CAC Calculator
Calculate customer acquisition cost from total acquisition spend and new customers, with guidance on what to include in that cost.
New customers can be a decimal if your reporting attributes fractional credit across channels.
There's no single universal accounting definition. Some teams use ad spend alone; others include sales team salaries, tools, and content production costs attributable to acquiring customers. Ad spend alone will understate your true CAC if a sales team or other marketing costs also contributed — decide what to include based on what decision you're trying to make, and be consistent when comparing CAC over time.
Calculated entirely in your browser — nothing you enter here is sent to a server.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is your total cost to acquire one new customer — CAC = Acquisition Cost ÷ New Customers. What counts as "acquisition cost" is a decision you make, not a universal accounting rule.
This is a broader, different metric from CPA: CPA typically measures cost per action within a single ad platform, while CAC is meant to capture your true total cost of winning a customer, which may span multiple channels and teams.
Blended vs paid CAC, and payback
CAC = acquisition cost ÷ new customers, for the same period. What you count as cost changes the answer:
- Blended (fully loaded) CAC includes ad spend plus sales and marketing salaries, tools and agencies. $30,000 of ads and $15,000 of team costs for 150 new customers is $45,000 ÷ 150 = $300.
- Paid CAC counts ad spend only: $30,000 ÷ 150 = $200. It flatters the result, so label which one you report.
To see how long a customer takes to repay that cost, divide CAC by the monthly gross profit per customer. At $50 a month and an 80% gross margin, a $300 CAC pays back in 300 ÷ 40 = 7.5 months. TheLTV calculator does this alongside lifetime value, and thechurn calculator gives you the churn rate it needs.
How to use the CAC Calculator
- Add up everything you count as acquisition spend for the period and enter it in "Total acquisition cost ($)".
- Enter the number of customers won in that same period in "New customers acquired".
- Click Calculate to see your CAC and the formula used.
- Click Reset to clear both fields.
Example: A quarter of acquisition spend
A team spends $15,000 in a quarter on ads, tools, and a share of sales salaries and wins 120 new customers. Entering 15000 and 120 and clicking Calculate shows $125 as the Customer Acquisition Cost. Entering 1000 and 3 shows $333.33.
Questions about the CAC Calculator
- How is the result rounded?
- The cost per customer is shown to at most two decimal places, so $1,000 spread across 3 customers displays as $333.33.
- What happens if I enter zero new customers?
- The tool will not calculate and shows "New customers cannot be zero — CAC is undefined without any new customers." Negative cost or customer values are rejected too.
- Should cost and customers cover the same time period?
- Yes. The tool divides the two numbers you give it and has no date range of its own, so mixing a full year of spend with one month of customers gives a misleading CAC.
- How do I compare CAC with what a customer is worth?
- Calculate customer lifetime value separately with the LTV Calculator, then compare the two figures for the same customer group and period.
- Should CAC include salaries?
- For a fully loaded (blended) CAC, yes: include the sales and marketing salaries, tools and agency fees spent on winning customers. Ad-spend-only CAC is useful for comparing campaigns, but always say which version you report.
- What is CAC payback?
- The months a new customer takes to repay their acquisition cost: CAC ÷ monthly gross profit per customer. A $300 CAC with $50 of monthly revenue at an 80% margin pays back in 7.5 months.