Cohort revenue
Cohort revenue in the Business area (Revenue) — route /business/cohort-revenue.
Cohort revenue lives in the Business area of the dashboard, under Revenue.
At a glance#
| Dashboard route | /business/cohort-revenue |
| Area | Business (business) |
| Group | Revenue |
| Platforms | Available for every app platform. |
What it does#
Revenue by acquisition cohort: users grouped by the week they first appeared, with each cohort's size, total revenue and lifetime value per user.
This is the revenue counterpart to retention. Retention asks whether recent users come back; this asks whether they are worth as much as earlier ones.
When to use it#
To answer the question that decides whether growth is working: are the users you are acquiring now as valuable as the ones you acquired before?
Total revenue rising tells you nothing about that — it rises with volume. LTV falling as you read down the cohorts means each new customer is worth less, which eventually breaks the economics no matter how well acquisition performs.
Workflow#
Read LTV down the page, not across
Cohort over cohort is the trend that matters. Falling LTV in recent cohorts is the finding.
Compare cohorts at the same age
A cohort three months old has had three months to spend. Comparing it to last week's is meaningless.
Discount the newest cohorts entirely
They have barely had time to buy anything.
Cross-check against acquisition channel
A falling-LTV cohort usually traces to a channel that was scaled up. Cost & ROAS has the spend side.
Permissions and prerequisites#
Requires revenue events and identified users — a cohort is a group of people, and unlinked devices break the grouping.
Limits and edge cases#
Recent cohorts always look worse. Time, not quality. This is the single most common misreading of the page.
Small cohorts are volatile. One large purchase can double a small cohort's LTV.
LTV here is revenue to date per user, not a prediction. For a predicted figure see User health, and treat it as model output.
Weekly cohorts. A business with a long purchase cycle may need to look at several weeks together for the numbers to settle.
Troubleshooting#
Every recent cohort looks terrible. Expected — they are immature. Compare only at equal age.
LTV is zero for cohorts with revenue. Revenue is not linked to identified users, so it cannot be attributed to a cohort.
Where the data comes from#
Served by
Business impact
Cohorts