Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Calculator
CAC is what you spend to win one paying customer. Most early founders only count the cash and get a number that looks fine. Enter each channel's spend, the hours you put in and its funnel, and you get two numbers side by side: cash only, and fully loaded with your time.
New customers / month
26
29.4% from direct channels
Blended CAC, cash only
$63
$1,600 spent / month
Blended CAC, fully loaded
$133
$3,400 cash plus time / month
Why your time counts. Early on, most customers come from hours, not ad spend: calls, posts, events, follow-ups. A channel that looks free on a cash basis can be your most expensive once those hours are priced in, and the hours stop being free the day you hire someone to do them. The fully loaded number is the one to plan with.
How to read this
Each channel runs the same funnel. People reached times the share who become leads gives you leads; leads times your close rate gives you customers. Cash CAC is the channel's monthly spend divided by those customers. Fully loaded CAC adds the hours you spend on the channel, priced at what an hour of your time is worth.
Direct channels are ones where you sell to the customer yourself: outreach, calls, events, your own site. Indirect channels put someone in between: a marketplace, a reseller, a referral partner, ads on another platform. Direct usually costs more hours per customer and indirect usually costs more cash, which is why counting time is the only fair way to compare them.
Blended CAC is total cost across every channel divided by total customers. It is useful for the overall plan, but it can hide a channel that is losing money behind one that is doing well. Look at the per-channel numbers before deciding where the next dollar or hour goes.
Common questions
- What is a good customer acquisition cost?
- There is no good CAC on its own. It only means something next to what a customer is worth. A common rule of thumb is that lifetime gross profit should be at least three times CAC, and that you should earn CAC back within about a year. The LTV to CAC calculator checks both.
- Why should I count my own time if I am not paying myself?
- Because the time is not free, it is just unbilled. Every hour on one channel is an hour not spent on another, and the day you hire someone to run that channel the hours turn into a real invoice. A channel that only works because the founder works it for free is not a channel you can grow.
- What should I use for the value of an hour?
- Use what you would have to pay someone else to do the work, or what you would earn billing that hour to a client. Either is defensible. Zero is not.
- Where do I get the lead and close rates if I have not started yet?
- Run a small test first: send 30 messages, book the calls, and count what happens. A rate from 30 real attempts beats any industry average, because it is your offer to your customers.
Do this for your own business
The Founder Workbook inside PushStartGo builds this from your own customer interviews and your own numbers, keeps it with the rest of your plan, and checks it for the vague phrases and made-up figures that sink most plans. Customer discovery, value proposition, and prototype testing are free with no card. Go-to-market, profit model, and pitch prep are part of Pro.
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