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Loaded CAC and payback calculator

Your real cost to win a customer, and how many months it takes to earn it back.

4 questions. Typical defaults fill the rest; your result lists them.

Essentials Start here.

Customers won in the same 12 months as the costs.

Ads, tools, events, agencies and commissions. Not salaries.

Average recurring revenue from one customer.

Share of revenue left after the cost of serving a customer.

Fine-tune Sharpens the answer. Leave a box blank if you are unsure.

Optional. Salaries and benefits of your sellers and marketers.

Optional. Your yearly pay times your share of time.

Optional. Only if not already in your .

Optional. Fully loaded cost of one staff hour.

Advanced Extra measures for experts. All optional.

Months you will wait to earn back the cost. A rule of thumb.

Optional. Share of customers who leave each month.

Optional. Interest or cost of capital used to fund growth.

Private: calculated in your browser, never sent. Any currency works; read $ as yours.

Your result

Example result

Loaded CAC payback

4 months

Loaded CAC

$1,400

Line: your payback ceiling, 12 months (a rule of thumb you can change).

On paid spend alone, each customer pays back in about 4 months.

Example numbers: New customers in the last 12 months 30 · Paid marketing and sales spend, last 12 months $42,000 · Monthly revenue per customer $500 · Gross margin 70%. Typical defaults fill the rest. Type your own numbers above to replace this example.

How this calculator works: the formulas, what the result means and its limits

How the CAC and payback formulas work

Use one period for everything: the last 12 months of spend, pay and new customers.

Standard. CAC = acquisition cost ÷ new customers. Payback (months) = CAC ÷ (monthly revenue per customer × gross margin). Simple LTV = monthly gross profit ÷ monthly churn.

Loaded CAC = (paid spend + sales and marketing team pay + your own time + onboarding) ÷ new customers. Paid-only CAC = paid spend ÷ new customers.

Worked example. 30 new customers. Paid spend 42,000. Your own time 70,000 (200,000 pay × 35% of your time). Onboarding 12 hours × 40 = 480 per customer, or 14,400. No team cost. Loaded CAC = (42,000 + 70,000 + 14,400) ÷ 30 = 4,213 (4,213.33, shown in whole dollars). Paid-only CAC = 42,000 ÷ 30 = 1,400. Each customer pays 500 a month at 70% margin, so 350 of gross profit. Loaded payback = 4,213 ÷ 350 = 12.04 months. Paid-only payback = 1,400 ÷ 350 = 4.0 months. The gap between those two is the cost your dashboard does not show.

Optional extras sit under Advanced. A financing estimate adds loaded CAC × annual rate × (payback ÷ 12) ÷ 2, a one-pass, average-balance approximation. A monthly churn figure adds the share of customers lost before payback, assuming the same share leaves every month, and a gross-margin LTV:CAC ratio.

Which number for which decision

  • Loaded CAC and payback: is this growth model viable, and can your cash wait that long?
  • Paid-only CAC: should I spend the next dollar on this channel?

Rules of thumb in this tool, not standards: the share of your time you count, the financing estimate, your payback ceiling (12 months unless you change it) and the 3:1 LTV:CAC mark. The zone compares payback with your own ceiling: at or under it, within 25% over it, or far over it.

What this calculator does not do

  • It does not split spend by channel or attribute customers to campaigns.
  • It does not model discounts, expansion revenue or seasonality.
  • Gross margin should already include the cost of serving customers. Add onboarding hours only if they are not already in it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the CAC payback period?

It is the number of months of gross profit from one customer needed to earn back what it cost to win them: CAC divided by monthly revenue per customer times gross margin.

What is the difference between paid-only CAC and loaded CAC?

Paid-only CAC counts ad spend, tools, events and commissions. Loaded CAC adds the pay of your sales and marketing team, your own time and onboarding. Loaded CAC answers whether the model is viable. Paid-only CAC answers whether to spend the next dollar.

Why include my own time?

If you sell and onboard customers yourself, that time is a cost even when no invoice shows it. You decide the share of your pay to count, so you control the number. Leave it blank to see paid-only results.

Is 3:1 LTV:CAC a good ratio?

Three to one is a common rule of thumb. It is not a standard and it is not a guarantee. It depends on your margin, churn, growth and how long you can wait for cash back.