If you’re looking to track Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and your LTV:CAC ratio using data from QuickBooks and Stripe, Databox makes this possible with Calculated Metrics. However, there are a few important considerations to keep in mind.
Understanding Stripe limitations
When connecting Stripe to Databox, only the most recent 12 months of historical data will be available. If you need to calculate CAC or LTV across a longer time period, you’ll need to use a workaround such as importing extended historical data through Google Sheets.
How to calculate CAC
To build a CAC metric, follow this approach:
From QuickBooks, create a Custom Metric that sums expenses from two specific categories (e.g., Marketing and Sales).
From Stripe, use a metric like New customers (or New subscribers depending on your business model).
Create a Data Calculation using the formula:
Total expenses from QuickBooks / New customers from Stripe
How to calculate LTV:CAC ratio
Once you’ve calculated CAC, you can combine it with an LTV metric (e.g., Revenue per customer or Average order value × average purchase frequency) in another calculation:
LTV / CAC
This gives you insight into how much value you're generating for every dollar spent on customer acquisition.
Workaround for historical data
If you need CAC and LTV data for a period longer than Stripe's 12-month limitation, consider importing historical values using Google Sheets. You can sync custom CAC and revenue data there, then merge it with your current metrics in Databox.
For more, visit: How to use Google Sheets to bring in custom data.