CAC Calculator
Calculate Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — the average cost to acquire each new paying customer. Pair with LTV for the most-important SaaS health metric.
Inputs
About CAC Calculator
What to include
Marketing: ads, content, events, marketing salaries. Sales: BDR/SDR/AE salaries, commissions, tools, travel. Don’t include support or onboarding costs (those are post-acquisition).
Blended vs paid CAC
Blended divides total by all customers acquired (organic + paid). Paid CAC counts only customers from paid channels. Paid CAC is more honest — organic acquisition isn’t free but isn’t directly attributable to CAC spend.
CAC trends
Higher-priced SaaS (enterprise) has higher CAC. Self-serve products have low CAC ($10-100). Mid-market SaaS: $500-3,000. Enterprise: $10,000+. Pay back in under 18 months ideally; under 12 is excellent.