Customer Acquisition Cost Tracker
Tracks customer acquisition cost (CAC) across all channels over time, computing blended and channel-specific CAC with month-over-month trends. Ranks channels by acquisition efficiency so you can shift spend toward the lowest-cost sources.
Marketing - Customer Acquisition Cost Tracker.xlsx
Excel (.xlsx) — No macros — Works in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
What This Spreadsheet Solves
- No single view of blended CAC across all marketing and sales spend
- Cannot identify which channel acquires customers most cheaply
- CAC trends are invisible without time-series tracking
- Difficult to set CAC targets when historical data is fragmented
- No way to compare CAC against customer lifetime value
Who This Is For
- Growth marketers optimizing acquisition spend
- CFOs monitoring customer acquisition efficiency
- Marketing directors reporting CAC to the board
- SaaS founders tracking CAC:LTV ratios
Inputs
- dateMonth
- textChannel Name
- $Channel Spend
- #New Customers Acquired
- $Customer Lifetime Value
Outputs
- CAC per channel per month
- Blended CAC per month
- CAC trend (month-over-month change)
- Channel ranking by CAC efficiency
- CAC:LTV ratio per channel
- Total customers acquired per month
How Calculations Work
CAC per channel is Channel Spend / New Customers. Blended CAC sums all spend and divides by total new customers. Month-over-month trend is the percentage change in blended CAC. The CAC:LTV ratio divides CAC by the LTV input to assess payback health. Channels are ranked by CAC from lowest to highest.
Example Use Case
Scenario: In January, a SaaS company spends $12,000 on Google Ads (40 customers), $8,000 on content marketing (25 customers), and $5,000 on referrals (30 customers). Average LTV is $1,200.
Result: Google Ads CAC: $300, Content CAC: $320, Referral CAC: $167. Blended CAC: $263. Referrals rank #1. CAC:LTV ratios: Google 0.25, Content 0.27, Referral 0.14. All channels are healthy (below 0.33 threshold).
What You Get — 5 Sheets
Technical Details
Frequently Asked Questions
What costs should I include in CAC?
Include all marketing and sales spend required to acquire a customer: ad spend, salaries, tools, commissions, and agency fees.
What is a healthy CAC:LTV ratio?
Generally, CAC should be less than 1/3 of LTV (ratio below 0.33). A ratio above 1.0 means you spend more to acquire a customer than they are worth.
Should I include organic/free channels?
Yes, but their spend may be $0 or only include staff time. This gives you a complete acquisition picture.
How far back should I track CAC?
At least 6-12 months to identify seasonal patterns and trends. Enter as many months as you have data for.
Can I separate new customer CAC from expansion revenue?
Yes. Only enter net-new customers and their associated spend. Expansion revenue and upsell costs should be tracked separately.
Download Customer Acquisition Cost Tracker
Ready to use immediately. Enter your data in the INPUT sheet, see results in OUTPUT.