Calculate customer acquisition cost

Calculate acquisition cost per new customer and the months of gross profit needed to recover that spend.

freeworks offlinenothing uploaded
ToolCustomer Acquisition Cost Calculator
Input
Output
—
Put this on your own site

The frame below runs the same code as this page, in the reader's own browser. Nothing is sent to us, and nothing is sent to you.

Pick a dark background and the text and panels follow it, so the frame stays readable on a dark page.

Preview

How it works

Marketing and sales spend from one measurement window are added and divided by customers won in that same window. Payback then divides CAC by monthly gross profit per customer, using monthly revenue multiplied by the selected gross margin.

Formula
CAC = (marketing spend + sales spend) ÷ customers won
payback months = CAC ÷ monthly gross profit per customer
  • Sales spend defaults to 0 for teams that record the complete acquisition budget under marketing.
  • Gross margin defaults to 100% so a revenue-payback result remains possible when cost of service is unknown.

Worked example

10,000 spend, 50 customers won
Split across marketing and sales, with a 100 average monthly revenue per customer
Input
											Marketing spend: 8000
Sales spend: 2000
Customers won: 50
Average monthly revenue per customer: 100
Output
												Total spend: 10000
Customer acquisition cost: 200
Monthly gross profit per customer: 100
Payback months: 2
Gross margin percent assumed: 100

When to use this

Google Ads attribution reports, SaaS board metrics, and channel experiments for events, affiliates, outbound sales, or paid social compare spend and customers from the same window.

Edge cases

  • A period with 0 customers won has no cost-per-customer denominator, so processing stops.
  • A 0% gross margin produces no monthly gross profit, so payback is undefined and processing stops.
  • A period with 0 total spend and at least one customer reports zero acquisition cost and zero payback months rather than inventing a cost.