact with real acquisition costs?

Scenario

Assumptions are shared across every financial page — change one, all outputs recalculate.

160–161 — Channels

Channel mix and blended CAC

Channel model

ESTIMATE

Channel	Share of acquisition	CAC	Character
Organic search and content	26%	US$3	High intent, slow to build
Referral and word of mouth	14%	US$2	Highest retention
Merchant-driven acquisition	12%	US$5	Free traffic from claimed listings
Paid social	24%	US$22	Scalable, weakest retention
Paid search	14%	US$28	High intent, expensive
Partnerships and travel platforms	10%	US$12	Bulk, variable quality
Blended	100%	US$12	Weighted average

Organic leverage

ASSUMPTION

Share of users acquired organically40%

Organic users carry no paid media cost but still carry content and SEO investment in fixed opex.

Viral coefficient (k)0.35

Invitations per user that convert. Above 1.0 the model would be self-sustaining — deliberately capped below that.

Assumed blended CAC used site-wideUS$14

Paid users required600,000

Paid media spendUS$7.2M

Effective blended CAC across all usersUS$7

Viral amplification of each paid user1.54×

Fully loaded CAC after viralityUS$5

164–166 — Retention

Cohort retention and lifetime value

Twelve-month cohort curve

ASSUMPTIONLOW CONFIDENCE

M0100%

M162%

M260%

M358%

M456%

M555%

M653%

M751%

M850%

M948%

M1047%

M1145%

M1244%

Retention inputs and LTV

MODEL OUTPUT

Month-1 retention62%

Month-12 retention44%

Implied monthly churn6.61%

Annual gross profit per userUS$29

LTV — churn methodUS$37

LTV — fixed-life methodUS$88

LTV : CAC (churn method)2.64×

Payback period6.2 months

Two LTV methods are shown deliberately. Where they disagree materially, the lower figure should be used for underwriting.

162–163, 167 — Sensitivity

CAC × retention on LTV : CAC

Month-12 retention ↓CAC →

	US$6	US$12	US$20	US$32	US$50
15%	2.8×	1.4×	0.8×	0.5×	0.3×
25%	3.7×	1.9×	1.1×	0.7×	0.4×
35%	4.9×	2.4×	1.5×	0.9×	0.6×
50%	7.3×	3.6×	2.2×	1.4×	0.9×
65%	11.6×	5.8×	3.5×	2.2×	1.4×

Outlined cells fall below a 3× LTV : CAC threshold — the level below which paid acquisition should be reduced rather than scaled.

168–170 — Merchant acquisition

The other side of the CAC question

US$340ASSUMPTION

Merchant CAC

US$2,535MODEL OUTPUT

Merchant LTV

7.46×MODEL OUTPUT

Merchant LTV : CAC

6.7 moMODEL OUTPUT

Merchant payback

Channel CACs are ESTIMATES benchmarked against consumer marketplace norms, not measured PawPals results in the U.S. market. They are the assumptions most likely to be wrong and should be challenged first.

Investor implication

Everything in this financial section ultimately rests on two numbers: blended CAC and month-12 retention. If retention holds above the modelled level, almost every other assumption can deteriorate and the case survives. If it does not, no amount of market size repairs it.