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CAC Calculator
Customer Acquisition Cost — total spend ÷ new customers, with marketing vs sales breakdown. Use it before scaling any channel.
CAC — formula and benchmarks
To calculate CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) properly you must include ALL acquisition cost — marketing, sales team, tools, allocated overhead. Skipping any of these understates real CAC by 30-60% and leads to over-spending on unprofitable channels.
The formula
CAC = (marketing + sales + tools + overhead) / new customers acquired # Channel-level CAC channel_CAC = channel_spend / channel_customers
What healthy numbers look like
- B2C subscription: $20-200 CAC.
- B2B SaaS (SMB / self-serve): $200-1,000 CAC.
- B2B SaaS (mid-market): $1,000-5,000 CAC.
- B2B SaaS (enterprise): $5,000-50,000+ CAC.
- Marketing / sales split: 60/40 typical for inbound-led SaaS.
Common mistakes the calculator avoids
- Excluding sales team salaries — for sales-led SaaS, sales is 40-60% of true CAC.
- Counting only new logos, not reactivations — inflates CAC unnecessarily.
- Using monthly snapshot — too noisy. Average last 3 months.
- Forgetting tools / software — adds 5-15% to true CAC.
How to use this calculator
Four inputs from finance. Outputs CAC + channel split for spend allocation.
Marketing spend
Last 30 days. Include media + content + agency + tools + share of marketing salaries.
Sales team cost
Salaries + commissions + bonuses, allocated to net-new acquisition (not expansion or retention).
Tools / software
CRM + sales engagement + analytics + martech stack, monthly cost.
New customers acquired
Only paying, only new in the period. Exclude reactivations and expansion.
Read the split
Marketing CAC vs sales CAC reveals where to scale or cut.
Frequently asked questions
CAC = (total sales + marketing + tools + allocated overhead) / new customers acquired in the period. Most teams under-count by excluding sales team cost or tools — which inflates apparent profitability.
CAC = full cost of acquiring a paying customer (includes sales). CPA = ad-channel cost per acquisition (usually just media spend). For self-serve SaaS, CAC ≈ CPA. For sales-led B2B, CAC is often 2-3× CPA.
Under 12 months is excellent. 12-18 months is healthy for B2B SaaS. 18-24 months requires careful cash-flow management. Over 24 months indicates a problem — either pricing or sales motion.
Both. Blended CAC is for board reporting and unit economics. Channel-level CAC is for budget allocation. The calculator shows both — blended in the headline, marketing vs sales split below.
Three common reasons: (1) cheaper audiences saturated first, (2) sales team productivity lower at scale, (3) brand awareness investments not yet paying back. Audit each before assuming it is the channel.
Add it to the tools field if you allocate office, IT, or marketing-leadership overhead to CAC. Some SaaS finance teams include 15-25% overhead allocation; others keep CAC narrower. Pick one convention and document it.
