Paid growth, with the receipts
Ads → Payback
Know what you can spend.
See when it comes back.
One campaign. One customer group.
A clear view of the money.
Private by default. Inputs stay here; no account connection required. Currency selection does not convert amounts.
Estimated cash payback
Day 157under these assumptions
$1,100 invested. $2,117 estimated cash after service costs by day 364. Balance stays nonnegative at all subsequent points shown.
Expected values for one acquired cohort. Use the slider to inspect a day.
Stress-test the spend
What if acquisition gets harder?
Same customer group and behavior. Change only the cost per install.
Sensitivity scenarios, not probability ranges. Scaling spend can also change conversion and retention.
Inspect the numbers and export CSV
| Day | Net cash received | Service costs | Cash after acquisition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $0 | $0 | -$1,100 |
| 30 | $0 | $24 | -$1,124 |
| 60 | $313 | $51 | -$838 |
| 90 | $602 | $76 | -$575 |
| 120 | $867 | $101 | -$335 |
| 150 | $1,111 | $123 | -$112 |
| 157 | $1,335 | $128 | $107 |
| 180 | $1,335 | $143 | $92 |
| 210 | $1,542 | $161 | $281 |
| 240 | $1,732 | $178 | $454 |
| 270 | $1,906 | $193 | $613 |
| 300 | $2,067 | $208 | $760 |
| 330 | $2,215 | $221 | $894 |
| 360 | $2,351 | $233 | $1,018 |
| 364 | $2,351 | $234 | $1,017 |
All amounts are cumulative USD. Full daily forecast is in the export. Receipts already exclude fees and refunds; do not subtract them twice.
Know what’s in the model
Useful numbers.
Visible assumptions.
A store category cannot tell us your acquisition cost. These results use your inputs; no industry average silently replaces them.
How cash payback is calculated
Net cash receipts minus service costs must cover ad spend and other upfront costs. We report the first nonnegative point after the last deficit in the shown horizon. Later costs can reverse a recovery. The maximum media cost per acquired user subtracts upfront costs from the remaining cash, then divides by acquired users. Fixed company overhead, income tax and financing costs are excluded unless you include them in your entered costs.
Forecast timing, annual plans and limits
One cohort is acquired on the start date; all first payments occur after the chosen delay. Renewals use calendar months from that first-payment date. Customers are lost at each renewal, not daily. Annual plans collect the full annual price and retain their service costs across the paid year. Prices exclude sales tax. Refunds reduce every charge proportionally; fees apply to retained revenue. Refunds do not separately change modeled subscriber counts. Service costs accrue daily; actual fee, refund and payout policies can differ. No additional cohorts, expansion revenue or automatic scaling are assumed. Fractional customers are expected values. The forecast has not been calibrated against your historical cohorts.
Use comparable data and honest attribution
Match the acquisition cohort, country/platform mix, currency and attribution window. Only enter checkpoint ages your cohort has actually reached. Use deduplicated campaign data when available; do not add Meta and TikTok conversion claims together. Attribution is not proof an ad caused a purchase. In measured mode we use your reported net cash as entered, with no extra fee deductions or extrapolation.
Method references: Adapty cohort analysis · RevenueCat cohort maturity and revenue definitions · TikTok attribution differences. These explain measurement; they do not validate this forecast.
Your data stays under your control
Calculations and CSV parsing happen in this browser. Save stores the scenario on this device; no automatic account import or server sync is performed. The mentor button creates a local, editable draft. Your numbers are only sent to your chosen AI provider when you submit that chat.
Work out your next test
Which assumption needs a reality check?
Bring this scenario to Alex Vech and Marc Louvion’s AI mentors. Your numbers become an editable draft. You choose what to send.
A worked example
When has a campaign actually paid you back?
$1,100 invested. $1,350 received. $200 spent serving customers.
Hypothetical cumulative checkpoints for the same acquired group: on day 30, $700 net receipts − $100 service costs − $1,100 acquisition costs = −$500. On day 60, $1,350 − $200 − $1,100 = +$50. You recovered acquisition costs by the day-60 checkpoint; sparse observations do not reveal the exact crossing date. Later costs or refunds can reverse that result.
Cash payback versus the CAC shortcut
CAC divided by monthly contribution per customer is a useful steady-state shortcut. This calculator follows cash from one acquired group instead: trial delays, annual charges, payout timing and renewal losses can make the answer different. Acquisition costs include ad spend plus the other upfront costs you enter.
Bring comparable inputs
Keep the same cohort, currency, attribution rule and observation age across every checkpoint. Enter receipts after refunds and fees, then subtract service costs once. Campaign attribution alone does not prove incremental sales. Company overhead and tax are not automatically included.
For the earlier question of how content could acquire subscribers, use Views → MRR. Read RevenueCat’s cohort maturity definitions before comparing young and old customer groups.
Check the assumption before changing the budget
- Someone clicked cancel. Which month actually lost the customer?
Use this when cancel clicks and reported churn disagree. Reconcile request dates, reversals and the last paid period on each account.
- Is $600 plus 20% cheaper than a $1,000 creator fee?
Use this when comparing a fixed creator fee with a retainer and revenue share. Separate the break-even threshold from the point where one offer becomes cheaper.
- 350 users, seven free trials, zero revenue. What should you check first?
Use this before changing a paywall because revenue is zero. Account for trial maturity, offer exposure and payment state first.