Revenue & ROI
What's a good Customer Acquisition Cost?
A good Customer Acquisition Cost for a local business is $50.00 or lower. Total cost to acquire one paying customer. An excellent Customer Acquisition Cost — the top tier Karbon Agency grades client campaigns against — is $20.00 or lower, while $100 marks the minimum acceptable tier.
The three tiers Karbon grades against
| Tier | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | $100 | The floor. Below this, something is broken. |
| Recommended | $50.00 | The tier a healthy campaign should hit. |
| Excellent | $20.00 | Top-tier performance worth defending. |
Lower is better for this metric.
How it's calculated
Total Sales & Marketing Spend / New CustomersWhy Customer Acquisition Cost matters
Sets the ceiling on how much you can spend to grow. If CAC exceeds first-purchase revenue, you need strong retention or high LTV to justify the investment.
Where does your Customer Acquisition Cost land?
Karbon Agency grades every client campaign against these exact tiers, live on a dashboard — no guessing, no quarterly PDFs.