What is a typical customer acquisition cost in B2B?
B2B service firms typically spend €150–350 to win a client and B2B SaaS companies €200–600. Funnels that rely only on paid ads often go above €1,000 per customer.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) varies more by business type than by channel. Our guide to calculating CAC in B2B puts SaaS at €200–600 per customer, marketing agencies at €300–800, consulting and IT services at €400–1,200 and B2B e-commerce at €100–250. Location matters too: European CACs average around €150–250, while US companies tend to pay $250–400.
Paid-only SaaS funnels sit higher because few clicks turn into paying users. In a realistic self-serve funnel, about 0.54% of visitors end up paying. At €5.50 per Google Ads click that is roughly €1,020 per customer, and at €9.20 per LinkedIn click about €1,700, as worked through in what it costs to acquire a B2B SaaS customer.
A typical CAC matters less than an affordable one. With a lifetime value (LTV) of €1,800 and a target LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1, your ceiling is around €480 after overhead. A €1,000 CAC is fine if a client brings €10,000 in profit, and a €200 CAC is too high if they buy once for €300. Channels priced per conversation fit under a ceiling more easily than ones priced per click: on Meetcatcher, a declined invitation costs nothing and credits go only on calls that happen.
Typical CAC by channel in Europe
- SEO and contentAround €50–100 per customer. Cheapest over time, but it takes months to build.
- Email outreachAbout €100–200 per customer, depending on how personalised the messages are and how good the data is.
- Google AdsRoughly €120–250 per customer. Scales well, but competitive keywords push it up quickly.
- LinkedIn AdsAbout €200–400 per customer, with precise targeting by role and company. See how LinkedIn Ads compare with Meetcatcher.
- Events and conferencesUsually €250–400 per customer once travel and booth costs are counted. Strong for trust, hard to scale.
Use these ranges as a sanity check, then calculate your own CAC and compare it with your LTV. In many B2B funnels the most expensive step is the first meeting, which can easily exceed €150–250 through traditional channels, so that is usually where a lower CAC is won.