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How to calculate customer acquisition cost

2026-05-19 16:14 · Paid Marketing

Learn the CAC formula, what costs to include, and how to use customer acquisition cost when reviewing paid marketing performance.

Customer acquisition cost, usually shortened to CAC, tells you how much it costs to acquire one new customer.

The CAC formula is:

CAC = total sales and marketing cost / new customers acquired

For example, if you spent $8,000 on marketing and sales activity in a month and acquired 200 new customers, CAC is $40.00. That means each new customer cost $40.00 to acquire during that period.

The important part is keeping the period consistent. If you count one month of cost, count new customers from the same month unless you intentionally use a delayed attribution window.

Costs can include ad spend, creative production, sales tools, landing page software, agency fees, and sales team cost. For a simple ecommerce campaign check, many teams start with paid media spend and then add more cost categories as reporting improves.

The CAC Calculator at /tools/cac-calculator is useful for quick checks. After calculating CAC, compare it with CPC, ROAS, ROI, product margin, and average order value before increasing spend.