What costs go into customer acquisition cost (CAC)?
Every sales and marketing cost in a period (ads, salaries, commissions, founder time, tools, data, content, events) divided by the new customers won in that period.
The formula is simple: CAC = (total marketing costs + total sales costs) ÷ number of new customers. The common mistake is counting only ad spend. That gives a media-only CAC, which is useful for comparing campaigns but hides most of the real cost, as our guide to calculating CAC in B2B explains.
An illustration: a small agency spends €3,000 on ads in a month, €400 on tools and data, and the founder puts 40 hours into sales calls and proposals, valued at €50 an hour. The month brings six new clients. Media-only CAC is €500. The fully loaded CAC is (€3,000 + €400 + €2,000) ÷ 6 = €900, almost twice as much.
Before you have customers, you can estimate CAC from the funnel: CAC = (cost per click ÷ click-to-lead rate) ÷ lead-to-customer rate. With a €4 click, 5% of visitors becoming leads and 15% of leads buying, that is (4 ÷ 0.05) ÷ 0.15 = €533, a worked example from the true cost of acquiring a new customer.
What to include
- Paid mediaSearch and social ads, sponsored posts, retargeting and any paid placements that bring in new prospects.
- PeopleThe share of salaries, bonuses and commissions spent on winning new customers, including founder or freelancer time at a fair hourly rate.
- Tools and dataCRM, email and calling software, contact data and scheduling tools. For a platform such as Meetcatcher, count the credits spent on calls that took place.
- Content and brandWriting, design, video and website work aimed at attracting new buyers, not at serving existing ones.
- Events and agenciesTickets, booths, travel, and fees for agencies or lead generation services.
Leave out the cost of serving customers you already have, such as account management and support; that belongs to retention. Count every channel the same way, including the time people spend on calls, then compare your result with typical B2B CAC benchmarks.