SaaS customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV) is the total gross profit a subscription business expects from an account across its entire relationship — and the generic ecommerce formula (average order value × purchase frequency) breaks for it because subscriptions renew, expand, and contract instead of transacting in discrete orders.

Ecommerce customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total gross profit a store earns from a single customer across every order they place, modeled as average order value × purchase frequency × customer lifespan, then adjusted for gross margin.

Customer lifetime value (CLV, sometimes written LTV) is the total gross profit a business expects to earn from a single customer across the entire relationship, most simply calculated as average purchase value × purchase frequency × customer lifespan, then multiplied by gross margin.