About

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the definitive metric for the financial health of any growing company. It answers a simple but expensive question: "How much do I spend to get one new paying customer?" If your CAC exceeds the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a customer, your business model is fundamentally broken, no matter how fast you are growing.

Many simple calculators mislead users by only asking for "Ad Spend." However, a true CAC calculation must be comprehensive. It includes the salaries of your sales team, the cost of your CRM tools, agency fees, and creative production costs. This tool breaks down these categories (Marketing, Sales, Overhead) to give you a brutally honest look at your acquisition efficiency, helping you decide whether to scale up or optimize down.

Formulas

The comprehensive formula for CAC involves summing all acquisition-related expenses over a specific period and dividing by the number of new customers acquired in that same period.

CAC = Marketing Costs + Sales Costs + OverheadNew Customers Acquired

Marketing Costs: Ad spend, content creation, agency fees.
Sales Costs: Commissions, sales salaries, travel.
Overhead: Software (CRM, Automation), tools, equipment.

Reference Data

Industry	Organic CAC (Avg)	Inorganic/Paid CAC (Avg)	Blended CAC
B2B SaaS	$200 - $500	$1,000 - $3,000+	$800+
E-commerce (High Fashion)	$20 - $40	$50 - $100	$45 - $80
E-commerce (General)	$10 - $20	$20 - $50	$30
Fintech (Consumer)	$20 - $50	$100 - $300	$150
Travel & Hospitality	$5 - $15	$20 - $80	$30
Real Estate	$200	$1,500+	$800
Formula	-	-	Total Cost / New Customers

Frequently Asked Questions

Paid CAC only considers customers acquired through paid channels (Ads) and divides by ad spend. Blended CAC counts ALL new customers (including viral/organic) and divides by total spend. Blended CAC is usually lower and represents the overall health of the business.

The industry gold standard is 3:1. This means a customer's Lifetime Value should be three times the cost to acquire them. A ratio of 1:1 implies you are losing money (after serving costs). A ratio of 5:1 implies you are growing too slowly and should spend more.

Yes. If you have a dedicated sales team or a marketing manager, their time is a cost of acquisition. Excluding salaries gives you a 'Marketing CAC,' which is useful but underestimates the true cost to the company.

Monthly is standard. However, if you are running large ad campaigns, calculating it weekly or per-campaign helps in optimizing ad budgets in real-time.