How Cann's Checkout+ Customers Are Worth 25% More Over

A Beverage Brand That Lives on the Second Case

Cann makes low-dose cannabis drinks, with 2mg of THC and 4mg of CBD in each can, and sells them as what you reach for instead of a beer or a glass of wine. Two Stanford grads started the company in Los Angeles in 2019, and by late 2023 it had sold more than 10 million cans through dispensaries and retail stores. Hemp-derived versions ship straight to customers in most states from drinkcann.com.

A drink is a consumable, so the first order is where a customer relationship starts, and the payoff comes over the orders that follow. Cann spends to acquire a new buyer, and the margin on that buyer arrives over the next several cases. For a brand like this, customer lifetime value is the number that decides whether growth is profitable, and the first order has an outsized say in how high it climbs.

The Challenge: Making the First Case Lead to the Next One

A case of canned drinks is a hard thing to put in the mail. The cans are heavy, they dent, and they leak, and they travel through a carrier network built for t-shirts and phone chargers. Beverages get damaged at several times the rate of soft goods, and a case that shows up crushed is a bad first impression at the exact moment Cann is trying to earn a second order.

The usual fix doesn't help much with that. A bolt-on protection app reships the broken case, charges the brand a SaaS fee for the privilege, and gives the customer no particular reason to buy again. Cann wanted the first delivery made right and a reason for the customer to come back, paid for by something other than its own margin.

The Solution: An Order Upgrade That Covers This Case and Funds the Next

Cann turned on Onward's Checkout+ in December 2024. At checkout, shoppers can add the upgrade for a small premium. That premium covers the order if it's lost, stolen, or damaged, adds CashBack the customer can spend on a later order, and funds Onward's stack, so Cann pays no SaaS fee.

Both halves of the upgrade show up in the numbers. Since launch, Checkout+ has covered claims on more than 4,000 damaged, lost, and stolen orders, none of them paid from Cann's margin. CashBack has driven 3,400 repeat purchases and returned about 6x in revenue for every dollar of credit customers redeemed. Close to three in five new customers add the upgrade to their very first order.

Those are program totals. The question Cann cares about is what happens to a customer over time, which takes a different cut of the data.

Following 130,000 Customers From Their First Order

Onward pulled every first-time Cann customer from January 2025 through October 2026, 130,220 in all, and split them by a single question: did their first order include Checkout+? It then tracked every order each customer placed afterward. Both groups bought the same products from the same store over the same period, and the only line drawn between them is that first-order choice.

Customers who started with Checkout+ have generated 25% more lifetime revenue per customer than customers who started without it.

A blended average can hide a timing problem. Someone who first ordered in March 2025 has had more than a year and a half to reorder, and someone who first ordered in August 2026 has had a few weeks, which is why lifetime revenue for the earliest cohorts runs more than twice that of the newest. So Onward also compared the two groups month by month, matching each Checkout+ customer only against people who placed their first order in the same month. The lift holds in 20 of 21 monthly cohorts. The one exception is January 2025, the first full month of the program, where the two groups came out essentially even. In some months the gap is wide: Checkout+ customers from the September and October 2025 cohorts have each spent more than 50% more than their peers.

The Results: 25% More per Customer, and Most of It Comes After the First Order

Checkout+ customers start a little bigger. Their first order is 20% larger, on average, than the first order of customers who skip the upgrade.

The larger share of the gap comes later. Checkout+ customers bring in 30% more repeat revenue per customer than everyone else, and repeat orders account for nearly two thirds of the difference in lifetime revenue between the two groups.

Only slightly more of them come back: 37% of Checkout+ customers have placed a repeat order, against 35% of the other group. The difference is how much they buy once they return. Among customers who reorder, Checkout+ customers have spent roughly 23% more on repeat orders than returning customers who started without it.

CashBack is the most direct explanation. A customer who adds Checkout+ leaves the first order with credit toward the next one, and CashBack orders at Cann tend to be large, which means cases rather than single cans. A small credit gives people a reason to stock up instead of topping off.

Checkout+ customers also keep choosing the upgrade. 75% of their repeat orders include Checkout+ again, nearly 3x the 27% rate among repeat orders from customers who started without it. Each of those orders is covered against breakage and earns more CashBack, so the cycle that started on the first order keeps running on every reorder.

Put together:

• 130,220 first-time customers tracked from January 2025 through October 2026

• 25% more lifetime revenue per Checkout+ customer

• 30% more repeat revenue per Checkout+ customer

• A 20% larger first order

• 75% of Checkout+ customers' repeat orders include the upgrade again, against 27%

• The lift holds in 20 of 21 monthly cohorts

All of it on one stack, at zero SaaS fees.

Takeaways for Beverage and Consumable Brands

1. Judge the upgrade across the customer's lifetime. Order by order, Checkout+ looks like a small premium and a claims line. Followed across a customer's lifetime, Cann's Checkout+ customers are worth 25% more each, and the gap shows up in nearly every monthly cohort.

2. Repeat spend moves lifetime value more than repeat rate. Checkout+ customers return only slightly more often. They bring in 30% more repeat revenue, which for a consumable brand means more cases per reorder and more margin on every customer Cann already paid to acquire.

3. The first order sets the habit. Three in four repeat orders from Checkout+ customers include it again. Customers who start with coverage and CashBack keep both, which is why the first checkout is the place to offer them.

Book a demo to see how Checkout+ fits the way your brand builds customer lifetime value.