Cost to acquire one customer.

CAC is total sales and marketing spend divided by the new customers those units brought in over the same period. Include every cost: salaries, tools, ads, commissions, events. Exclude spend on retention or upselling existing customers - that's not acquisition. The number lets you compare marketing efficiency across channels, across quarters, and against competitors.

100,000 marketing plus 50,000 sales = 150,000 total. If that generated 500 new customers, CAC is 300. Whether 300 is good depends entirely on what those customers pay back. A customer with 1,500 LTV gives 5:1 LTV:CAC - healthy. 400 LTV gives 1.3:1 - break-even at best.

Blended CAC hides channel-level truth. Paid ads might cost 500 per customer, SEO 50, referrals 20. Reporting just the 300 blended number makes it impossible to decide where to invest next. Track CAC by channel to spot which deserve more spend and which are saturated.

Quick example

With marketing spend of 100,000 and sales spend of 50,000 (plus new customers acquired of 500), the result is 300.00. Change any figure and watch the output shift — it's often more useful to see the pattern than to memorise the formula.

Which inputs matter most

You enter Marketing Spend, Sales Spend, and New Customers Acquired. Frequency and unit price pull the total in different directions. The biggest surprise for most people is how small recurring amounts compound into large annual figures — that's where this calculation earns its keep.

What's happening under the hood

CAC = (marketing + sales) ÷ new customers. Include salaries, tools, ads. Exclude retention spend. The formula is listed in full below. If the number looks off, you can retrace the calculation by hand — that's the point of showing the working.

What the score tells you

Headline financial numbers — income, savings, debt — each tell part of the story. This calculation stitches several together into a single read you can track over time. The value is in the direction, not the absolute number.

What this doesn't capture

The score is a composite of the inputs you provide. Life context — job security, family obligations, health, housing — doesn't appear in the math but shapes the real picture. Use the number as a prompt, not a verdict.