Average CAC for SaaS Businesses, by Industry & Customer Type
Updated November 2022.
One of the key tools SaaS marketers need to judge the success of their organic and paid campaigns is customer acquisition cost (CAC). When you have a benchmark for your industry — ideally one that takes your target audience into account — you have a much better sense of your campaign’s performance. This is calculated through the formula below:
We have built an incredible data set over the last 12 years of performing organic and paid campaigns for SaaS companies. Below you will find a blended CAC for each SaaS industry we have substantive data on, broken down by customer type (B2C, Small B2B, Middle Market B2B, and Enterprise).
Our CACs are blended, meaning they are the average cost of acquiring a customer from both organic and paid sources.* If you would like to see organic and paid CACs broken out individually, you can refer to our average CAC by Industry piece.
*The Paid sources this data derives from are heavy on PPC, but also include retargeting and paid social. The Organic sources this data derives from are heavy on SEO, but also include e-mail marketing & organic social.
Average CAC for SaaS Industries By Customer Type
| SaaS Industry | Consumer | SMB | Middle Market | Enterprise |
| Aviation & Defense | $290 | $509 | $3,570 | $7,990 |
| Automotive | $141 | $378 | $2,655 | $6,419 |
| Building Management & IoT | $206 | $574 | $2,109 | $7,305 |
| Business Services | $228 | $585 | $4,438 | $7,247 |
| Chemical & Pharmaceutical | $275 | $816 | $3,565 | $6,018 |
| Construction | $165 | $610 | $4,419 | $7,920 |
| Design | $274 | $658 | $1,501 | $5,866 |
| eCommerce | $64 | $274 | $1,406 | $2,190 |
| Education | $264 | $806 | $2,814 | $6,659 |
| Entertainment | $178 | $473 | $2,890 | $5,216 |
| Engineering | N/A | $551 | $2,383 | $5,906 |
| Financial | $202 | $1,450 | $4,903 | $14,772 |
| Healthcare | $320 | $921 | $4,326 | $11,021 |
| Hospitality | $355 | $907 | $3,724 | $9,448 |
| Industrial | N/A | $542 | $3,614 | $7,290 |
| Insurance | $519 | $1,280 | $4,446 | $11,228 |
| Legal | $161 | $299 | $2,630 | $6,441 |
| Marketing | $198 | $560 | $2,208 | $8,548 |
| Oil & Gas | $91 | $355 | $3,401 | $7,885 |
| Project Management | $227 | $891 | $2,925 | $7,430 |
| Retail | $76 | $303 | $2,980 | $9,018 |
| Real Estate | $184 | $518 | $3,004 | $8,650 |
| Security | $174 | $805 | $5,287 | $10,221 |
| Staffing & HR | N/A | $410 | $1,912 | $6,754 |
| Telecommunications | $91 | $694 | $5,266 | $10,980 |
| Transportation & Logistics | $175 | $483 | $3,920 | $8,005 |
We hope this data is useful to you. As a lead generation firm with a primary emphasis on B2B SEO, it’s our job to deliver the lowest CACs possible — well below the blended averages you see above. If you’re interested in speaking with us about a campaign, contact us here.
Further Reading
If you’d like to learn more about SaaS customer acquisition, see:
Evan Bailyn is a bestselling author and award-winning speaker on the subjects of SEO and thought leadership. Contact Evan here.
