Marketing economics · CAC and LTV

Customer Acquisition Cost Calculator

Measure what it costs to acquire each new customer and compare that cost with estimated lifetime gross profit.

Acquisition inputs

Currency Marketing spend Sales team costs Other acquisition costs New customers acquired Campaign period (months) Monthly gross profit per customer Average customer lifetime (months)

Use costs and new customers from the same period. Your entries stay in this browser.

Acquisition economics

Total acquisition spend —

Customer acquisition cost —

Customers acquired per month —

Estimated customer LTV —

LTV to CAC ratio —

CAC payback period —

Estimated cohort value —

CAC as share of LTV —

How CAC and LTV are estimated

CAC equals total acquisition spend ÷ new customers acquired. Include campaign spend, acquisition-related sales payroll, tools, agency costs and other costs for the same period.

This calculator estimates LTV as monthly gross profit per customer multiplied by average lifetime. The LTV:CAC ratio compares that value with acquisition cost; payback shows how many months of gross profit are needed to recover CAC.

Worked CAC example

If a business spends $6,000 on ads, $2,000 on acquisition-focused payroll and $1,000 on tools and agency support, total acquisition spend is $9,000. Acquiring 45 new customers produces a CAC of $200 per customer. Compare that figure with gross profit—not revenue—from the same customer cohort.

Costs that are often missed

Include channel fees, creative production, commissions, sales software and the share of payroll used to win new customers. Do not mix customer-support or retention costs into CAC unless the same team and expense directly contributed to acquisition.

How to compare channels fairly

Use the same attribution window and customer definition for every channel. Separate paid search, affiliates, events and outbound sales when possible. A channel with a higher CAC may still be valuable if its customers retain longer or buy higher-margin products.

Customer cohorts, churn and margins change over time. Use consistent cohort data and treat the result as a planning estimate rather than financial advice.