Enter your rate, churn, and costs. See what each customer is worth over their lifetime.
Free spreadsheet to calculate what each customer is worth over their lifetime and how much you should spend to acquire new ones.
Free. Just enter your email.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) represents the total profit a customer generates over their entire relationship with your business. In pool service, where monthly contracts create predictable recurring revenue, LTV is one of the most important metrics for making marketing, pricing, and retention decisions.
The formula is: Annual Profit Per Customer × Average Customer Lifespan. Annual profit includes monthly service revenue plus one-time revenue (filter cleans, repairs, startups) minus variable costs. Average lifespan is calculated as 1 ÷ Annual Churn Rate.
Industry benchmarks: the average pool service customer stays 5-7 years (15-20% annual churn). At $150/month service with $300/year in one-time revenue and $540/year in variable costs, annual profit per customer is approximately $1,560. With a 6.7-year average lifespan (15% churn), LTV is approximately $10,400.
A common benchmark is spending no more than 25% of LTV to acquire a customer. With a $10,400 LTV, that allows up to $2,600 in acquisition costs — enough for referral bonuses, Google Ads, direct mail campaigns, and door-to-door marketing. Knowing your LTV makes marketing budget decisions rational rather than emotional.
Reducing annual churn from 20% to 15% increases average customer lifespan from 5 years to 6.7 years — a 34% increase in LTV. This often makes retention investments (better communication, proactive maintenance, service quality improvements) more valuable than acquisition spending.
When spreadsheets stop scaling, PoolDial picks up where they leave off.
Start Free Trial