On this page
Start after the customer has been won
This exercise concerns the economics of a customer relationship, not whether to fund an unawarded bid. Define the acquisition/onboarding costs you are including and the contribution each order leaves after its specified delivery costs. Do not include onboarding twice if it is already deducted from the order result.
The SBA’s marketing guidance asks businesses to budget their activities and compare marketing and sales costs with the revenue generated. The order-contribution sequence below is an original ELN recovery exercise, not a government customer-acquisition benchmark or a guarantee that a campaign works.
Five repeat orders are needed in this example
Fictional U.S.-dollar assumptions: winning and onboarding one customer costs US$12,000. The first order leaves US$3,000 after its included delivery costs. Each later order is assumed to leave US$1,800 on the same defined basis, before these one-time costs and other excluded items.
| Order sequence | Contribution toward US$12,000 | Amount unrecovered |
|---|---|---|
| First order only | US$3,000 | US$9,000 |
| First order plus 2 repeats | US$6,600 | US$5,400 |
| First order plus 5 repeats | US$12,000 | US$0 |
A recovery target is not a retention forecast
US$9,000 remains after the first order. At US$1,800 each, five further orders cover that amount. The calculation assumes those orders occur with the stated economics; it gives no evidence that the customer needs, approves or will pay for them.
Ask which repeats are contractual commitments, which are a customer’s stated intention and which are only your sales team’s hypothesis. Consider a smaller sequence and different order costs. A long approval gap or a price concession can change both the amount recovered and the cash you must carry.
Give the owner a relationship-level decision
Identify the actual customer problem, ordering cycle, continuing support and reasons for another order. Record who owns follow-up and what evidence would change the next spending decision. A positive recovery calculation is not proof that a wider acquisition campaign works.
Use supported annual orders and costs in U.S. unit economics, keeping the customer-level sequence beside it. Cash runway should separately test the dates of acquisition spending and actual receipts. Choose a further commitment from the evidence rather than counting hoped-for repeats as cash already available.
Scope
- All amounts and order patterns are fictional. No normal acquisition cost, conversion, retention, lifetime value, accounting treatment or guaranteed payback is supplied.
Next step
Prepare a customer-level acquisition/onboarding cost and order-contribution sequence, distinguish confirmed from hoped-for repeats, and set the next evidence and spending decision.
Sources & review notes
U.S. Small Business Administration
Passage, dates and research notes
official-guidance · Manage finances; cost-benefit analysis; buy assets/equipment; marketing and sales
Selected commercial planning sections read. No tax deductions, loan eligibility, worker status or other legal conclusions are adopted.
Bookmark this guide or mark it as read.
Progress privacy
Saving is off by default. Without it, progress lasts only on this page. If you turn it on, this browser profile stores public content IDs and the progress you record. Anyone sharing the profile could see them. No plan inputs or contact details are included. Reset or export in learning settings.
This is a reading aid, not evidence of disclosure delivery, expertise or legal approval.