Table 120 Aug 2026From “Customer lifetime value is a forecast, not a fact”

The assumptions inside customer lifetime value

The output is only as portable as the definitions in the five rows beneath it.

Table 1The assumptions inside customer lifetime value

Component	What it means	What can move it	Evidence to bring
Contribution margin	Revenue left after the costs assigned to serving the customer	Usage, support, hosting, delivery and payment mix	Cohort margin by product and service pattern
Survival	Probability the customer remains in the defined base	Churn, contraction, renewal terms and definition changes	Cohort history with a fixed starting population
Expansion	Additional contribution from an existing customer	Seats, usage, modules, price and relationship ownership	Expansion by starting cohort, not only survivors
Discount rate	How future contribution is valued today	Capital cost, risk and forecast horizon	Stated rate and sensitivity range
Acquisition and service cost	Costs the decision is meant to recover	Channel, onboarding, implementation and success effort	Cost boundary matched to the decision

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Source: Author's decomposition of the customer lifetime value calculation. The columns are a decision aid, not a universal formula.

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From the essay

Growth that compounds

Customer lifetime value is a forecast, not a fact

Customer lifetime value is a discounted forecast of margin, survival and expansion. Make the assumptions visible before comparing customers or channels.

20 Aug 2026

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APA 7

Isoglu, S. (2026). The assumptions inside customer lifetime value [Table]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01/

BibTeX

@misc{isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{The assumptions inside customer lifetime value}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Table 1, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01/},
  note = {From the essay {Customer lifetime value is a forecast, not a fact}}
}

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  <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01/">
    <img src="https://isoglu.com/social/isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01.png" alt="Table 1: The assumptions inside customer lifetime value" width="3200" height="2400">
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  <figcaption>Table 1: The assumptions inside customer lifetime value. Source: Author&#39;s decomposition of the customer lifetime value calculation. The columns are a decision aid, not a universal formula. <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-customer-lifetime-value-is-a-forecast-not-a-fact-fig01/">View exhibit</a>.</figcaption>
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