Metrics
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer.
What is customer acquisition cost?
CAC is everything you spend on sales and marketing in a period divided by the number of new customers won in that period. Fully loaded means salaries, tools, data, agency fees, and management time.
CAC = Total sales and marketing cost / New customers acquired
Benchmarks
| Model | Healthy CAC payback |
|---|---|
| B2B SaaS, mid-market | 12 to 18 months |
| B2B SaaS, enterprise | 18 to 24 months |
| Dev agency, retained | Under 6 months |
| Dev agency, project | Under 3 months |
Where outbound sits
Outbound has a higher CAC per customer than referrals and a lower CAC than paid acquisition in most B2B software markets. Its advantage is predictability. You can decide to add pipeline next month, which is not true of referrals or content.
// OUTBOUND CAC EXAMPLE (ONE PROFILE, ONE QUARTER)
spend: 3,600
qualified_conversations: 30-45
opportunities: 8-12
customers: 1-3
cac_range: 1,200 to 3,600 per customer
The mistake most teams make
Counting only the tool and the agency fee. Leaving out internal time makes CAC look two to four times better than it is, which leads to bad channel decisions.
Related reading: Cost Per Meeting and Annual Contract Value.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a good CAC payback period?
- Twelve to eighteen months for mid-market B2B SaaS, and under six months for an agency on a retained model. Longer paybacks demand strong retention to stay viable.
- Is outbound expensive compared to other channels?
- Per customer it usually costs more than referrals and less than paid acquisition in B2B. What you buy is predictability, since you can decide to add pipeline next month.