Customer acquisition cost

CAC can be calculated narrowly (ad spend only) or fully (ads plus agency fees, creative costs, tools, influencer payments and first-order discounts). The fuller version gives a truer picture of what a customer really costs. Compare CAC by channel. Paid social, search, influencers and referrals usually have very different costs. For subscriptions, the useful question is how many orders it takes to earn back CAC from gross profit, often called the payback period.