CAC Calculator Calculator
A free Customer Acquisition Cost calculator for online stores — enter your spend and new customers to get CAC, CAC-to-AOV ratio, and payback period, with benchmarks to interpret the result.
CAC Calculator
A tool that computes Customer Acquisition Cost by dividing acquisition spend by the number of new customers acquired in the same period.
A CAC calculator turns two numbers — what you spent to acquire customers and how many new customers that spend produced — into a single per-customer cost. The figure tells you whether your paid mix is sustainable, which channels are pulling their weight, and how quickly each new buyer pays back the cost of acquiring them.
The calculator below also derives two figures most teams care about more than raw CAC: the CAC-to-AOV ratio (how much of a first order is eaten by acquisition cost) and payback period in months (how long until a customer turns profitable at your gross margin). Use it per channel, per campaign, or blended across the store.
Customer Acquisition Cost calculator
Acquisition spend (period)
$
Total paid media + agency fees + tooling attributed to acquisition in the period.
New customers acquired
Distinct first-time buyers in the same period as the spend above.
Average order value
$
Average value of a first order. For payback, gross margin is applied below.
Gross margin
%
Product margin after COGS, shipping, payment fees. Used to compute payback.
Customer Acquisition Cost
$50.00
CAC ÷ AOV
62.5%
Payback period (at one order/month)
1 month
Use per channel for the truest picture: blended CAC hides the fact that brand search and email are subsidising paid social. Match the spend period to the customer-counting period — comparing September spend to October cohorts inflates or deflates CAC by whatever growth rate sits between them.
Two judgement calls determine whether the number above is useful. First, what counts as acquisition spend — paid media is obvious, but agency retainers, creative production, and attribution tooling all belong in the numerator if you want a defensible figure. Second, what counts as a new customer — a returning buyer who lapsed for 18 months is a reactivation, not an acquisition, and folding them in flatters CAC.
The formula behind the calculator
CAC = Total acquisition spend ÷ New customers acquired
Spend
Total acquisition spend
Paid media, agency fees, creative production, and acquisition tooling for the period.
New
New customers acquired
Distinct first-time buyers in the same period as the spend.
CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost
Average cost to acquire one new customer.
A beauty store runs Meta and Google in Q3, spending €60,000 on media and €15,000 on a creative-and-management retainer. The store gets 1,250 first-time buyers that quarter.
Media spend: €60,000
Agency + creative: €15,000
New customers: 1,250
→ CAC = €75,000 ÷ 1,250 = €60
If AOV is €45, this channel mix is loss-making on the first order — the brand needs at least a second purchase inside the payback window to be profitable.
The math is trivial; the diligence is in what you include. Most stores understate CAC by 20-40% because they only count platform ad spend and forget the people-and-tools layer sitting on top of it.
What's a good CAC?
Typical first-order CAC ranges by vertical and AOV tier (online retail)
| Vertical | AOV tier | Paid CAC range | CAC ÷ AOV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & accessories | €40-€80 AOV | €25-€55 | 40-70% |
| Beauty & personal care | €30-€60 AOV | €20-€45 | 50-80% |
| Home & lifestyle | €80-€200 AOV | €45-€95 | 30-55% |
| Consumer electronics | €150-€400 AOV | €60-€140 | 20-40% |
| Food & beverage (DTC) | €25-€50 AOV | €30-€60 | 100-150% |
| Supplements & wellness | €40-€90 AOV | €35-€70 | 55-90% |
Subscription-led categories like food and supplements routinely run first-order CAC above AOV — the model only works because LTV across 6-18 months of reorders is multiples of CAC. If you're not subscription-led, target CAC under 50% of AOV on paid channels; above 70% you're depending on retention you haven't earned yet.
Reading the result
Three follow-up cuts make CAC actionable. Split it by channel — blended CAC almost always hides one channel doing the heavy lifting. Track it over time at weekly granularity, because creative fatigue shows up as CAC drift before it shows up in ROAS. And pair it with LTV at 12 months: CAC alone tells you cost, not whether the cost is worth paying.
Blended CAC vs paid CAC — pick the right one
Blended CAC (total spend ÷ all new customers, including organic and referral) is the right number for a board deck. Paid CAC (paid spend ÷ paid-attributed new customers) is the right number for budget decisions. Mixing them — comparing this month's blended CAC to last quarter's paid CAC — is one of the most common reporting mistakes, and it usually makes paid look better than it is.
CAC calculator — frequently asked questions
Paid media spend, agency or freelancer fees tied to acquisition, creative production for ads, and any tooling whose primary job is acquisition (attribution platforms, paid-social management tools). Exclude retention tooling, customer service, and fulfilment — those serve existing customers.
Both, for different decisions. Blended CAC (all spend ÷ all new customers) shows whether the business as a whole is economically viable. Paid CAC (paid spend ÷ paid-attributed customers) is what you use to decide whether to scale a channel. Never mix the two in a single comparison.
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) usually refers to the cost of a single conversion event inside an ad platform — often a purchase, sometimes a lead. CAC is the all-in, business-level cost of acquiring a paying customer, including costs no ad platform sees (agency fees, creative, tooling). CAC is always equal to or higher than CPA.
The classic target is LTV ≥ 3× CAC over the customer's first 12-24 months. Below 3× and growth is fragile; above 5× and you're probably under-investing in acquisition. The right ratio depends on payback period and how much working capital you have to fund the gap.
Export new-customer counts from Shopify by first-order source (UTM or referrer), then divide each channel's spend by its attributed new customers. Last-click attribution understates upper-funnel channels — a data-driven or position-based model gives a fairer split, especially for Meta vs Google.
Usual culprits, in order: creative fatigue on the top-performing ad set, an auction-price increase (Q4, competitor launch), a tracking break (iOS 17, consent-mode misconfig undercounting conversions), or a landing-page conversion-rate drop. Check conversion rate before assuming the channel got more expensive.
Yes, if the discount is conditional on first purchase. A €10-off welcome code that 80% of new customers redeem is effectively €8 per acquisition — that belongs in the numerator. Site-wide promotions that returning customers also use are a margin question, not a CAC question.
Weekly for active paid channels (creative fatigue moves faster than monthly reporting catches), monthly for blended CAC at the business level, and quarterly for the CAC-to-LTV ratio once you have enough cohort data to trust the LTV figure.
Under 3 months is excellent and rare. 3-6 months is the typical healthy band for online retail with strong repeat purchase. 6-12 months works if you have working capital and high LTV confidence. Above 12 months and you're financing growth — fine if intentional, dangerous if accidental.
Not directly — the inputs are paid spend and the customers it produced. To get blended CAC, set 'Acquisition spend' to total spend (including the fully-loaded cost of SEO and content) and 'New customers' to all first-time buyers. For pure paid CAC, enter only paid-channel spend and paid-attributed customers.
Track CAC, channels, and funnel conversion in one place
Metricuno connects ad spend, funnel events, and revenue so you can see CAC by channel, cohort, and campaign — without stitching together five tools.