CAC Payback Period

How long until you recover acquisition costs

From Revenue Architecture

CAC Payback = CAC ÷ (MRR × Gross Margin%)

CAC Payback Period measures how many months it takes to recover the cost of acquiring a customer. According to Revenue Architecture, a payback period under 12 months is healthy for most SaaS businesses. Under 5 months is excellent. The faster the payback, the more efficiently your capital works.

Input Parameters

$

Total cost to acquire one customer

→ Calculate your CAC
$

Average monthly revenue per customer

%

Percentage after direct costs (typically 70-85% for SaaS)

Example Scenarios

Results

Fill in your metrics to calculate payback period