Economics
What is CAC?
Also: Customer acquisition cost
CAC (customer acquisition cost) is the total sales and marketing cost to acquire one customer over a period.
CAC = acquisition spend / new customers
CAC divides everything you spent to win customers by the number of customers won. Whether you count only ad spend or also tools, agency fees, and salaries changes the number, so define it consistently. CAC is only meaningful next to what a customer is worth over time (LTV) and to new-customer CAC, which strips out repeat buyers.
Last reviewed 2026-09-19
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