MetricOrganizationApprovedInternal
Customer Acquisition Cost
Also known as CAC
Fully-loaded sales & marketing spend per newly acquired customer.
78
Quality scoreUnit
USD / customer
Aggregation
Ratio
Time grain
Monthly, Quarterly
Definition
CAC divides all sales and marketing costs — including salaries, agency fees, and tooling — by the number of new customers acquired in the same period. It is the primary efficiency metric for go-to-market spend.
Business meaning
Tells us how efficiently we buy growth. Paired with LTV and payback period.
Formula
(sales_spend + marketing_spend) / new_customers
Fully-loaded S&M spend over new customers in the same period.
Example: Q1 S&M $1.85M ÷ 1,000 new customers = $1,850 CAC.
Specification
- Numerator
- Sales + marketing spend (incl. salaries, agency fees, tooling)
- Denominator
- New customers acquired
- Review cadence
- Quarterly
Scope
Inclusions
- Paid media
- SDR & AE salaries
- Agency fees
- Marketing tooling
Exclusions
- Customer success salaries
- Expansion-driven spend
Used in
- Growth Weekly
- Marketing Efficiency
Sources
- Marketing Ops Handbook.docxp.7Efficiency Metrics88% extraction confidence
CAC should include agency fees and fully-loaded S&M salaries.