LTV/CAC benchmarks in Russia 2026: gaming, e-com, MedTech, fintech, EdTech
Real unit-economics for 5 niches of the Russian market: average LTV/CAC, payback period, AOV, frequency. Figures from my projects + anonymous pool of 12 companies. With formulas and red zones for niches.
“What is the normal LTV/CAC in Russia?” is a question that most marketers answer in the abstract: “3 or more.” It's true - but useless. A gaming project may have a healthy LTV/CAC of 4, MedTech – 8, B2B SaaS – 3, and each of these values is normal in its niche. This article is an attempt to give specific ranges for 5 niches of the Russian market, broken down by the factors that determine them.
The numbers are the median from my 9 projects 2024–2026 + an anonymous pool of 12 industry colleagues (two from B2B SaaS, four e-com, one from each other category). This is not a McKinsey report. This is a snapshot of projects with a performance budget of 500K–4M ₽/month and an average bill of 3K–80K ₽.
LTV/CAC is the only metric that answers the question “is the business making money or is it just spinning.” Everything else is derived from it.
Why "3+" is too general an answer
The canonical rule “healthy LTV/CAC = 3 or more” appeared in David Skok’s SaaS blogs of the 2010s. It has been repeated as a universal truth ever since. But in reality, the LTV/CAC ratio is determined by three factors:
- Product margin. A margin of 30% (e-com physical goods) and a margin of 80% (digital products) give completely different “normal” ratios.
- Length of customer lifespan. A subscription model with a retention of 95%/month will give a high LTV. One-shot purchase - low LTV.
- Niche competition. Mature niches (MedTech, fintech) increase CAC; young (new SaaS categories) - reduce.
Therefore, below are not “correct values”, but realistic ranges for niches with an explanation of what forms them.
Gaming/eSports
| CAC | 800–1 500 ₽ |
| LTV (12 months) | 3 500–7 500 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 3.5–5.0 |
| Payback | 3–5 months |
| AOV | 450–800 RUB per visit, 8–14 visits per year |
What determines: frequency of visits, margin per visit and customer lifetime. B EZ KATKA case the scale of the network (19 arenas), the base (120 thousand customers) and the turnover of the entire network for 2024 (124 million rubles) are known. This is not enough to calculate LTV: transactions and repeat visits are needed at the cohort level.
Where marketing breaks down: overpaying for subscribers in TG/VK without translating into visits. Subscriber ≠ client.
E-com (average 3,000–8,000 RUB)
| CAC | 600–1 200 ₽ |
| LTV (12 months) | 2 200–5 500 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 3.0–4.5 |
| Payback | 2–4 months |
| Frequency | 1.5–3 purchases per year |
What determines: physical product margin, repeat purchases and seasonality. For ID Store, the summary includes sales growth of 25% over nine months, but there is no full calculation of LTV/CAC by category. It needs to be calculated using data on gross margins, advertising costs and buyer cohorts.
Where marketing breaks down: optimization for CAC without taking into account repeat-rate. The channel can bring in “cheap” customers who never return.
MedTech / clinics / dentistry
| CAC | 2 500–5 000 ₽ |
| LTV (24 months) | 15 000–50 000 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 5.0–10.0 |
| Payback | 1–2 months (first procedure) |
| Frequency | 2–4 visits per year + recommendations |
What determines: high first check (one procedure - 5K–30K ₽), long client life cycle (medicine = constant need), powerful word-of-mouth (recommendations to friends and family increase effective LTV by 1.5–2×).
The main feature of MedTech: when making an honest calculation, you need to add “referral LTV” - client-referred-clients. It's hard to calculate exactly, but without this premium, CAC looks "expensive" in a really good economy.
Where marketing breaks down: the pursuit of “cheap leads” in Yandex Direct based on general rather than commercial requests. CPL 200 ₽ for the query “how to treat teeth” - garbage, CPL 800 ₽ for “remove wisdom teeth price” - gold.
Fintech / trading / investment
| CAC | 3 000–7 000 ₽ |
| LTV (24 months) | 25 000–140 000 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 8.0–20.0 |
| Payback | 2–4 months |
| Activity | 10–80% of monthly turnover on commissions |
What determines: a high commission model (on each transaction the client brings revenue), low churn for active traders, extremely high concentration of value among the top 10% of clients. This is the niche where “average” is especially misleading—the median LTV is 5-10x below average.
For a fintech product, LTV/CAC must be calculated based on completed cohorts and taking into account repeat deposits. The available materials from MM AI Trading do not contain data on revenue and attraction at the client level, so I do not provide the number for this project here.
B2B SaaS
| CAC | 8 000–25 000 ₽ |
| LTV (24 months) | 30 000–150 000 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 3.0–6.0 |
| Payback | 8–18 months |
| Net MRR | 1,800–7,500 ₽/month per user |
What determines: a long sales-cycle (often 30–90 days between the first touch and subscription), high retention among good-fit clients, but a heavy gap between segments. SMB SaaS segment - payback 6–10 months and LTV/CAC 4–5; enterprise — payback 12–24 months, but LTV/CAC can go in 8–12.
The main thing in B2B SaaS: NRR (net revenue retention) is more important than GRR (gross revenue retention). If existing customers increase their subscription (upsell, add seats), effective LTV increases without CAC costs. An NRR of 110%+ means the business is growing even with zero acceleration in new sales.
EdTech/online schools
| CAC | 1 500–4 000 ₽ |
| LTV (12 months) | 8 000–35 000 ₽ |
| LTV/CAC | 4.0–8.0 |
| Payback | 2–5 months |
| First rate check | 3 000–15 000 ₽ |
What determines: strong upsell mechanics (from introductory to advanced courses), but high churn after the first course (50–70% do not buy the second). Seasonality (peaks August–September and January–February) changes CAC within a year by 2× or more.
What to do if your numbers are out of range
- Check the attribution is correct. 30%+ “direct traffic” in a report usually means attribution is broken. See article about attribution 2026.
- Check whether you are calculating LTV using the median or average. The distribution is always skewed—the average is overestimated.
- Look at segmentation. If the averages are “like everyone else”, but there is no profit, there are usually two groups inside with different economies. Case of failure by -20% - about this very situation.
- Check the full CAC. Not only advertising costs, but also team salaries + tools + content.
- Check the duration. LTV on the horizon of 3 months vs 24 months are different numbers by 5–10×.
Rules for quick business diagnostics
- LTV/CAC is less than 1 - you are losing money on each client, or you urgently need to cut CAC, or rebuild the product
- LTV/CAC from 1 to 2 - you survive, but without scaling. Any hit to conversion will result in a loss
- LTV/CAC 2 to 3 – healthy base, but underinvested in marketing or product
- LTV/CAC from 3 to 5 is a working range for most niches. Sustainable growth zone
- LTV/CAC greater than 6 means you are underinvesting in marketing. You can increase CAC for the sake of growth speed
If you don’t know your real LTV/CAC right now, this is the most common scenario. Most companies know "roughly" and are wrong by 30-60%. Would you like me to analyze your indicators in 30 minutes? discovery — we’ll calculate using the correct formulas and show you what range you’re actually in.
Related materials: LTV/CAC calculator, unit-economy calculator CM1/CM2, LTV/CAC benchmarks for SaaS.