B2C, short for business-to-consumer, describes any company selling directly to individual people for their personal use — a food delivery app, a ride-hailing service, or a mobile wallet are all B2C, even if the company behind them also has enterprise or B2B products. The buying decision in B2C is usually made by one person, often quickly and based on price, convenience, or brand trust, rather than the multi-stakeholder approval process common in B2B.

For founders, B2C businesses generally need much larger user numbers to reach meaningful revenue, since individual consumers pay far less per transaction than businesses do. This is why B2C startups tend to obsess over metrics like customer acquisition cost and lifetime value — with millions of potential users but thin margins per user, a small shift in either number can be the difference between a sustainable business and a money-losing one.

A nuance beginners often miss: strong B2C brand recognition does not automatically mean strong B2C unit economics. A consumer app can have millions of downloads and still lose money on every active user if it costs more to acquire and retain them than they ever pay back — which is why growth alone, without healthy retention, is not proof of a working business model.

🇵🇭 Philippine Example

GCash, the Philippines' dominant mobile wallet with over 90 million registered users, is a clear B2C business — individual Filipinos use it directly to send money, pay bills, and save, even though GCash also runs B2B partnerships with merchants and billers behind the scenes.

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