Business & SaaS

CAC Calculator

What this does

Work out the fully-loaded cost of acquiring a customer by dividing total sales and marketing spend by new customers won.

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Calculator inputs

Ad spend + salaries + tools + agency fees for the period.

How to use it

Using the cac calculator

  1. 01

    Total the spend

    Sum ads, sales salaries and commissions, tools and agency fees for one period.

  2. 02

    Count new customers

    First-time buyers or signed contracts in that same period; existing-customer revenue does not belong here.

  3. 03

    Read CAC

    Pair it with CLV to check whether each customer relationship repays its acquisition cost.

Good to know

The undercounting trap

Teams habitually report “CAC” as ad spend alone, ignoring the salesperson’s salary, the CRM subscription and the founder weeks spent on partnerships. A $150 media-only CAC becomes $400 fully loaded; and suddenly last quarter’s “profitable growth” never was. Load every cost, then judge.

Blended vs paid CAC

  • Blended CAC: all spend ÷ all new customers; reflects reality including organic wins.
  • Paid CAC: paid spend ÷ paid-attributed customers; sharper signal for channel decisions.
  • Payback period: CAC ÷ monthly gross profit per customer tells you when each cohort breaks even.

How it's calculated

The math behind this calculator

CAC = Total sales & marketing spend / New customers acquired

Customer acquisition cost spreads everything you spent winning business; advertising, sales team compensation, commissions, software, agency retainers; evenly across the customers gained in the same period. Blended CAC averages across all channels; dividing spend and customers per channel gives the per-channel versions that reveal where money actually works.

Assumptions & limitations

  • Spend and customers cover the identical time window.
  • Fully-loaded costs including salaries and tooling, not just media spend.
  • Organic customers included in the count will dilute CAC; note them when comparing channels.

Worked example

Spending $24,000 on sales and marketing to win 120 customers means each one cost $200 to acquire.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Should founder sales time count?
Ideally yes, valued at market salary. Excluding it flatters early-stage CAC and breaks comparisons once you hire a real sales team.
What is a good CAC?
There is no absolute number; only relative to lifetime value. The classic benchmark wants LTV ≥ 3× CAC with payback inside 12 months for SaaS.
Does CAC include referrals?
Referral rewards and incentives do; the organic word-of-mouth customers they trigger still land in the blended denominator unless you separate channels.

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