CAC calculator
CAC is a unit-economics metric, calculated as Sales & marketing spend ÷ new customers. Which costs count; which period they're attributed to.
- Formula
- Sales & marketing spend ÷ new customers
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
CAC = Sales & marketing spend ÷ New customers$
Fully loaded: salaries, commissions, ads, tools.
CAC
$4,000
How it’s worked out
- 1Sales & marketing ÷ new customers$480,000 ÷ 120$4,000
Runs in your browser; nothing you type is sent anywhere. Amounts in US dollars.
How to read it
Customer acquisition cost is the average cost to win one new customer.
On its own it says little; against gross profit per customer — CAC payback and LTV:CAC — it says whether growth pays for itself.
Common mistakes
- Leaving salaries out of the spend.
- Matching spend and new customers from different periods when the sales cycle is long.
Questions
- Blended or paid CAC?
- Blended CAC divides all sales and marketing spend by all new customers. Paid CAC counts only paid channels and the customers they produced.
- What goes into the spend?
- Salaries, commissions, advertising, events, tools and agencies — fully loaded.
Read it with
The metrics read alongside this one, and the terms it is confused with.
- LTV to CAC calculatorLTV:CAC is a unit-economics metric. It has no single agreed formula — state the inputs.Calculator
- Customer lifetime value calculatorLTV is a unit-economics metric, calculated as (ARPA × Gross margin) ÷ Revenue churn rate, both in the same period unit.Calculator
- Magic number calculatorMagic number is a unit-economics metric, calculated as Net new ARR in the quarter ÷ prior-quarter S&M (equivalently (Δ quarterly revenue × 4) ÷ prior-quarter S&M).Calculator
- CACCAC is a unit-economics metric, calculated as Sales & marketing spend ÷ new customers.Term
The formula is the one the glossary states, and the arithmetic is unit-tested. A ratio with nothing to divide by shows a dash — undefined is not zero. General information, not financial advice.