The CAC calculator shows the marketing story. This one shows the P&L story. Same J-curve, same inputs, wrapped in the full quarterly P&L: quarterly EBIT dips below the baseline through the first year of the transition, then recovers and grows past it as the compound phase kicks in. The point is to put two numbers on the table before the CFO meeting: how much EBIT the programme foregoes on the way down, and how much it adds on the way back up.
Monthly total marketing spend across all channels — paid media, agency fees, production, sponsorships. The calculator holds this constant across 36 months; only the split between brand and performance changes.
Blended CAC — total marketing spend ÷ new customers, all channels combined. Use your 3-month rolling average, not a single month. This is the performance-only baseline the J-curve starts from.
Most transitions ramp in over one to four quarters rather than flipping to the target split on day one. Ramping gives the team time to learn creative and channel mix, and it reduces the size of the cumulative EBIT gap before the compound phase kicks in.
Q1 brand share — where you start on day one. A soft start (20–35%) barely disrupts existing performance economics.
Steady state — where you land after the ramp. Binet & Field's evidence base points to 60% brand for mature categories (46% for B2B per Dawes).
Ramp duration — how many quarters to reach steady state. 1Q = flip a switch. 4Q = year-long transition (most CFO-friendly). 8Q+ = phased multi-year commitment.
The trade-off: softer ramp = smaller cumulative EBIT gap, but the compound benefit arrives later. Steeper ramp = deeper gap, faster payback. The presets show four typical shapes.
Category pacing changes phase durations. FMCG buyers cycle weekly (fast payback); B2B SaaS contracts are 12–36 months (slow payback). For long-cycle categories, the 36-month window shows only the beginning of Phase 3 — the compound effect keeps compressing CAC into year 4 and 5.
Average quarterly revenue per active customer. For DTC repeat commerce: AOV × orders/quarter. For subscription: monthly subscription fee × 3. For B2B: annual contract value ÷ 4. Use gross revenue before returns; the calculator applies gross margin next.
Category benchmarks: Beauty/food subscription €30–60/qtr · Fashion DTC €60–150/qtr · SaaS SMB €150–600/qtr · SaaS mid-market €1,500–15,000/qtr · Enterprise SaaS €25,000+/qtr.
Gross margin = (Revenue − COGS) ÷ Revenue. Includes product costs, fulfilment, payment fees, hosting (for SaaS). Excludes marketing and overheads. Benchmarks: Grocery/FMCG 25–35%, DTC apparel/beauty 55–70%, B2B SaaS 70–85%, B2B services 40–55%.
Quarterly customer churn. Fraction of your active customer base that stops buying / cancels each quarter. 8%/quarter ≈ 30%/year annual churn (typical DTC repeat commerce). SaaS SMB: 3–5%/quarter. SaaS mid-market: 1.5–3%/quarter. Enterprise SaaS: < 1%/quarter. Grocery/CPG: essentially none at the household level for staples; the "churn" is category exit or lapse.
The calculator initialises your customer base at steady state: new customers per month ÷ monthly churn. Change the number to see how retention amplifies or dampens the compound phase.
Fixed overheads per quarter — team salaries, rent, tech stack, G&A, everything below the marketing line that doesn't scale with volume in the short term. The calculator holds this constant across both scenarios; the interesting variable is what the marketing shift does to EBIT above the overhead line.
| P&L line | Q0Baseline | Q2Phase 1 stall | Q5Flywheel | Q8Compound approach | Q12Sustained |
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