Realized Customer Lifetime Value
The revenue a customer has actually paid — the factual counterpart to projected cLTV.
What is it?
Realized Customer Lifetime Value is the revenue you have actually collected from a customer so far — real charges, net of refunds and lost disputes. It is the factual counterpart to cLTV, which is a projection of what a customer will eventually be worth.
The two answer different questions. cLTV tells you how much you can afford to spend acquiring a customer; realized cLTV tells you how much a cohort has genuinely returned to date. When realized cLTV consistently undershoots your cLTV forecast, either the projection or the retention behind it needs revisiting.
How to calculate?
Sum every successful charge from the customer, subtract refunds and disputes lost, and add back disputes won. It is built from actual payment transactions rather than estimates, so it grows over a customer's tenure as more real revenue lands.
Compare realized cLTV against projected cLTV for the same cohort at the same age. A widening gap is an early sign your lifetime-value assumptions are optimistic.