Retention Economics

Retention economics is the case for spending money on customers you already have. It is also the fastest place to fool yourself: repeat rate, churn, LTV and payback period can each be computed three defensible ways, and the flattering one is usually the one that ends up in the deck.

This is where we work through the numbers properly. How to calculate lifetime value without inheriting assumptions you cannot see. Why NPS and repeat rate answer different questions and which one should drive a budget. What breakage really costs you once you account for the liability sitting on the balance sheet. How deep a win-back discount can go before it stops being a win. How to spot churn early enough to act, using data you already have in a spreadsheet. How payback period changes the answer when acquisition is funded out of cash flow rather than a raise.

For operators who need a number they can stand behind, not a benchmark from someone else's business. Where the honest answer is a range rather than a figure, we give the range and say which assumption moves it most, because a number you can reconstruct in six months is worth more than a precise one you cannot. Where a calculation has a well-known failure mode, we say so rather than quietly picking the version that looks best.