Calculate Your Blended CAC
Your Simple Blended CAC
This is the average cost to acquire one new customer based on your total marketing and sales spend. Compare this to your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) to understand profitability. A common target is an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 or higher.
What is Simple Blended CAC?
Definition
Simple Blended Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) provides a high-level view by averaging your total marketing and sales expenses over the total number of new customers acquired in a specific period.
- Combines all marketing spend (ads, content, tools, etc.).
- Includes all sales spend (salaries, commissions, CRM, etc.).
- Divides the total spend by the number of new customers.
When to Use It
This calculator is ideal for:
- Getting a quick, initial understanding of acquisition cost.
- Small businesses or startups with simpler cost structures.
- Establishing a baseline metric before diving into more granular calculations.
- Regular high-level reporting where channel specifics aren't needed.
While easy to calculate, it doesn't differentiate between acquisition channels or types of spend (e.g., brand vs. direct response).
Calculation Formula
Simple Blended CAC Formula
Test Example:
If over the last quarter, you spent $10,000 on marketing campaigns and $5,000 on sales team costs (salaries, commissions), and you acquired 100 new paying customers during that quarter:
CAC = ($10,000 + $5,000) / 100
CAC = $15,000 / 100 = $150
Your Simple Blended CAC for that quarter is $150.
Frequently Asked Questions
Include all expenses directly related to marketing efforts during the period. Examples: advertising spend (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc.), content creation costs, email marketing tool subscriptions, SEO tool costs, salaries of marketing team members (if not included in sales), agency fees, event marketing costs.
Include all expenses directly related to sales activities. Examples: salaries and commissions for the sales team, CRM software costs, sales tool subscriptions, travel expenses for sales meetings, sales training costs.
For a simple blended calculation, you generally include the full cost. More complex models might allocate portions of salaries based on time spent acquiring new vs. retaining existing customers.
This typically refers to the number of *new* paying customers gained during the specific time period you are measuring (e.g., month, quarter). Be consistent with your definition. Ensure you are not counting returning customers or leads that did not convert.
Simple Blended CAC is the broadest measure. Other models might be more specific:
- Marketing-Only CAC: Only considers marketing spend.
- Sales-Only CAC: Only considers sales spend.
- Paid Acquisition CAC: Only considers spend on paid advertising channels.
- Fully Loaded CAC: Aims to include *all* costs associated with acquisition, potentially including overhead, support during onboarding, etc.
Using multiple models gives a more complete picture.
Need More Granular CAC Insights?
Explore our other specialized calculators to understand acquisition costs by channel, separate marketing and sales impact, or calculate a fully loaded CAC.