Unit economics
CX Cash rolls ad spend, sales and marketing salaries, tooling and overhead into one fully-loaded CAC, then shows it next to the paid-only figure and breaks it out by channel.
Paid-only CAC
$1,420
Fully-loaded CAC
$3,180
▲ +124% 2.2x the paid number
New customers · Q2
412
What goes into one new customer
cost per customer| Channel | Loaded CAC |
|---|---|
| Google Ads | $2,640 |
| LinkedIn Ads | $4,910 |
| Outbound SDR | $5,380 |
| Content / SEO | $1,170 |
| Referral | $610 |
Most teams report CAC as ad spend divided by new customers and call it a day. That number leaves out the sales reps, the marketers, the seat licenses for every tool in the stack, and the slice of overhead that keeps the lights on. So the figure on the deck reads $1,420 while the real cost of winning a customer is closer to $3,180. You learn the gap the hard way, when payback math that looked fine on paper does not survive contact with the bank account.
CAC is built from four inputs, not one: paid media, sales and marketing salaries, the tools those teams run on, and allocated overhead. The stacked view shows exactly how much each layer adds, so the blended number is defensible instead of optimistic.
See the fully-loaded CAC and the paid-only CAC on the same screen, with the multiple between them. When a board asks why the two differ, you have the answer on hand rather than a guess.
Google, LinkedIn, outbound, content, referral: each channel carries its own loaded cost. Referral might land at $610 while outbound runs past $5,000. That spread tells you where the next marketing dollar should go.
Salaries, ad invoices and tool bills come straight from your connected accounting and ad platforms, so the CAC moves when spend moves and you are not maintaining a side spreadsheet that goes stale by Friday.
4 cost layers
ad spend, salaries, tools, overhead
2 views
blended and paid-only, side by side
Per channel
loaded CAC for each source
Link your accounting, payroll and ad platforms. CX Cash pulls ad invoices, sales and marketing salaries, tool subscriptions and the overhead allocation you set.
The four cost layers stack into one fully-loaded CAC, shown beside the paid-only figure and the multiple between them, with new-customer counts already applied.
Break the loaded CAC down per channel and compare, so you can move budget toward the channels that win customers for less.
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It is customer acquisition cost with every acquisition expense counted, not just paid media. That means sales and marketing salaries, the tools those teams use, and a fair share of overhead, all divided by the new customers won in the period. The result is usually well above the paid-only figure most teams quote.
Paid-only CAC divides ad spend by new customers and stops there. Fully-loaded CAC adds the people and tools and overhead behind those ads. CX Cash shows both numbers together so you can see the real gap, which is often two to three times the paid figure.
Salaries and commissions for the sales and marketing teams, ad and media spend, the software seats they run on such as the CRM and ad tooling, and an allocated portion of overhead. You set the overhead allocation once and CX Cash applies it every period.
Yes. CX Cash splits the loaded cost across Google, LinkedIn, outbound, content and referral, so you can compare what each source really costs and shift budget toward the cheaper, higher-quality channels.
It updates as your spend and headcount data lands from the connected accounts, so the CAC on screen reflects this period's invoices and payroll rather than last quarter's snapshot.
