Bootstrapped Growth

Solo Founder Unit Economics

Calculate LTV, CAC, payback period, and break-even customers calibrated for bootstrapped scale. $5-50/month products with organic or near-zero CAC.

LTV

$400.00

LTV:CAC

Infinite

Customer lifetime

20 mo

Unit Economics Detail

ARPU$20.00/mo

CAC$0.00 (organic)

Payback periodInstant (organic)

Monthly profit/customer$20.00

Break-even customers5 to cover $100/mo fixed costs

Total monthly profit$400.00

Key insight

With organic acquisition, even $20/mo ARPU can be profitable because your CAC is effectively $0. Your LTV of $400 is pure upside. Focus on reducing churn to extend customer lifetime beyond 20 months.

How to use it

Enter your MRR, number of paying customers, and ARPU. For bootstrapped products in the $5-50/month range, even small ARPU differences compound over customer lifetime.
Set your monthly churn rate and CAC. If you acquire customers organically (content, SEO, word of mouth), set CAC to $0 — this dramatically changes the economics in your favor.
Enter monthly fixed costs like hosting, tools, and subscriptions. The tool calculates how many customers you need to cover these.
Read LTV, LTV:CAC ratio, payback period, and break-even customer count. With organic acquisition ($0 CAC), your LTV:CAC is effectively infinite — focus on reducing churn instead.
Use the insight to identify your strongest lever: reducing churn, increasing ARPU, or growing customer count. Re-run monthly to track trajectory.

AI Integrations

Contract, discovery endpoints, and developer notes for agent use.

Always available for agents

Tool contract JSON

https://aibizhub.io/contracts/solo-founder-unit-economics.json

Stable input and output contract for this exact tool.

Human review

People can use the browser page to sense-check outputs and charts, but agents should still execute against the contract and discovery endpoints.

/agent-tools.json - machine-readable tool index.
/llms.txt - human-readable model discovery guide.
/.well-known/webmcp.json - WebMCP capabilities manifest.
/.well-known/ai-plugin.json - plugin-style discovery manifest.

{
  "tool": "solo_founder_unit_economics",
  "mrr": 500,
  "paying_customers": 25,
  "monthly_churn_rate": 5,
  "cac": 0,
  "arpu": 20,
  "monthly_fixed_costs": 100
}

Open tool contract JSON Open AI integrations guide

Expand developer notes

Agent playbook

Resolve Solo Founder Unit Economics from /agent-tools.json and open its contract before execution.
Validate inputs against the contract schema instead of scraping labels from the page UI.
Open the browser page only when a person wants to review charts, assumptions, or related tools.

Agent FAQ

Should ChatGPT, Claude, or another agent click through the UI?

No. Start with /agent-tools.json, then follow the tool's contract URL. The page UI is for human review, not parameter discovery.

When do tools show Quick and Advanced?

Every tool opens in Quick Start first. Advanced Controls keeps the same scenario, reveals more assumptions or diagnostics, and every tool keeps AI integrations inline below the instructions.

When should an agent still open the browser page?

Open it when a human wants to sense-check the output, review the chart, or keep exploring related tools after the calculation finishes.

Questions people usually ask

How is this different from the Unit Economics Calculator?

This tool is calibrated for bootstrapped scale — $5-50/month products, organic or near-zero CAC, and solo founder operations. It includes interpretation like 'with organic acquisition, even $5 ARPU can be profitable because your CAC is effectively $0.'

What if my CAC is $0?

Organic acquisition (SEO, content, word of mouth) means $0 CAC. This makes your LTV:CAC ratio effectively infinite and payback instant. The key metric shifts to churn rate and break-even customer count to cover fixed costs.

What LTV:CAC ratio should I aim for?

The standard benchmark is 3:1 or higher. For bootstrapped products with near-zero CAC, this ratio is often infinite — focus on reducing churn and growing ARPU instead.

How is customer lifetime calculated?

Customer lifetime = 1 / monthly churn rate. At 5% monthly churn, average customer lifetime is 20 months. At 2% churn, it is 50 months. Small churn improvements compound dramatically.

Is this tool free and private?

Yes. All calculations run in your browser. No data is sent anywhere. No signup required.

Related Resources

Learn the decision before you act

Every link here is tied directly to Solo Founder Unit Economics. Use the explanation, formula, examples, and benchmarks to pressure-test the calculator output from first principles.

Browse all 1 resources

How To Use · 1

How To Use

5 STEPS