Free · Startup calculator

CAC Calculator

Work out what it really costs to win one customer. Enter your spend and how many customers it bought.

Free·No signup·Runs in your browser

Calculated

$500

Customer acquisition cost

Marketing spend $30,000 · Sales spend $20,000

Price
Free
Inputs
3
Account needed
No
Last updated
20 September 2026

Use the cac calculator

This free calculator runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, and no account or email is required. Enter:

  • Marketing spend — Ads, content, tools, agencies — everything in the period.
  • Sales spend — Salaries, commission and sales tooling. Zero if self-serve.
  • New customers won — Paying customers added in the same period.

How it works

  1. 1

    Enter your numbers

    Fill in marketing spend, sales spend and new customers won. Nothing is sent anywhere — the maths runs in your browser.

  2. 2

    Press calculate cac

    One button. Change any input afterwards and the answer updates as you type.

  3. 3

    Read the result

    You get customer acquisition cost, plus total acquisition spend, new customers.

How CAC is calculated

Customer acquisition cost is everything you spent to acquire customers, divided by the number of customers you acquired in that period. Spend $50,000 across marketing and sales in a quarter and add 100 customers, and your CAC is $500.

The formula is simple. Deciding what belongs in the numerator is where most founders get it wrong.

More on cac

What to include in the spend

Include the fully loaded cost of acquisition, not just the ad bill. If a number exists because you are trying to win customers, it belongs here.

  • Paid advertising, sponsorships and affiliate payouts.
  • Salaries for marketing and sales staff, including commission.
  • Content, design and agency or contractor costs.
  • Marketing and sales software — CRM, automation, analytics.
  • Exclude customer success and support: that is retention, not acquisition.
Blended CAC vs paid CAC

This calculator gives blended CAC: total spend divided by all new customers, including the ones who arrived organically. It is the honest number for how efficiently the business converts money into customers.

Paid CAC divides paid spend by customers who came from paid channels only, and it is almost always higher. Blended CAC flatters you when organic is strong, and it will quietly rise as you scale paid spend and the organic share shrinks. Track both, because a blended number that looks stable can hide paid economics getting worse every month.

What a good CAC looks like

CAC means nothing on its own. A $5,000 CAC is excellent for enterprise software and fatal for a $10-a-month consumer app. The number only becomes useful next to lifetime value and payback period.

The standard benchmarks are an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1 and CAC payback inside 12 months for SMB or 18 months for enterprise. If payback is longer than that, growth consumes cash faster than it returns it, and every new customer makes your runway shorter before it makes it longer.

Accuracy and limitations

  • This is blended CAC. It counts organic customers alongside paid ones, so it flatters you while organic is strong and rises as you scale paid spend.
  • Acquisition and conversion rarely happen in the same month. A long sales cycle puts spend and customers in different periods, which distorts any single-period figure.
  • CAC means nothing without lifetime value. A high number is fine if customers are worth more; a low one is not enough on its own.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate customer acquisition cost?
Add all sales and marketing spend for a period, then divide by the number of new customers acquired in that same period. $50,000 of spend that produced 100 customers gives a CAC of $500.
What is a good CAC for a SaaS company?
There is no universal figure — it depends entirely on what a customer is worth. The usable benchmark is the ratio: aim for lifetime value at least three times CAC, and recover the cost within 12 months for SMB or 18 months for enterprise.
Should salaries be included in CAC?
Yes. Marketing and sales salaries, including commission, are part of the cost of acquiring customers. Excluding them produces a number that looks good and cannot be acted on. Customer success and support belong to retention instead.
What is the difference between blended CAC and paid CAC?
Blended CAC divides total spend by all new customers including organic ones. Paid CAC counts only paid spend and the customers it produced. Paid CAC is normally higher, and the gap widens as you scale spend.
Is this CAC calculator free?
Yes — completely free, no account or email, and it runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.

More ways to run the numbers.

  • LTV:CAC Calculator Whether a customer earns back what they cost, and how long that takes. CAC on its own cannot tell you either. Open →
  • Churn Rate Calculator How fast customers leave and what that does to average lifetime. Small churn improvements move lifetime value more than price changes do. Open →
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