Tools · CAC
CAC, with its boundary visible.
A calculator for assigned cost, incremental cost, payback and matched LTV ratios. It keeps the customer event, cost boundary, cohort, acquisition window and counterfactual in the same frame as the number.
What this instrument is built on
The operating definition comes from What is CAC?. The surrounding boundaries are grounded in four held sources:
- Gupta, Lehmann and Stuart (2004): customer value and its retention, margin, acquisition and discounting assumptions.
- Rust, Lemon and Zeithaml (2004): customer equity relative to incremental expenditure.
- Mulhern (1999): explicit inputs and profit concentration across customers.
- Malthouse and Blattberg (2005): forecast horizon and misclassification risk around customer value.
Related CAC routes
The calculator is the workbench object. These articles carry the adjacent reasoning and link back to the definition:
- CAC payback is a cash calendar
- Customer lifetime value is a forecast
- The LTV:CAC ratio hides the timing
- Marketing attribution needs a counterfactual
- A customer P&L needs a cost boundary
No local company result or universal benchmark is produced. Adjacent calculators will be added to this workbench only when their evidence and boundary are ready.