📝 Overview
Lifetime value tells you how much a customer spends with your business in total. Knowing your average lifetime value helps you understand what a new customer is typically worth over time.
There is no single report that calculates this for you, so this guide shows you how to download your invoice data and work it out in a spreadsheet.
📊 Downloading Your Invoice Data
Start by exporting the invoices for the period you want to look at.
Go to Reports ➜ Revenue ➜ Invoices, or open the report directly here.
Click Any time, then Custom, and select the date range you want to cover.
Click Download CSV, and select what additional fields you would like to export along with the invoices.
Click Download in the next page, and the CSV file will now display the following.
Subtotal
Taxes
Discounts
Adjustments
Credit
Expected payments
Refunds
Refund Date
🛠️ Calculating Lifetime Value in a Spreadsheet
Once you have the CSV open in a spreadsheet application such as Excel, you can use a pivot table to total up what each customer has spent.
From the top menu, go to Insert and select Pivot Chart, then accept the default range.
A new sheet opens with a blank pivot table. Drag Customer into Rows or Axis, and Total into Values.
Values defaults to "Count", so right-click the Total field, click Field Settings, and choose Sum.
You will now have the total amount spent by each customer, which is their lifetime value for the period you exported.
💡 Lifetime value pairs well with average customer lifespan, which tells you how long customers typically stay with you. For that calculation, see Average customer lifespan here.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Find answers to common questions or additional details that may not be covered in the main instructions.
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Click the arrow to view frequently asked questions
How do I turn the customer totals into an average?
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Click the arrow to see the answer
The pivot table gives you a total per customer. To get the average lifetime value, take an average across that column of customer totals.
Keep in mind that the figure only covers the date range you exported, so a short range will understate the lifetime value of long-standing customers.
Can I look at a specific time period only?
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Click the arrow to see the answer
Yes. Use the Any time filter and choose Custom before downloading, so the export only contains invoices from the period you are interested in.
How do I break revenue down by class type or instructor instead?
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That uses a similar approach with different fields, and has its own guide.
See How to determine revenue per class type or per instructor here.
Where can I see all the other reports available?
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Click the arrow to see the answer
For a full list of every report, organised by category, see An Overview of Reporting here.