Customer Acquisition Cost Calculator
What you pay for a customer only means something next to what that customer is worth. This works out blended CAC and paid CAC side by side, then compares both against the break-even your margin supports on the first order and across a year.
INPUTS
Six
RUNS IN
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FORMULA
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Paid CAC flatters. Blended CAC is the number the bank statement agrees with.
- The calculator
What a customer costs, and what one is worth
Six inputs from a single period. Change any of them and every figure updates as you type.
Formula: blended CAC = total marketing cost ÷ new customers. Paid CAC = media spend ÷ paid-attributed new customers. Break-even CAC on the first order is simply your contribution per order; over twelve months it is contribution × orders per customer. Headroom is the twelve-month break-even minus blended CAC, and orders to pay back is blended CAC ÷ contribution. Nothing is sent anywhere — this runs entirely in your browser.
- Reading it
Why the two CAC figures disagree
Paid CAC is the number in the platform. Blended CAC is the number the bank statement agrees with.
Paid CAC divides media spend by the customers the platforms claim. It excludes agency fees, creative and tooling, and it counts customers who would have found you anyway. Blended CAC divides every marketing cost by every new customer, including the ones organic search and word of mouth brought in. The first is useful for steering a channel; the second is what the business actually paid.
The gap between them is worth watching over time rather than in a single month. Widening usually means paid is buying customers organic would have delivered anyway; narrowing usually means paid is genuinely reaching new people. Neither is visible if you only ever look at one of the two.
- Count new customers, not orders — repeat orders are not acquisitions
- Put agency fees and creative in the total, or blended CAC is fiction
- Compare against break-even from your own margin, never a benchmark
- Getting it wrong
Four ways CAC gets understated
Each of these makes acquisition look cheaper than it is, which is the direction that keeps budgets growing.
Dividing by orders instead of customers
A repeat order is not an acquisition. Counting it as one can halve the reported CAC on a store with decent retention, which is precisely the store that needs the number to be right.
Leaving out everything that is not media
Agency retainers, creative production, photography, influencer fees and tooling are all costs of acquiring a customer. Excluding them is the most common reason CAC and the P&L disagree.
Using platform-attributed customers
Every platform claims customers other channels reached first. Paid CAC built on those numbers is always the flattering version.
Judging against twelve-month break-even without the cash
Spending to a twelve-month payback is defensible only if you can fund the gap. The orders-to-payback output is there to make that decision explicit.
Our marketing guide covers where CAC sits among the numbers that decide what a channel can afford.
- Questions
CAC FAQs
The questions this calculator usually raises.
What is the difference between blended CAC and paid CAC?
Blended CAC divides every marketing cost by every new customer, including those acquired organically. Paid CAC divides media spend by the customers the ad platforms claim. Blended is the honest business number; paid is useful for steering a channel. The calculator shows both because the gap between them is itself information.
What is a good CAC?
There is no universal answer and this tool deliberately does not print one. The only benchmark that means anything is your own break-even, which comes out of your contribution per order and your repeat rate. A $60 CAC is excellent on a $90 contribution and ruinous on a $20 one.
Should CAC include agency fees and creative?
Yes, if you want the number to match reality. Anything you would not be spending if you were not acquiring customers belongs in the total. Media-only CAC is a channel metric, not a business one, and the difference between the two is usually large enough to change decisions.
Is CAC the same as cost per acquisition?
Not usually. Cost per acquisition in an ad platform counts conversions, which include repeat buyers and sometimes non-purchase events. CAC counts first-time customers only. Using them interchangeably is the fastest way to understate what you are paying.
Can I spend above my first-order break-even?
Yes, if the repeat rate is real and the cash is there. That is exactly what the twelve-month break-even column is for. The orders-to-payback figure tells you how long the money is tied up, which is a financing question as much as a marketing one.
How does this relate to lifetime value?
Directly. CAC is what you pay; lifetime value is what you get back. The lifetime value calculator works out the other half and prints the LTV to CAC ratio that puts the two together.
- Next
Related tools and reading
CALCULATOR
Works out the contribution per order this calculator asks for, from your price and cost lines.
CALCULATOR
The same margin expressed as the return on ad spend a campaign has to beat.
FREE AUDIT
Five working days across six disciplines, including whether reported CAC reconciles to the accounts.
Blended CAC above break-even?
It is more common than platform reporting suggests, and it is usually invisible until somebody puts the non-media costs in. The free audit reconciles acquisition cost against what the business actually spent.