CAC, LTV and marketing ROI calculator 2026

How to use the CAC & LTV calculator

Unit economics view: enter your total sales and marketing spend for a period, the paid media part, new customers (total and from paid), monthly revenue per account, gross margin and monthly churn. ROI by channel view: enter spend and attributed pipeline for each channel, the total pipeline created in your CRM and your pipeline-to-won rate.

The formulas

• Blended CAC = total sales & marketing spend / new customers
• Paid CAC = paid media spend / customers from paid
• LTV = ARPA × gross margin / monthly churn
• CAC payback = CAC / (ARPA × gross margin), in months
• Channel ROI = attributed pipeline × win rate / channel spend
• Unattributed pipeline = total pipeline − sum of attributed pipeline

Benchmarks

The usual B2B SaaS references are an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1 and a CAC payback of 12 to 18 months. Beyond 18 months, growth consumes more cash than it returns.

The attribution gap

In most B2B companies, a share of pipeline has no explained source: dark social, word of mouth, events, accounts touched by several channels. Budget decisions are then made on part of the picture. The ROI by channel view puts a number on that gap.

Limits

LTV based on average churn overestimates value when churn is concentrated in the first months. Use a churn rate measured on cohorts when you have one.