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Founders and marketing leaders

What does a customer really cost?

Your CAC once team, tools, agencies, and SDRs are loaded in - next to the paid-only number on the slide.

Your numbers

Starting numbers: A seed-stage business running paid acquisition with a small in-house team and some outside help. Change anything below.

What you hand to the ad platforms each month.

Paying customers won in a typical month, from all sources.

Salaries of the people running acquisition.

Salaries and commission for the people doing outbound.

How much of your new business the ads are actually responsible for.

What you pay outside help to make and run the work.

Software the acquisition team needs to do its job.

What this also assumes (1)

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Share of the cost that is not advertising

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What a customer really costs
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What the ad account says a customer costs
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The difference between the two
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How it's computed

About this calculator

The CAC on the slide is usually media spend divided by paid-attributed customers - the narrowest possible cost over the friendliest possible denominator. The honest number loads in everything you spend to acquire: the marketing team, the tooling, the agency retainers, the SDRs, the content and events budget, and divides by every customer you actually signed. This model computes both side by side and shows the gap - per customer, and as a share of the quoted figure. Often the majority of what a customer really costs never touches an ad platform. Pull the levers to match your own spend and volume, and watch how the blended number moves while the paid-only number stays flattering. Then save the model with your real figures to argue about what belongs in CAC with the chain in front of you, and share it before the next board meeting.

Related calculators

CAC & RunwayStress-test your runway against rising acquisition costs - see how fast the cash goes when each customer costs more to win.Channel PaybackWhat a customer really costs with agency and creative counted in, what they are worth, and how fast the channel pays back.Content PaybackHow many months a piece of content needs to earn back its production cost, and what the programme returns over asset life.Marginal CACThe extra customers a bigger budget really buys after diminishing returns, and what each marginal one costs.Paid Search Break-EvenThe landing page conversion rate paid traffic must hit to pay for itself, and how much headroom your funnel has above it.CAC PaybackMonths of gross profit needed to repay fully loaded CAC, what a customer is worth, and whether the ratio clears the bar.Sales Rep PaybackHow many months until a new sales rep covers their own cost - and what the ramp really costs you.Lead TargetThe monthly lead run rate a revenue target really demands once win rate and conversion are applied, and what it costs.Unit EconomicsLTV against CAC on a live model - see how churn quietly destroys lifetime value and flips unit economics red.

Every number on this page is computed live by the LeverMap engine.