Unit Economics
What one customer or one sale actually earns you after the cost of winning and serving them.
Unit economics zooms in from the whole business to a single "unit" — usually one customer, sometimes one order — and asks a simple question: does this one make money? You add up what it costs to win and serve that customer, then compare it to what they pay you over their lifetime. If the value they bring is comfortably higher than the cost, each new customer strengthens the business.
The two figures at the heart of it are customer acquisition cost (what you spend to land a customer) and lifetime value (what they're worth before they leave). When lifetime value sits well above acquisition cost, growth is worth funding. When the two are too close, scaling up just loses money faster.
Why it matters
If the math on a single customer doesn't work, spending more to get more customers only deepens the hole — unit economics is the check before you scale.