什么是CAC？完整的客户获取成本指南

客户获取成本（CAC）是企业获取一个新客户所产生的总成本，包括特定时期内的所有营销和销售费用除以新客户数量。

Sales and CRM

More Than Just Ad Spend: What CAC Is

The Customer Acquisition Cost is the total amount of money spent to turn strangers into paying customers. This includes costs for direct marketing, paying the sales team, technology, and a fair share of overhead. A lot of businesses don't know how much they really spend on customer acquisition because they only keep track of their advertising costs, which means they can miss a large share of the real costs; the often-quoted figure of 60–80% could not be traced to a source.

Recent research in the field treats an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 or 4:1 as a healthy benchmark in most industries and warns that below 3:1, acquisition may be unprofitable (Usermaven). It seems easy to use the formula "Total Sales and Marketing Expenses ÷ Number of New Customers Acquired," but to get it right, you need to think carefully about timing, attribution, and including all costs.

The Full CAC Calculation Framework

Add these important cost groups to your calculation:

Marketing costs: All of the money spent on ads, making content, SEO investments, marketing automation tools, and coming up with new creative ideas.

Sales Team Costs: Full pay packages for your whole sales team, including salaries, commissions, benefits, and equipment.

Technology Infrastructure: CRM systems, analytics platforms, marketing automation software, and any other tools that help you get new customers.

Overhead allocation: The cost of office space, administrative work, and executive time spent on acquisition activities.

Trends and benchmarks for CAC in the industry from 2024 to 2025

The way businesses get new customers has changed a lot. First Page Sage did a lot of research on B2B acquisition costs, and its separate SaaS report breaks costs down by customer type. Here is what digital marketers can expect in important areas:

SaaS companies see very different CACs depending on the target market. First Page Sage puts the combined average for B2B SaaS at $239, and its SaaS report shows enterprise-focused companies paying far more than SMB-focused ones (for fintech SaaS, $1,450 per SMB customer versus $14,772 per enterprise customer). The often-quoted $702 average and $250 to $600 SMB range could not be found in these reports, and the Research in growth-onomics page linked here gives no dollar figures, though it notes that long sales cycles push SaaS costs up.

E-commerce businesses have relatively low acquisition costs: First Page Sage lists a combined B2B eCommerce CAC of $86, while the often-quoted $274 is its figure for SMB-focused eCommerce SaaS. These companies have to deal with a lot of competition. The Relay42's 2025 analysis link here now redirects to Supermetrics; the underlying claim that CAC has risen by as much as 60% in the last five years comes from SimplicityDX (2022), citing industry estimates.

Financial services shows big differences between simple and complex products. First Page Sage puts the combined B2B financial services CAC at $784. Venturz's industry breakdown estimates bank CAC from about $20 for simple services like checking accounts to upwards of $150 for credit cards or loans, and lists fintech at $1,450, the highest figure in its table; complex rules and high customer lifetime value help explain the gap.

The LTV:CAC Ratio That Shows How Well You Are Doing

A healthy LTV:CAC ratio is generally put at around 3:1. Userpilot's 2025 benchmark study calls 3:1 the sweet spot and notes that as ratios reach 5:1 and 6:1, the focus shifts toward immediate profitability, often at the expense of growth; Usermaven flags ratios consistently above 6:1 as a sign of possible under-investment in growth.

Success Stories of Real-World CAC Optimization

The Referral Revolution at Dropbox

Dropbox had to deal with a harsh reality in 2008: traditional advertising would cost them $233–388 to get customers for a $99 annual product. This was a sure sign of failure. Their solution turned out to be the most studied referral program in marketing history.

Dropbox grew by 3,900% in 15 months by using a double-sided referral program that gave both parties 250MB of extra storage (later increased to 500MB). The program brought in 35% of daily signups, and the user base grew from 100,000 in September 2008 to 4 million in January 2010. As ReferralCandy's research shows, referrals led to a permanent 60% increase in signups, creating a long-term way to get new customers that grew with their product.

Dollar Shave Club's Viral Video Win

Dollar Shave Club did something amazing with only $4,500 spent on a funny launch video: they got a lot of people to know about their brand and buy their products for very little money. The viral video drew 4.75 million views in its first three months and has since passed 26 million, crashed the company's server with traffic, and brought in some 12,000 sign-ups in the first 48 hours (Entrepreneur, 2012).

Their success came from marketing that focused on entertainment and a subscription model that got rid of traditional retail markups. HeadsUp Marketing's case study shows how they kept things going by giving customers a great experience, using branded packaging, and making new content all the time that reinforced their funny brand voice.

Warby Parker's Breakthrough: Try Before You Buy

Traditional eyewear retailers often marked up frames 10 to 20 times their production cost, creating an opportunity Warby Parker seized brilliantly. Their Home Try-On program let customers try on five frames for free for five days. The often-quoted figures of a CAC of $55 and an average revenue per customer of $218 only partly hold up: Theta CLV's analysis of the 2021 S-1 estimates CAC at about $55 in 2020 (the company disclosed $40), while average order value was $184; $218 is not on that page. Warby Parker has since discontinued Home Try-On.

According to CB Insights data cited by OptiMonk, shoppers who shared their Home Try-On experience on social media were 50% more likely to buy by the end of the process, and the #WarbyHomeTryOn hashtag created a lot of social proof; Marketing Maverick's in-depth study covers the program but not this figure. By removing the risk of buying and adding styling help, they turned a considered purchase into a fun experience.

Expert Tips for Lowering Your CAC

Making decisions based on data to improve channels

To begin, check the real performance of each acquisition channel. Brian Balfour's research says that for internal operations and decision-making, "average CAC is almost always useless" because it hides important information. Segment your customers, channels, and campaigns rigorously to find the ones that bring in the most money.

Always focus on channels that make money, even if that means giving up on well-known but unprofitable strategies. When all costs are taken into account, many marketers find that their "best" channels actually lose money.

Conversion Rate Optimization That Makes a Difference

Small changes add up to big results. If you can raise your conversion rate from 2% to 3%, your CAC will go down by 33%. But most businesses don't do systematic testing, which means they're losing money on every page of their funnel. Do A/B testing on landing pages, checkout processes, and calls to action all the time.

Use Your Current Customers to Grow Your Business Fast

According to research from the Harvard Business Review, getting a new customer is five to twenty-five times more expensive than keeping an existing one, depending on the study and industry (Amy Gallo, 2014). Smart marketers use referral programs to change this equation, turning customers into ways to get new customers. The key? Make it easy and rewarding for both sides to share.

Five Big Mistakes That Are Ruining Your CAC

1. Not Paying Attention to the Full Cost Picture

A lot of businesses only keep track of how much they spend on advertising, which means they can miss a large share of their real acquisition costs (the often-quoted 60–80% figure could not be traced to a source). Include salaries, overhead, tools, and any other costs that wouldn't happen if you didn't try to get new customers.

2. Taking Away Insights by Averaging

Brian Balfour said that averages hide important information. As an illustration (not Balfour's own example), a $500 average CAC could include social media leads that make money ($50) and trade show leads that lose money ($2,000). Be very strict when you segment by channel, customer type, and campaign.

3. Putting Time Periods Out of Order

B2B companies that sell things every six months often use January customers to figure out January CAC, even though those customers came from marketing spending in July. This misalignment sends out false signals that cause terrible choices.

4. Mixing up bookings and revenue

A $10,000 yearly contract doesn't mean you get $10,000 right away. When figuring out the true customer value against acquisition costs, think about payment terms, implementation costs, and the chance of losing a customer.

5. Improving CAC on its own

If the quality of your customers goes down, cutting CAC by 50% doesn't mean anything. To make sure everything is healthy, keep an eye on cohort retention, expansion revenue, referral rates, and acquisition costs.

What People Ask About CAC a Lot

What should I put in my CAC calculation?

Include all costs that are directly related to getting new customers, such as the costs of marketing campaigns, paying the sales team (including benefits and taxes), the costs of the martech stack, creative development, overhead allocation, and even the time executives spend on sales activities. The goal is to get every dollar that wouldn't be spent without trying to get new customers.

How often should I check and calculate CAC?

For quick testing and new channels, monthly calculations are best. Quarterly reviews are good for planning strategy and setting budgets. Annual analysis shows trends that last a long time and changes that happen every year. Don't take weekly measurements that make noise but don't give you any useful information.

What is a "good" CAC for my field?

Instead of looking at industry averages, pay attention to your LTV:CAC ratio. A $1,000 CAC might be great with a $5,000 LTV but bad with a $1,500 LTV. A minimum of 3:1 is good, but 4:1 is a good goal for most businesses.

What does CAC have to do with my payback period?

For subscription businesses, the CAC payback period is the time it takes to make back the money spent on acquiring a customer. Bessemer suggests targeting under 12 months for SMB-focused cloud companies, under 18 months for mid-market and under 24 months for enterprise. To figure it out, divide CAC by (Monthly Recurring Revenue × Gross Margin %). Longer paybacks put a strain on cash flow and raise the risk.

Should I figure out CAC differently for each group of customers?

Yes, of course. It might cost $10,000 to get an enterprise client, but they could be worth $500,000 over their lifetime. SMB customers who cost $500 and have a lifetime value of $2,000 need very different strategies. Segmented CAC analysis stops you from paying for bad channels with good ones.

What is the difference between CAC and CPA?

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) keeps track of any action you want, like signing up for an email list, starting a trial, or asking for a demo. CAC keeps track of paying customers only. CAC tells you if a business is viable, while CPA helps you make each campaign better.

How can I lower CAC without giving up growth?

First, focus on improving your conversion rate. This is usually the best way to make the most of your time and money. Then grow successful referral programs, put money into content marketing strategies for long-term organic growth, and cut channels that aren't working. When you take a systematic approach, growth and efficiency don't have to be at odds with each other.

Related Terms

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) - Total value customer brings over entire relationship including all purchases and referrals
Marketing Automation - Technology automating repetitive marketing tasks that agencies use to scale client campaigns efficiently
Return on Investment (ROI) - Key performance metric agencies use to measure and demonstrate campaign profitability for clients
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) - Systematic process of increasing percentage of visitors who convert into customers

Best Practices from Leaders in Growth

Sean Ellis, who coined the term "growth hacker" in 2010 and was Dropbox's first marketer, argues that you should think beyond just getting new customers. In his view, growth experimentation should run through the whole customer funnel: not only awareness and acquisition, but also activation, retention, revenue and referral.

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"In today's hyper-competitive digital landscape, CAC optimization isn't just about reducing acquisition costs, it's about building sustainable, profitable growth engines that compound over time. The companies that master this balance between efficiency and growth velocity will dominate their markets in the next decade."

Tessar Napitupulu, Founder and CEO of Arfadia

Make your product include acquisition

The best companies make getting new customers a part of their products, not just a marketing job. Dropbox's storage rewards, Uber's ride credits, and Airbnb's travel funds all make users into ways to get new customers. Make your product so that it naturally encourages people to share and refer it.

Accept Radical Segmentation

Andrew Chen from Andreessen Horowitz, now a general partner at the firm, put it this way on the a16z Podcast in 2018: "...you want to understand how much of the acquisition is coming from purely organic (people discovering it, people talking to each other), as opposed to, oftentimes you'll run into the companies that have over 50% of their acquisition coming from paid marketing and that tells you something." The post linked here is a guest essay by Brian Balfour.

Instead of optimizing averages, make separate plans for each group. Your small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers need different methods, channels, and acceptable customer acquisition costs (CACs).

Put your attention on long-term channels

Paid acquisition channels will always get more expensive over time as more people want to use them. Spend money on paid channels, but also on content marketing, SEO, and community building to meet both short-term and long-term growth needs.

Conclusion: Your CAC Optimization roadmap

Customer Acquisition Cost isn't just another number, it's the most important number that tells you if your business model works. With acquisition costs under pressure (a July 2022 SimplicityDX study found e-commerce merchants lost $29 on each new customer, up 222% from $9 in 2013), knowing how to handle CAC is now necessary for survival.

To begin, figure out your real, fully-loaded CAC by adding up all of your costs. Segment over and over again to find hidden information. Check your LTV:CAC ratio once a month and make sure it stays at least 3:1 for long-term growth. Take a page from the referral program of Dropbox and the viral marketing of Dollar Shave Club. They built acquisition into their products instead of adding on expensive marketing later.

Keep in mind that CAC optimization is always going on. Andrew Chen says that every channel gets less effective over time, so you have to keep coming up with new ideas and testing them. It's not the companies with the lowest CAC right now that will do well, it's the ones that have systems in place to keep it low in the future.

Digital marketers who know these rules make themselves very valuable to any business. In a world where getting new customers is the key to survival, the people who can reliably and profitably grow their customer bases while keeping their unit economics healthy are the ones who will succeed.

The way forward is clear: measure everything, divide things up in a smart way, always optimize, and never stop trying new things. It depends on your future customers and your bottom line.