Calculate Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

How This Solves It

Build CAC tracking directly in HubSpot so you see acquisition costs automatically for each deal, campaign, or time period. Track what you're spending, connect it to closed deals, and get real-time visibility on whether your acquisition strategy actually makes sense.

What You'll Need

Hub: Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise (for campaign tracking and custom reporting) + Sales Hub Professional or Enterprise (for deal properties)

Other bits:

• Deal pipeline set up properly
• Campaigns or UTM tracking configured
• Custom properties (we'll create these)
• Some way to track your actual costs (ad spend, salaries, tools)

The Model

CAC has two components:

1️⃣ Variable Marketing Cost

Ad spend, campaign costs, agency fees
→ Managed in Campaigns + Attribution Reports

2️⃣ Fixed Sales & Marketing Burn

Salaries, tools, retainers
→ Allocated across Closed Won deals

We track them separately.
We combine them in reporting.
We avoid distorting attribution logic.

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Step 1 — Track Variable Marketing Cost Correctly

Use Campaigns Properly

Go to:

For every campaign:

• Enter total cost (ads + production + agency)

• Associate all relevant assets:

  • Ads

  • Emails

  • Landing pages

  • Workflows

• Ensure deals are being attributed

Now enable:

Create a Revenue Attribution Report:

• Model: Linear (recommended for CAC)

• Filter: Deal Stage = Closed Won

• Include Campaign Cost

This report now shows:

• Cost per Deal

• Cost per Revenue

• Multi-touch weighted attribution

This handles the variable side of CAC natively.

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Step 2 — Create Fixed Cost Allocation Structure

You must allocate monthly burn across closed deals.

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Create Deal Property

Allocated Fixed Cost

• Object: Deal

• Type: Currency

This will store each deal’s share of monthly burn.

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Decide Monthly Burn

Each month calculate:

Divide by: 

Example:

£120,000 burn ÷ 30 deals = £4,000 per deal

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Step 3 — Automate Fixed Cost Assignment

Create a Deal-Based Workflow.

Enrollment Trigger:

Action:

Set value: 

Update this number monthly.

That’s it.

Every Closed Won deal now carries its share of fixed CAC.

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Step 4 — Create CAC Payback Period

Create a calculated Deal property:

CAC Payback Period (Months)

For SaaS:

Now you can filter deals where: 

Instant visibility into inefficient acquisition.

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Step 5 — Build the CAC Dashboard

Create a Dashboard: 

Name it:

Enterprise CAC Command Centre

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Report 1 — Blended CAC (Monthly)

Custom Report Builder:

Data Source:
Deals

Metric:

Divided by:

Grouped by:
Close Date (Monthly)

This is your true blended CAC.

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Report 2 — CAC by Channel

Use Revenue Attribution Report:

Model:
Linear

Metric:
Cost per Deal

Breakdown:
Original Source / Campaign

This reveals which channels are efficient vs expensive.

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Report 3 — CAC by Segment

Create Deal report:

Filter:
Closed Won

Metric:
Average Allocated Fixed Cost

Breakdown by:

• Industry

• Product line

• Deal size tier

• Region

Enterprise deals will usually show higher CAC but better LTV.

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Report 4 — CAC Payback Risk

Deals report:

Filter:

Shows which customers take too long to recover the acquisition cost.

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Operating Rhythm

Monthly:

1. Calculate total Sales + Marketing burn

2. Divide by expected deals

3. Update workflow value

4. Enter campaign costs

5. Review dashboard

Takes 10 minutes.

Gives board-level visibility.

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What This Unlocks

• Immediate CAC spikes become visible

• Channel inefficiencies surface quickly

• Segment economics become clear

• Budget decisions become data-driven

• Sales sees cost per deal inside CRM

• Finance stops asking for spreadsheets

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Important Best Practices

• Use Linear attribution for balanced CAC

• Review CAC quarterly, not weekly

• Track blended CAC and channel CAC separately

• Compare CAC to LTV (target 3:1 ratio minimum)

• Keep burn calculation consistent month-to-month

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The Result

Every Closed Won deal carries:

• Allocated acquisition cost

• CAC payback period

• Segment-level comparability

Your dashboard shows:

• True blended CAC

• Channel-level CAC

• Segment-level CAC

• Risk exposure

All native.
All real-time.
No external tools.