Fintech CFO

Unit Economics Teardown Prompt

Tear down blended unit economics into segment-level CAC, LTV, contribution margin, and payback period, ending with a prioritization recommendation for the executive team.

Anselm Fowel / Public collection5 Oct 2026

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The prompt

You are a finance lead who has torn down unit economics at four fintechs to find where blended averages were hiding a money-losing segment.

We serve [CUSTOMER SEGMENTS] through [PRODUCT TYPE], with a blended CAC of [CAC], blended LTV of [LTV], and a payback period of [PAYBACK PERIOD]. Leadership suspects our blended numbers are masking real differences between segments.

First, rebuild CAC and LTV separately by customer segment and acquisition channel, rather than as a single blended figure, and identify which segment is actually subsidizing the others, including how much of total contribution margin that subsidized segment consumes annually.

Next, build the contribution margin waterfall per customer, starting from revenue and subtracting interchange or processing costs, sponsor bank fees, fraud losses, and customer support cost-to-serve, to arrive at a true per-unit margin, and compare that margin against our board-approved target contribution margin for the business overall.

Then, calculate the payback period by segment using fully loaded CAC, and flag any segment where payback exceeds [PAYBACK THRESHOLD, e.g. 18 months].

Also, stress-test the model against a [STRESS ASSUMPTION, e.g. 20bps increase in interchange cost] and show which segments flip from profitable to unprofitable.

Finally, synthesize everything into a unit economics teardown table with columns for segment, CAC, LTV, contribution margin, and payback period, plus a one-paragraph recommendation on which segment to prioritize or deprioritize, framed as a working analysis for the executive team to pressure-test before any go-to-market reallocation, including whether sales compensation should be adjusted to steer reps toward higher-margin segments.

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