LTV by Purchase Count: DTC Benchmarks from 162K Customers

78.8% of customers buy once. But the 21.2% who come back — the ones whose repeat customer lifetime value compounds over time — drive 48.9% of all revenue.

That's the headline from our LTV by purchase count analysis of 162,112 customers across 13 DTC brands over a 720-day window. Nearly four out of five customers never place a second order. The one in five who does? They generate almost half of all the money.

But here's the number that should change how you allocate budget: the purchase conversion funnel accelerates after that second purchase. First to second: 21.2%. Second to third: 38.8%. Third to fourth: 50.9%. Fourth to fifth: 58.9%. The hardest step is the first one. Every step after that gets dramatically easier.

What Is LTV by Purchase Count?

LTV by purchase count measures total revenue generated by customers segmented by how many orders they've placed. Instead of averaging LTV across all customers, it breaks the number apart. A one-time buyer is worth $211.57. A five-plus buyer is worth $1,553.78 — a 7x difference. It reveals where repeat customer lifetime value actually lives.

We recently published repeat purchase benchmarks across 156K customers. That post answered: how often do customers come back? This post answers a different question: how much are they worth when they do — and what does the full value curve look like from first purchase to fifth?

We also published survival curve retention benchmarks. The survival curve shows when customers come back. This post shows how much they're worth when they do.

Second-Purchase Conversion Rate: The DTC Retention Bottleneck

This isn't one insight. It's two — and they stack.

Stat 1: Only 21.2% of first-time buyers make it to a second purchase. That's the bottleneck. Out of 162,112 customers, 127,816 buy once and disappear. The second purchase is the hardest conversion in the entire customer lifecycle.

That number shouldn't shock you if you've read our repeat purchase data. But what happens next should.

Stat 2: Once a customer makes it to the second purchase, the conversion rate to the third nearly doubles — 38.8%. Third to fourth: 50.9%. Fourth to fifth: 58.9%.

The funnel doesn't just improve. It accelerates. Each successive purchase becomes more likely than the last. The customer who bought twice has a 39% chance of buying a third time. The customer who bought four times has a 59% chance of buying a fifth.

Now put those two stats together. The bottleneck is at the top — the 21.2% conversion from first to second purchase. But every customer who clears that bottleneck enters an accelerating funnel where each step gets easier. If you can't get them past the second purchase, you don't just lose one sale. You lose the entire downstream value chain — the third, fourth, fifth, and every purchase after that.

This is the compounding problem that LTV by purchase count reveals. A leaky bucket at the top, and a compounding engine below it. Fix the top, and everything downstream multiplies.

Why the Second Purchase Is the Hardest and Most Valuable Conversion

Most retention budgets are spread evenly across the customer lifecycle. Winback flows for lapsed customers. Loyalty programs for VIPs. Reactivation campaigns for everyone in between. A little bit of everything, spread across every stage.

The data says that's exactly wrong.

The entire funnel lives or dies at the second purchase. That 21.2% conversion rate is the gate. Everything downstream — the accelerating conversion rates, the compounding LTV, the 7x value multiplier — depends on customers getting through that gate.

And yet most brands invest the least in the one transition that matters the most.

Here's what we see across the portfolio. Post-purchase flows run for 7-14 days. Then silence. Maybe a winback fires at 90 or 180 days. The gap between the post-purchase sequence and the winback sequence — that's where the second purchase lives or dies. And for most brands, that gap is a dead zone.

Consider the economics. A customer who makes it to purchase five is worth $1,553.78. A customer who stops at one is worth $211.57. The difference is $1,342.21 in lifetime value. And the gate to that value isn't the third purchase, or the fourth, or the fifth. It's the second.

Every dollar you spend getting a customer from purchase one to purchase two has a multiplied return — because it doesn't just generate one additional purchase. It feeds that customer into an accelerating funnel where each subsequent purchase becomes more likely. You're not buying one sale. You're buying access to the compounding curve.

Most brands spread retention budget evenly. The data says go all-in on the second purchase.

LTV Benchmarks by Purchase Count

Here's the full picture. This is 162,112 customers, 13 DTC brands, 720-day observation window.

Table: Customer Lifetime Value Benchmarks by Purchase Count (162,112 Customers)

Read that bottom row. 2.5% of customers — just 3,993 people — generate 11.7% of all revenue. Their average LTV is $1,553.78. That's 7.3x the value of a one-time buyer.

But the jump from one purchase to two is the steepest. A two-purchase customer is worth $537.60 — 2.5x a one-timer. That single additional order more than doubles their value. No other step in the ladder produces that kind of percentage jump.

Here's another way to look at it. One-time buyers represent 78.8% of all customers but only 51.1% of revenue. The remaining 21.2% — everyone who bought at least twice — generates 48.9% of revenue. A fifth of the customers, nearly half the money.

The 7x multiplier from one purchase to five-plus is striking. But the multiplier that matters most for budget allocation is the 2.5x from one to two. That's the most accessible step, the highest-impact intervention, and the one most brands underinvest in.

The Conversion Funnel — Why It Accelerates

Here's the purchase conversion funnel, step by step.

Table: Purchase Conversion Funnel (162,112 Customers)

21.2% → 38.8% → 50.9% → 58.9%. Each step gets easier. But why?

The trust barrier is the first purchase. The biggest psychological hurdle is already cleared when someone buys the first time. They've given you their credit card, trusted your shipping, and decided your product is worth trying. The second purchase doesn't require re-clearing all of those hurdles. It requires one thing: was the experience good enough to do again?

Commitment deepens with each purchase. Behavioral psychology calls this the consistency principle. Once someone has bought from you twice, they've started to identify as "a customer of this brand." Three times and it's a pattern. Four times and it's a habit. Each purchase reinforces the identity, making the next one more natural.

Switching costs increase. By the third or fourth purchase, the customer knows your sizing, your shipping speed, your product quality. Trying a competitor means starting over — new account, unknown fit, unproven quality. The cost of switching goes up with every order, even when there's no formal switching cost.

Habit forms. Especially for consumable brands, repeat purchasing becomes routine. The customer doesn't deliberate. They reorder. The decision has moved from conscious evaluation to automatic behavior.

These are plausible explanations, not proven mechanisms. The data shows the acceleration clearly. The reason for it is less clear — and it may be partly self-selection: the customers who buy twice may have always been predisposed to become repeat buyers, regardless of what the brand did.

The implication is still directionally useful. The first-to-second conversion is the only one where you're fighting against inertia, uncertainty, and every alternative the customer has. After that, the forces start working in your favor. But only if you get them past that gate.

Per-Brand LTV Multipliers — The Range Is 1x to 22x

The aggregate LTV by purchase count shows a 7x multiplier from one purchase to five-plus. Individual brands show a range from 1x to 22x.

Table: LTV Multiplier by Vertical (5+ Purchase LTV / 1 Purchase LTV)

The pattern that stands out: brands with the lowest first-purchase LTV tend to have the highest multipliers. Non-Alcoholic Spirits has a $52.19 first-purchase LTV and a 22x multiplier. Health & Wellness has a $30.62 first-purchase LTV and a 14x multiplier. Home Decor: $46.86 and 10x.

Why? When the initial purchase is small — a $30 wellness product, a $52 spirits sampler, a $47 home accent piece — the customer is testing the waters. Low risk, low commitment. But the few who cross the second-purchase barrier become incredibly valuable because they're now habitual buyers of a low-AOV, high-frequency product. They don't spend a lot per order, but they come back again and again.

The flip side: high-AOV brands like Fine Jewelry ($2,395.33 first-purchase LTV) and Luxury Home ($873.17) show lower multipliers — 5x and 6x respectively. The first purchase captures more of the customer's total value upfront. There's less room for the multiplier to expand.

Another pattern worth noting. The brands with the lowest 1x→2x conversion rates often have the highest multipliers. Health & Wellness converts only 8.8% from first to second purchase — the lowest in the portfolio. But those 8.8% who do come back become 14x more valuable. Home Decor converts 11.2% and delivers a 10x multiplier. The gate is narrow, but the value on the other side is enormous.

These DTC LTV benchmarks have direct budget implications. If your first-purchase LTV is low and your multiplier is high, the return on second-purchase investment is outsized. Every customer you convert from one-time to repeat is worth 10x, 14x, or even 22x their initial purchase. The math overwhelmingly favors investing in that conversion.

Average Order Value vs. Customer LTV: Why Purchase Frequency Matters More

Here's a finding that surprises most operators. Average order value actually drops as customers buy more.

Table: Average Order Value by Order Number

The first order is the largest — $257.31. By the fifth order, AOV has dropped 46% to $139.52. Customers aren't spending more per order as they become more loyal. They're spending less.

And yet their lifetime value climbs from $211.57 to $1,553.78. A 7x increase.

The math is simple. LTV isn't about basket size. It's about frequency. A customer who spends $140 five times is worth far more than a customer who spends $257 once. The volume of purchases — not the size of each purchase — is what drives the value curve.

This has implications for how you think about post-purchase offers and retention incentives. Many brands try to increase LTV by upselling larger baskets — bundles, add-ons, volume discounts on the next order. That's not wrong, but it's optimizing the smaller lever.

The bigger lever is getting the next order to happen at all. A customer who comes back and spends $140 is more valuable than a customer who spends $257 and never returns. The AOV will take care of itself — what matters is the purchase.

The first-to-second order drop is the steepest — $257.31 to $167.33, a 35% decline. This likely reflects a few dynamics. First orders often include "try the brand" bundling — customers buying several items to test the waters. Second orders are more targeted — they know what they want and they buy just that. Gift purchases inflate first-order AOV in many verticals, and those don't repeat.

After the second order, AOV stabilizes. Third through fifth orders decline gradually from $163 to $140. The customer has settled into a pattern: they know what they buy, how much they need, and how often they need it.

The takeaway: stop trying to make each order bigger. Start trying to make the next order happen. Every customer lifetime value benchmark we've seen confirms this — frequency is the lever that compounds into LTV. Basket size is the lever that doesn't.

Revenue Impact: What Improving Your Second-Purchase Rate Is Worth

The first-to-second purchase conversion rate is 21.2%. What happens if you move it to 25%?

Let's model it using the actual funnel conversion rates from the data. The downstream rates — 38.8%, 50.9%, 58.9% — stay the same. We're only changing the top of the funnel.

At 21.2% (current):

• 162,112 customers → 34,296 reach 2nd purchase
• 34,296 → 13,313 reach 3rd purchase
• 13,313 → 6,776 reach 4th purchase
• 6,776 → 3,993 reach 5th+ purchase

At 25% (+3.8 percentage points):

• 162,112 customers → 40,528 reach 2nd purchase (+6,232)
• 40,528 → 15,725 reach 3rd purchase (+2,412)
• 15,725 → 8,004 reach 4th purchase (+1,228)
• 8,004 → 4,714 reach 5th+ purchase (+721)

That 3.8 percentage point improvement at the top creates 6,232 additional second-time buyers. But because the downstream funnel accelerates, those customers don't stop at two purchases. They flow through. You also get 2,412 more third-time buyers, 1,228 more fourth-time buyers, and 721 more fifth-plus buyers.

Now attach the LTV values.

Incremental revenue from moving 1st→2nd from 21.2% to 25%:

A 3.8 percentage point improvement in the second-purchase conversion rate generates an estimated $7.8M in additional lifetime revenue across 162K customers. That's not because the second purchase is worth that much by itself. It's because the second purchase is the gate to the accelerating funnel.

This is a model, not a guarantee. It assumes the downstream conversion rates hold as volume increases, and it uses LTV values from the existing data. The directional point stands: small improvements at the top of the purchase funnel compound dramatically through the downstream stages.

It's also worth noting that the customers who would convert with additional investment may not behave identically to the ones who convert organically. If incentives are required to push them across the second-purchase line, their downstream conversion rates may be lower than the 38.8% observed in the organic cohort. The model assumes identical downstream behavior. Reality is probably somewhat less generous.

This is why the second purchase is the highest-leverage intervention in the entire customer lifecycle. It's the narrowest gate in front of the steepest compounding curve.

What This Means for Retention Investment

The data shows the second purchase is the bottleneck and the highest-leverage conversion in the customer lifecycle. What you do with that information depends on your brand, your economics, and your product. There's no single playbook that applies to a $30 wellness supplement and a $2,400 jewelry piece.

For brands with low first-purchase LTV and high multipliers — the Non-Alcoholic Spirits pattern, or the Health & Wellness pattern — the math overwhelmingly favors investing in second-purchase conversion. When your 5+ buyer is worth 14x or 22x a one-timer, every customer you push across the second-purchase line feeds into a compounding curve that dwarfs the cost of the intervention. For brands with high first-purchase LTV and low multipliers — the Fine Jewelry pattern, or the Luxury Home pattern — the calculus is different. The first purchase already captures most of the value. The multiplier exists, but it's 5x or 6x, and the absolute dollar value of the first purchase is already high. The second-purchase investment may still be worthwhile, but it's not the obvious all-in bet that it is for a $52 spirits brand.

The funnel acceleration is the most interesting finding in this data. The jump from 21.2% to 38.8% to 50.9% to 58.9% suggests that loyalty isn't linear — it compounds. Whether that's due to habit formation, switching costs, or self-selection (the customers who buy twice were always going to be loyal) is an open question. Probably all three contribute. But the shape of the curve is consistent across verticals, which suggests something structural is happening beyond just "good customers buy more."

The practical application is straightforward: pull your own LTV by purchase count data and map the conversion funnel. See where your bottleneck is. If the 1st-to-2nd drop is steep but the 2nd-to-3rd accelerates, the data suggests your retention investment should concentrate at the top of that funnel. If your funnel doesn't accelerate — if the conversion rate stays flat or declines at each step — you have a different problem, and second-purchase investment alone won't solve it.

One thing the data doesn't tell you is how to convert more one-time buyers into two-time buyers. That depends on your product, your category, your post-purchase experience, and a dozen other variables this dataset can't speak to. What it does tell you is where the leverage is, and roughly how much it's worth. The "how" is your problem to solve.

LTV by Purchase Count FAQ

What is a good customer LTV by purchase count?

A good benchmark is $211.57 for one-purchase customers, $537.60 for two-purchase customers (2.5x), $839.15 for three-purchase customers (4x), and $1,553.78 for five-plus customers (7.3x). These numbers come from 162,112 customers across 13 DTC brands. The multiplier varies significantly by vertical — from 1x in wholesale to 22x in non-alcoholic spirits.

What percentage of customers only buy once?

78.8% of customers in our data made a single purchase. Only 21.2% placed a second order within a 720-day window. This is consistent with our repeat purchase benchmarks, which showed an 18.8% repeat rate across a 365-day window.

Why does customer LTV increase so much with each additional purchase?

Customer LTV increases because purchase frequency — not higher spending per order — drives cumulative value, and because the conversion funnel accelerates after each purchase. AOV actually drops 46% from first to fifth order, but cumulative spending grows with each additional purchase. Customers who buy twice have a 38.8% chance of buying a third time, and that rate increases to 50.9% and 58.9% for subsequent purchases. Each purchase makes the next one more likely.

What's the most important purchase for customer retention?

The second purchase. It has the lowest conversion rate in the entire funnel — 21.2% — but it's the gate to the accelerating funnel beyond it. A customer who makes a second purchase has nearly double the chance of buying a third time (38.8%) compared to a first-time buyer's chance of buying a second time (21.2%). The second purchase is where habit begins and where the compounding LTV curve starts.

How much more is a repeat customer worth than a one-time buyer?

Our DTC LTV benchmarks show a repeat customer who reaches five or more purchases is worth 7.3x a one-time buyer — $1,553.78 vs. $211.57. The range across verticals is 1x to 22x. Low-AOV, high-frequency brands see the highest multipliers — the customers who come back generate dramatically more value relative to their first purchase.

Methodology: How We Calculated LTV by Purchase Count Across 162K Customers

• Data window: 720-day observation period, 162,112 customers across 13 DTC brands
• Brands are identified by vertical only, never by name. Brands are categorized by their primary product vertical. These labels are approximate — some brands span multiple categories
• Verticals covered: Agave Spirits, Functional Beverage, Non-Alcoholic Spirits, BBQ & Grilling, Creative Supplies, Wholesale Food, Decorating Supplies, Luxury Apparel, Workwear, Fine Jewelry, Luxury Home, Home Decor, Health & Wellness
• LTV = total revenue from all orders placed by a customer within the observation window
• Purchase count segments group customers by total orders placed (1, 2, 3, 4, 5+)
• Conversion funnel measures the percentage of customers at each purchase count who went on to make at least one additional purchase
• AOV by order number is the average revenue per order at each sequential order position
• LTV multiplier = 5+ purchase LTV / 1 purchase LTV for each brand
• Aggregate numbers are weighted by customer count
• Revenue modeling in the "moving the needle" section assumes downstream conversion rates remain constant as volume increases — this is directional, not predictive
• This report will be updated as we accumulate more data across additional brands and longer time windows