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CAC Calculator

Calculate blended and paid customer acquisition cost, the LTV:CAC ratio and CAC payback in months from your sales and marketing spend. Free and offline.

$400.00
Blended CAC
$291.67
Paid CAC
$1,620
LTV (gross margin)
4.05 : 1
LTV : CAC
5.9 mo
CAC payback
$80,000
Total sales & marketing
80
Organic customers
$67.50
Gross profit per customer / month

In the 3:1 to 5:1 band that is widely treated as healthy for a subscription business.

A payback under 12 months means acquisition roughly self-funds inside a year.

Blended CAC = (sales + marketing) ÷ all new customers  ·  Paid CAC = paid media ÷ customers from paid  ·  LTV = ARPU × gross margin × lifetime  ·  CAC payback = CAC ÷ (ARPU × gross margin)

Worked example: $80,000 of sales and marketing over 200 new customers is a $400 blended CAC. At $90 ARPU and 75% gross margin each customer returns $67.50 of gross profit a month, so payback lands at 5.9 months and a 24-month lifetime gives an LTV of $1,620 — a 4.05:1 ratio.

Blended CAC divides all sales and marketing by every new customer, including the ones who found you organically, so it is the honest number for board reporting. Paid CAC isolates the channels you can actually turn up or down. Using gross margin rather than raw revenue in LTV is the convention investors expect — 75% margin on $90 of revenue is only $67.50 of real contribution. Every figure is calculated in your browser and nothing is uploaded.

What is the CAC Calculator?

Customer acquisition cost is the first number an investor asks for and the last one most founders can produce on demand.

  • Blended CAC and paid-only CAC side by side
  • LTV based on gross margin, the version investors expect
  • LTV:CAC ratio with plain-English interpretation bands
  • CAC payback in months, plus a note on what that means for cash
  • Seven currencies and an organic-customer count derived automatically
  • Runs entirely offline in your browser — nothing is uploaded

How to use the CAC Calculator

  1. 1

    Pick your currency, then enter sales spend and total marketing spend for the period.

  2. 2

    Add the paid media slice of that spend and how many new customers came from paid channels.

  3. 3

    Enter the total new customers won so the blended CAC has a denominator.

  4. 4

    Fill in ARPU, gross margin and average customer lifetime to unlock LTV, the ratio and payback.

  5. 5

    Read the verdict under the stats — it tells you which band your LTV:CAC ratio falls into.

About the CAC Calculator

Customer acquisition cost is the first number an investor asks for and the last one most founders can produce on demand. This calculator takes your sales spend, your marketing spend and the customers you actually won, then reports both the blended CAC that covers every new customer and the paid-only CAC for the channels you can turn up or down.

It goes a step further than a simple division. Enter your ARPU, gross margin and average customer lifetime and you also get the LTV:CAC ratio investors benchmark against 3:1, plus the CAC payback period in months — the figure that tells you how long your cash is tied up before a customer breaks even.

Everything is calculated in your browser as you type. Your spend figures, customer counts and margins are never uploaded, never stored and never leave your device, so it is safe to use with real numbers from a board pack rather than rounded ones.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good customer acquisition cost?

There is no universal number — CAC only means something next to what a customer is worth. The common benchmark is an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1, meaning each customer returns three times what you paid to win them. A ratio far above 5:1 often signals you could profitably spend more on growth.

What is the difference between blended CAC and paid CAC?

Blended CAC divides all sales and marketing spend by every new customer, including the ones who found you through word of mouth or organic search. Paid CAC divides only your ad spend by only the customers those ads produced. Blended is the honest number for board reporting; paid is the one you use to decide whether to increase budget.

Should salaries be included in CAC?

Yes. A proper CAC includes fully loaded sales and marketing salaries, commissions, tools and agency fees — not just media spend. Leaving out people costs is the most common way CAC gets understated, sometimes by half.

How is CAC payback period calculated?

CAC payback is the acquisition cost divided by the monthly gross profit a customer generates, which is ARPU multiplied by your gross margin. Under 12 months is generally considered healthy for SaaS; beyond 18 months you are funding more than a year of growth out of working capital.

Why does the calculator use gross margin instead of revenue?

Because revenue is not what pays back the acquisition cost — contribution is. A customer paying 100 a month at a 75% gross margin only returns 75 towards their CAC. Using raw revenue overstates LTV by exactly the size of your cost to serve.

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