An update from DRS · Growth strategy
Acquisition budgets in this market usually get set one of two ways: copy what worked last quarter, or pick a number that feels defensible in a meeting. Neither is math. We built an investment calculator that is, live now.
What it does
The investment calculator sizes an acquisition budget from numbers an operator already tracks, and shows every step of the calculation behind the result, not just a final figure to trust blindly. It offers two methods. The LTV-based CAC ceiling starts from what a user is worth and works backward from a growth target, useful when the question is how big a budget needs to be to hit a specific acquisition number. The payback period method starts from cash flow instead, showing how long each user takes to earn back their acquisition cost and how much cash needs to be funded in the meantime, the version finance and board conversations actually run on.
If we had to recommend one starting point, it’s payback. The reason is specific, not a preference: payback is CAC divided by monthly contribution per user, so retention never enters the formula. Retention is also the input most likely to be wrong in this market, since it moves significantly depending on how an operator defines an active player. A method that doesn’t depend on the least reliable number available is a genuinely more stable place to start.
If you don’t have your own numbers yet
Every field in the calculator comes pre-loaded with a sensible starting point, so you get a real result the first time you open it, not a blank form. The ₱800 default max CAC, for instance, sits inside our own four-operator benchmark, where cost per first-time depositor ranged from $6.44 to roughly $25. Swap in your own numbers the moment you have them, the defaults are there to get you moving, not to replace your own data once it exists.
The calculator is also stage-aware. New entrant, growth stage, and mature stage brands get different guidance from the same raw inputs, because the right read genuinely differs. A new entrant is paying more per user while channels are still being tested, with most early users landing in the lowest value tier. A mature brand often faces rising acquisition costs as its core audience saturates, but recovers spend faster because more of each new cohort reaches a high-value tier quickly. In our own data, blended payback ran roughly fourteen months at a newer operator and about a month and a half at a mature one, the same underlying dynamic showing up as two very different numbers depending entirely on where a brand actually sits, and it’s the reason the calculator asks for a stage before it asks for anything else.
Built for iGaming and fintech both
The math holds across both. For iGaming, the converted user is a first-time depositor and revenue is gaming revenue. For fintech, it’s a first funded account or first transaction, and revenue comes from fees, spread, or interest instead, with the margin assumption adjustable since fintech margins vary more by product than iGaming’s do.
Where regulation actually enters the calculation
The calculator accounts for regulation indirectly, the way it actually shows up in practice: through which channels are legally usable in the first place, which flows directly into what CAC looks like. This isn’t a static picture. Senator Escudero’s SB 2347 and Representative Garcia’s House Bill 10982 both target gambling advertising, but not identically, and which channels stay usable depends on which bill’s language actually survives. On the payment side, BSP’s draft rules targeting layered merchant arrangements and offshore QR Ph workarounds change the compliance picture for payment-adjacent acquisition flows. Revisit your calculator inputs as either of these develops further, since a channel that’s compliant today may not be the channel your CAC is actually built on by the time either rule is finalized.
If you’re choosing between building this in-house or bringing in a partner
The calculator gives you a planning number. Getting from a planning number to a real, source-level measured one is a different exercise, and it’s worth knowing what questions actually separate a partner who can do that from one who can’t, including us.
Figures in the calculator are planning estimates, not financial advice, benchmarked against anonymized Philippine iGaming operator data. If you want these numbers built from your own measured data instead of a benchmark default, that’s the first step of how we start every engagement.