Lifetime revenue is the simpler cousin of LTV. Where LTV often gets margin-adjusted, discounted, or projected, lifetime revenue is the straight count: every dollar a customer paid you, summed from signup to cancellation. For day-to-day operations, it's the cleanest version of the metric.
How to calculate lifetime revenue
For each customer:
Lifetime Revenue = Sum of all charges, minus refunds, across the full relationship
Per individual customer, you just count. In aggregate, the average across a cohort:
- Cohort-observed: Sum the revenue from a signup cohort over their full tenure.
- Formula-projected: ARPU × average tenure (in months). $30 ARPU × 20 months = $600 average lifetime revenue.
Lifetime revenue vs. LTV
The terms overlap. Most operators use them interchangeably. The technical distinctions:
- Lifetime revenue usually means gross top-line — total dollars in.
- LTV often implies a margin-adjusted, profit-aware figure.
- Both can be observed (cohort actual) or projected (formula).
When in doubt, ask which version is on the screen — the numbers can differ by 30–60% depending on margin.
When to use lifetime revenue specifically
- Top-line forecasting. Revenue projections by cohort, MRR roll-up, ARR modeling — lifetime revenue is the right basis.
- Customer ranking. Identifying your top 10% of customers by total spend — straightforward with lifetime revenue.
- Channel comparison. Comparing the revenue generated by customers from different acquisition sources, before factoring in their cost.
What lifetime revenue misses
A high-revenue, low-margin customer can be worth less than a low-revenue, high-margin one. Lifetime revenue alone doesn't see that — margin LTV does. For decisions about which customers to invest in retaining, profit-adjusted LTV is usually more useful. For top-line conversations and forecasting, lifetime revenue is cleaner.
The bottom line for subscription stores
For most Shopify subscription operators, "LTV" and "lifetime revenue" mean the same thing in conversation — both refer to total dollars per customer over the relationship. Be explicit about whether margin is included when the number matters for decisions. See customer lifetime value for the broader concept and CLV calculation for the math options.