LTV Benchmarks by Industry Benchmarks
A reference for customer lifetime value across the main DTC verticals — typical 12- and 24-month LTV ranges, what drives the differences, and how to read the numbers without fooling yourself.
LTV Benchmarks by Industry
Typical customer lifetime value ranges across DTC verticals — apparel, beauty, supplements, food & beverage, and home goods.
LTV benchmarks by industry are the rough goalposts for customer lifetime value within a given vertical, expressed as the average revenue (or gross profit) a customer generates over a defined window — usually 12 or 24 months from first purchase.
They matter because LTV is meaningless in isolation: a €120 LTV is excellent for a single-purchase home-goods brand and a disaster for a daily-use supplement subscription. Operators use these ranges to sanity-check their own numbers, set CAC ceilings, and defend acquisition budgets to a board that asks 'is this normal?'
The ranges below reflect gross-revenue LTV over the first 24 months — the window most DTC finance teams model against. They assume a normal mix of one-time buyers and repeat customers; subscription-heavy brands sit at the top of each range, pure one-and-done acquisition sits at the bottom.
Treat these as orientation, not targets. Two beauty brands at the same AOV can have wildly different LTVs depending on whether they sell consumables (mascara, serum) or durables (a single hair tool). Always pair the benchmark with your own repeat-purchase curve before drawing conclusions.
24-month gross LTV by DTC vertical (€, typical range)
| Vertical | Median AOV | 12-month LTV | 24-month LTV | Repeat rate (24mo) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & accessories | €75 | €110 – €160 | €140 – €220 | 28 – 38% |
| Beauty & cosmetics | €45 | €95 – €170 | €140 – €260 | 35 – 50% |
| Supplements & wellness | €55 | €140 – €260 | €220 – €420 | 45 – 65% |
| Food & beverage | €40 | €120 – €220 | €180 – €340 | 40 – 60% |
| Home & living | €90 | €105 – €150 | €130 – €190 | 18 – 28% |
| Electronics & accessories | €110 | €125 – €170 | €150 – €210 | 20 – 30% |
The pattern is consistent across markets: consumable categories (supplements, food, beauty) compound, while durables (home, electronics, outerwear) lean on a strong first-order margin. If your LTV-to-CAC ratio looks weak, the vertical mostly tells you whether the fix is 'retain harder' or 'price the first purchase better'.
12-month vs 24-month LTV by vertical (€, midpoint)
12-month LTV
24-month LTV
How to read these numbers
First, confirm the basis. Gross-revenue LTV is what most public benchmarks report and what most boards expect, but operators who run on margin need contribution LTV — revenue minus COGS, payment fees, and fulfilment. Contribution LTV typically sits at 35–55% of gross LTV depending on category. Pick one and stick to it.
Second, check the window. A 12-month LTV understates consumable brands and overstates one-and-done categories at the same time, because consumables haven't had time to compound. If you're benchmarking a supplement brand against an apparel brand, only the 24-month window is honest. See LTV Measurement for the cohorted approach we recommend.
The 'blended LTV' trap
If you divide total revenue by total customers, you're computing blended LTV — which mixes a 3-year-old cohort with last month's buyers and tells you almost nothing. It also inflates during growth (more new customers drag the average down, masking strong retention) and deflates during plateaus. Always benchmark cohorted LTV — first-order date → revenue at N months — against the ranges above.
What drives LTV differences across verticals
Consumption cadence is the single biggest lever. A supplement customer who finishes a bottle in 30 days has 8 reorder opportunities in year one; an apparel customer has maybe 2 seasonal moments. That cadence is largely baked into the product — which is why supplements and food clear €300+ LTV on modest AOVs while home goods struggle to push past €190 at twice the basket size.
Subscription penetration is the second lever. Within beauty and supplements, brands that move 30%+ of revenue onto subscribe-and-save sit at the top of the range; brands relying on manual reorders sit at the bottom. AOV expansion (bundles, gifting, refills at higher price points) is the third — and the easiest to test, since it doesn't require changing how often the customer buys, just how much they spend when they do.
Frequently asked questions
There's no single number — 'good' depends on the vertical and the CAC it has to support. A useful rule of thumb is a 3:1 LTV-to-CAC ratio over 24 months. Against the ranges above, that means apparel brands need CAC under ~€60, supplements can sustain CAC up to ~€100+, and home-goods brands need to clear payback on the first order.
Both, for different audiences. Gross revenue LTV is what most public benchmarks report and what boards expect when comparing to peers. Contribution-margin LTV (revenue minus COGS, fees, and fulfilment) is what you should actually run the business on — it's the number that determines whether you can afford to acquire.
Three common causes: you're measuring blended LTV instead of cohorted (which understates mature cohorts), your repeat-purchase flow isn't doing its job (low subscription attach, weak post-purchase email), or your acquisition channels are skewed toward one-time discount-driven buyers. Diagnose by pulling a 24-month cohort curve before changing anything.
For consumables, 12 months gives you a usable signal and 24 months gives you a confident number. For durables (apparel, home), the curve flattens faster — you'll know most of your 24-month LTV by month 9–12. Either way, predicted LTV models can give you a directional read inside 60 days if you have enough cohort data.
Weakly. AOV is the floor on first-order revenue, but repeat rate and purchase frequency dominate after that. Supplement brands with €55 AOVs routinely out-LTV home brands with €120 AOVs because of cadence, not basket size.
Subscription-heavy brands sit at or above the top of each range. In supplements, brands that drive 40%+ of revenue through subscribe-and-save commonly hit €400+ 24-month LTV — well above the typical range — because retention compounds and churn becomes the only variable that matters.
3:1 over 24 months is the industry shorthand and works as a default. Below 2:1 you're burning cash on acquisition; above 4:1 you're probably under-investing in growth. Adjust the window to match your payback target — if you need 12-month payback, use 12-month LTV in the ratio.
Use the 12-month range for your vertical as a planning input and watch your first 60–90 day cohort behaviour. If month-2 repeat rate is tracking 5+ points below the vertical norm, you have a retention problem to solve before scaling spend. The full LTV picture won't be visible for a year, but the leading indicators show up fast.
Directionally yes, but EU LTVs tend to run 10–20% lower in nominal terms due to lower AOVs and tighter pricing. The ratios between verticals (supplements highest, home lowest) hold across both markets. If you're benchmarking a US brand, scale the midpoints up by ~15% as a rough adjustment.
Repeat rate is the dominant driver. As a rough heuristic, a 10-point lift in 24-month repeat rate moves LTV by 25–40% in consumable categories and 15–25% in durables. That's why retention work usually beats acquisition work on ROI once you have product-market fit.
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