SaaS metrics

What is CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)?

CAC is how much a company spends, on average, to acquire each new customer.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) sums marketing and sales investments in a period and divides by the number of customers acquired. It reveals the efficiency of the acquisition engine.

CAC only makes sense compared to LTV: if you spend more to acquire than the customer generates, the model is unsustainable. That is why the LTV/CAC ratio is watched so closely.

Formula

CAC = (marketing + vendas) ÷ novos clientes

Use it in practice

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Frequently asked questions

What goes into the CAC calculation?
All marketing and sales investment in the period (media, salaries, tools) divided by customers acquired.
Is a high CAC always bad?
No, if LTV is proportionally higher. What matters is the ratio between spend and what each customer generates.