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Refunds and Honest Lifetime Value
Gross revenue inflates LTV. Here is a practical way to keep refunds visible without drowning in edge cases.
Refunds, chargebacks, and promotional credits change the economics of a cohort. Ignoring them makes acquisition look cheaper than it is.
Decide whether LTV is net of refunds within a fixed window, and document lag. Late refunds after the reporting window should appear as an adjustment note, not a silent rewrite of history.
Finance and product should share one refund rule for analytics. Two rules produce two LTV stories and a weekly reconciliation tax.