Home/Understand Your Unit Economics

Understand Your Unit Economics So You Know Exactly What You Can Afford to Spend

Understand Your Unit Economics — powered by your AI eCommerce team.

Get All 14 Skills — $97

Overview

Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity. Too many DTC founders celebrate top-line growth while their unit economics are quietly bleeding them dry. If you do not know your fully-loaded cost per acquisition, your customer lifetime value, and your contribution margin per order, you are flying blind — and you are probably spending money you do not have on acquisition that will never pay back.

The eCommerce CFO skill breaks down your unit economics with clarity that would normally require a fractional CFO or a finance team. Feed it your COGS, shipping costs, return rate, ad spend, and average order value, and get a complete picture of your per-order profitability, CAC payback period, and LTV-to-CAC ratio.

This is the analysis that tells you whether you can afford to spend $30 to acquire a customer or whether you need to get that number down to $18 before you scale. It is the difference between growing profitably and growing yourself into a cash crunch.

Before & After

Without AI

Your Shopify dashboard says you did $82K last month and your ROAS is 3.2x, so you think you are profitable. But after COGS, shipping, returns, and payment processing, your actual contribution margin is 8% — and you have no idea.

With Storefront Skills

In 10 minutes you get a full unit economics breakdown showing your true contribution margin is 8%, your CAC payback period is 4.2 months, and you need to either raise AOV by $12 or cut CPA by $6 to hit a healthy 20% margin.

Primary Skill

Fractional CFO

Understanding your financial health, optimizing margins, and making sound financial decisions

Try It Yourself

Example Prompt

“Break down the unit economics for our DTC coffee brand. AOV is $42, COGS is 32%, shipping averages $6.50 per order, return rate is 3%, payment processing is 2.9% + $0.30. We spend $14,000/month on Meta ads generating 380 new customers. Repeat purchase rate is 44% with average customer making 2.8 purchases over 12 months. I want to know our true CPA, contribution margin per order, LTV, and LTV:CAC ratio.”

What You Get Back

A complete unit economics report with: per-order P&L (revenue, COGS, shipping, returns, processing fees, contribution margin of $14.23 or 33.9%), customer acquisition cost ($36.84 blended), customer lifetime value ($119.28 based on 2.8 orders), LTV:CAC ratio (3.24x — healthy but with room for improvement), CAC payback period (2.6 orders or roughly 5.4 months), and three specific levers to improve: increase AOV by $8 through bundling, reduce shipping cost through carrier negotiation, and improve repeat rate from 44% to 55% through better email flows. Includes a sensitivity table showing margin impact of different AOV and CPA scenarios.

Supporting Skills

Marketing Analyst

Understanding which marketing channels actually drive revenue and making data-informed budget decisions

Pricing Strategist

Setting prices, designing discount strategies, building bundles, and running price tests

Competitive Analyst

Understanding what your competitors are doing, why, and what you should do about it

FAQ

At minimum: AOV, COGS percentage, shipping cost per order, return rate, ad spend, and number of new customers. For a deeper analysis, add repeat purchase rate, average order frequency, and any subscription revenue.

Monthly at minimum, especially if you are scaling ad spend. Your COGS, shipping rates, and CPA can shift quickly. A monthly review catches problems before they become emergencies.

For most DTC brands, 3:1 or higher is healthy. Below 2:1 means you are spending too much to acquire customers relative to what they are worth. Above 5:1 might mean you are under-investing in growth.

Related Use Cases

Audit Your Ad Spend

Audit Your Ad Spend and Stop Wasting Money on Underperforming Ads

Build a Pricing Strategy

Build a Pricing Strategy That Maximizes Profit Without Killing Conversions

Prepare for Fundraising

Prepare for Fundraising With a Story and Metrics VCs Actually Want to See

Reduce Cart Abandonment

Reduce Cart Abandonment and Recover Revenue You Are Already Losing

Understand Your Unit Economics — and so much more.

All 14 Claude Skills trained for eCommerce. One-time purchase. Works in minutes.

Get The Full Team — $97