The number of months required to recover the customer acquisition cost through gross profit generated from that customer.
CAC Payback Period = CAC / (Monthly Revenue per Customer × Gross Margin). Example: if CAC is $80 and a customer generates $30/month at 60% gross margin ($18 gross profit/month), payback period is 80/18 = 4.4 months. D2C brands should target payback periods under 6 months for sustainable growth. Subscription models dramatically shorten payback periods compared to one-time purchase models.
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