Online Project Financial Model
A free interactive calculator: startup capital, unit economics, scenarios and a stress test. For online schools, courses and expert products.
Financial model
What the calculator computes
- Minimum startup capital — how much cash you need to survive until break-even, month by month.
- Unit economics: CAC from your CPL and funnel conversions, LTV/CAC ratio, margin per student.
- Optimistic, base and pessimistic scenarios — the same model with conversion and CPL shifted.
- Stress test: which parameter breaks your model first and how much headroom you have.
Unit economics of an online project: the core formulas
CAC = CPL ÷ (lead conversion × payment conversion). If a subscriber costs $3, 15% leave a request and 30% of those pay, one student costs you $3 ÷ (0.15 × 0.30) = $67. Most projects know their CPL but have never multiplied the funnel through — and are surprised by their real acquisition cost.
LTV/CAC ≥ 3 is the health threshold. Below that, marketing eats the margin: any increase in traffic prices — and ad auctions get more expensive as you scale — pushes the model into the red. The calculator models this CPL growth explicitly.
Startup capital ≠ first month's budget. Revenue arrives with a lag (instalments, sales cycle), while traffic and team are paid now. The deepest point of the cash gap is your real required capital — the calculator finds it automatically.
Numbers don't add up — or add up too well?
We'll review your model on a 30-minute call: where it's over-optimistic, where the risk hides and what to fix first.