My notes tell me (God knows where I got them from) - Payback is useful for capital projects - e.g., A farmer wants to buy a tractor and thinks it will have a useful lifespan of 4 years. I did a payback on my PC before I bought it (I estimated a pound a day in revenue) and made my decision on a model which would pay for itself after 4 years - alas I find that its obsolete after 2!!!