Customer Acquisition Cost CAC
The average total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer.
What it is
Customer Acquisition Cost is the total cost of acquiring a new customer, found by dividing sales and marketing expenses over a period by the number of new customers won in that period. It typically includes ad spend, sales-team salaries and commissions, and marketing tooling. It is a non-GAAP operating metric, not a line on the financial statements.
Why it matters
CAC tells you how efficiently a company turns spending into customers, and it is the denominator behind the widely watched LTV/CAC ratio. Rising CAC can signal market saturation, weaker product-market fit, or more competition for the same buyers. It is most useful when paired with how long it takes to earn that cost back (the CAC payback period).
How it's calculated
Divide total sales and marketing spend over a period by the number of new customers acquired in the same period.
How Quintarthai uses it
Sales-and-marketing spend (the numerator behind CAC) is visible in the operating-expense detail on a company's Financials tab, useful for sanity-checking management's stated CAC.