Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Calculator
Replace the sample values with your own, in one currency and one reporting period. Enter percentages as whole numbers: 2 for 2%. Calculations run in your browser.
Overall CAC = S&M Spend / New Customers | Variable | Meaning |
|---|---|
S&M Spend | Sales and marketing spend. |
New Customers | Number of newly acquired customers. |
Worked example
- S&M Spend
- $50,000
- New Customers
- 100
- → Overall CAC
- $500
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What CAC measures
CAC is customer acquisition cost, the sales and marketing investment required to acquire customers.
Prepare your inputs
- Define the new paying customer event and count distinct accounts, excluding renewals, free registrations, and reactivated customers.
- For Overall CAC, total sales and marketing acquisition spend, including sales and marketing salaries, commissions, advertising, agencies, and tools. Founder salary or time may be excluded; disclose whether you included it and document how shared costs are allocated.
- Divide total sales and marketing spend by all new paying accounts for Overall CAC. For Ad CAC, divide ad spend by new paying accounts acquired from those ads, not by all new accounts. Compare same-period and lagged views when the sales cycle spans several months.
Formula
Overall CAC = S&M Spend / New Customers | Variable | Meaning |
|---|---|
S&M Spend | Sales and marketing spend. |
New Customers | Number of newly acquired customers. |
Check the sample calculation
Worked example
- S&M Spend
- $50,000
- New Customers
- 100
- → Overall CAC
- $500
Before using the result
- A channel CAC needs attributable customers and a stated allocation of shared costs.
- Do not count renewals or reactivated customers as new acquisitions. Separate expansion acquisition economics if you track them.
- If no new customers were acquired, show CAC as undefined and report the spend; a zero result suggests free acquisition.
A dash means the result is undefined for the inputs, such as division by zero. Review the assumptions and input errors before interpreting it.
Read the CAC guide for a business scenario, interpretation, and frequently asked questions.
Check how your team defines CAC before relying on the result.
Sources and methodology
The references below explain the underlying methods. Our worked scenarios use hypothetical figures; they are not company results or current market benchmarks.
- Stripe: CAC in SaaS
Sales and marketing cost scope, new paying customers, and segmentation by acquisition channel.
- Bessemer: Scaling to $100 Million
Gross margin adjusted CAC payback and segment differences; historical research, not a current market benchmark.
Found an error or a definition that differs from your reporting? Send a correction with the page URL and the method you use.