CAC payback

How fast do you recover acquisition cost?

The SaaS efficiency metric every investor asks about. Months to recover CAC from gross profit, plus LTV and LTV:CAC ratio.

Your inputs

CAC (fully loaded)

Annual contract value

Gross margin

Annual gross churn

Payback period

5.1 mo

Best-in-class (< 12 mo)

Monthly gross profit

$1,560

Customer LTV

$156,000

gross-margin LTV

LTV : CAC

19.5×

3× is the benchmark

Formula. Payback = CAC ÷ (ACV × GM / 12). LTV = (ACV × GM) ÷ annual churn. Benchmarks: Bessemer (under 24 mo good, under 12 best-in-class), OpenView (LTV:CAC ≥ 3).