What can you actually afford to pay for a customer?

Most brands bid blind on Meta and Google. Drop in one number and find your real ceiling — the most you can spend to acquire a customer and still come out ahead.

1 Your average order

What does a typical first order spend?

The only number you need to know off the top of your head.

2 Your margin

Pick your category — we'll use a typical margin

Profit left after product, shipping & fees 60%

3 Your repeat rate

Out of 100 first-time buyers, how many come back within 90 days?

Drag to see what retention unlocks 25%

0% — none come back70%

Average DTC brand sits around 20–30%. Don't know yours? Leave it here — then watch the number move.

You can afford to pay up to

to acquire one customer at a 25% repeat rate — and still break even.

First order only $48 Added by retention $12

Retention is adding budget you can put straight back into ads.

See what your ceiling could be with a real retention engine → Free 1:1 teardown of your email & retention setup.

How this number is calculated ▾

No black box. Your ceiling is just the profit a customer generates before you've paid to acquire them:

First-order ceiling = AOV × margin%
Real ceiling = AOV × margin% × (1 + 90-day repeat rate)

The first-order ceiling is what you can pay if a customer never buys again. The teal portion — everything past that — only exists because some customers come back. That repeat rate is the one lever email and retention directly control, which is why two brands with identical products can afford wildly different ad budgets.

This is your break-even ceiling — the absolute max. To actually turn a profit, you'd bid somewhere below it.

Built as a thinking tool, not financial advice — your real numbers are yours to verify.

From the team at DAHAUS. — we build email systems that raise this number.