This number only makes sense divided by the new customers it generated: that gives you the real CAC. Marketing spend without precise return measurement is a black box that may be destroying value.
Add up the month's spend in Meta Ads Manager + Google Ads + any paid influencer or affiliate. If you have several ad accounts, add them all — it's total acquisition spend, not just one channel.
Without proper attribution, budget concentrates in the most visible channels (Meta, Google) even if they are not the most efficient. Real CAC can be 2–5× higher than the "official" CAC reported by the platform.
| Status | Range |
|---|---|
| Healthy | Marketing / Revenue < 20% and LTV:CAC > 3× |
| Alert | Marketing / Revenue 20–35% |
| Critical | Marketing / Revenue > 35% without LTV to justify it |
Calculate CAC by separate channel: Meta Ads, Google, organic, referrals. The most efficient channel is typically 3–5× cheaper. Redirecting 30% of budget from the expensive channel to the cheap one can reduce blended CAC by 40%.
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