Customer Acquisition Cost Calculator
To calculate customer acquisition cost (CAC), divide your total marketing and sales spend by the number of new customers acquired in the same period. Example: $50,000 spend ÷ 200 new customers = $250 CAC. Enter your numbers below to get your CAC plus your LTV:CAC ratio and payback period instantly.
Enter your spend and customer count to see your CAC and LTV ratio.
What is CAC and why it matters
Customer Acquisition Cost is the total cost of winning a new customer. It's the single most important metric for understanding whether your growth is sustainable or burning cash.
Formula: CAC = Total Marketing & Sales Spend / New Customers Acquired
To know whether your CAC is healthy, compare it to customer lifetime value with our LTV calculator, and read why scaling paid ad spend without conversion work burns cash.
Key CAC benchmarks
A healthy business has LTV:CAC of 3:1 or higher. Below 1:1 means you're losing money on every customer. Between 1:1 and 3:1 means you're growing but at risk.
How many months until a customer pays back their acquisition cost. Under 12 months is healthy for eCommerce; SaaS companies aim for under 18 months.
Improving your conversion rate directly reduces CAC – you get more customers from the same ad spend. A 20% CVR lift effectively cuts CAC by 17%. Check your current rate with the conversion rate calculator.
CAC too high? Let's fix your funnel.
We help brands reduce CAC by improving conversion rates across the entire funnel – from landing page to checkout.