Finance & Strategy
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The true cost of acquiring one new customer.
Calculate fully-loaded CAC including marketing spend, sales team cost, and tooling — split into blended CAC and paid CAC. The benchmark for scaling acquisition.
Inputs
Adjust to model your scenario
$80,000
$
$120,000
$
Salaries, commissions, tooling — anyone involved in winning a customer.
60
30%
%
Used to calculate paid CAC.
Blended CAC
$3,333
Paid CAC
$4,762
Total acquisition cost
$200,000
Formula
CAC = (Marketing + Sales spend) ÷ New customers acquired
Benchmarks
< 33% of LTVHealthy — invest more
33–50% of LTVBalanced
> 50% of LTVTight — improve LTV or efficiency
FAQ
How operators use this calculator.
For early-stage companies, yes — at a market salary equivalent. Otherwise you understate true CAC.
Related tools
Tools operators run alongside this one.
Finance & Strategy
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
The total revenue a customer is worth.
Open calculator
Finance & Strategy
LTV:CAC Ratio
The single most important unit-economics metric.
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Finance & Strategy
CAC Payback Period
How fast you recover what you spent to win a customer.
Open calculator
Marketing & Demand
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
What it cost to acquire one customer.
Open calculator
Need more than the math?
Get the SAZ team running this for your business.
Email info@Sedighi.ca or call (604) 632-4959. A senior partner responds within one business day.
Responding to inquiries within 1 business day