What goes into the calculation
The most common mistake is counting only ad spend, which produces an artificially low CAC and bad decisions.
- Ad and campaign spend
- Marketing and sales salaries and commissions
- Tools and software for the sales operation
- Outsourced services tied to acquisition
CAC on its own tells you nothing
A CAC of R$ 3,000 is great if the customer generates R$ 40,000 over the relationship and unsustainable if they generate R$ 4,000. The number only means something relative to customer value and payback time.
That's why it's read together with two other pieces of information: how much the customer is worth over time and how many months it takes for the acquisition cost to pay for itself.
Why so many companies don't know their own CAC
Because calculating it requires knowing the source of every closed customer — and that's exactly where most operations lose track, when the conversation moves to WhatsApp and the source doesn't survive the handoff to the CRM.