SaaS operators must understand the balance between sales and marketing spend and the acquisition of net new revenue. Enter the SaaS Magic Number. Here are my thoughts on how to use the Magic Number in 2025. Overinvest in sales and marketing relative to your new SaaS ARR bookings and will you not the see the […]
Customer Acquisition Costs
The Foundation of Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
I’ve calculated a lot of SaaS metrics for a lot of SaaS companies. To make SaaS metrics repeatable and accurate, we must follow a sequential process. This is especially relevant for sales and marketing efficiency metrics. CAC, or customer acquisition cost, is by itself not a stand-alone metric. But it feeds all sales and marketing […]
How to Assess Your CAC Profile
When I was a CFO at a private equity (PE) backed company, I was always a little envious of the PE folks. They got so many investment looks at different SaaS companies. And they built their SaaS muscle through the management of their SaaS portfolio companies. That’s changed now that I’m a fractional SaaS CFO. […]
LTV to CAC Ratio of Three | Myth or Legend
Almost everyone in SaaS has heard of the LTV to CAC ratio. And almost everyone has heard that we should target an LTV to CAC ratio of at least three. This was popularized (I believe) by the great content published by David Skok on SaaS metrics. But what does it mean to have an LTV […]
SaaS CAC Ratio | How to Calculate and Why It Matters
The cost of customer acquisition is one of the most analyzed SaaS metrics. But it doesn’t have to be complex or hard to calculate. Enter the SaaS CAC Ratio. Or Cost of ARR as I call it. Slightly different than CAC (customer acquisition costs), the CAC ratio studies the relationship between new and expansion bookings […]
Two Key SaaS Metrics that Predict Your Company’s Potential Size
Two Key SaaS Metrics that Predict Your Company’s Potential Size I remember as a kid when doctors would try to predict your full-grown height based on a few measurements. Well, what if I told you I can do the same thing for your SaaS company but with more accuracy? Give me three numbers, and I […]
The Forgotten Sales Efficiency Metric
Sales Efficiency Metrics – Cents on the Dollar Recently, I was reading a Tom Tunguz article on how to compensate sales teams. In his article, he cites sales efficiency metrics and customer acquisition costs on a dollar basis from the recent Pacific Crest Securities SaaS survey. It is an interesting way to look at CAC. […]
Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) – A Key SaaS Metric
How I Calculate Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) As a CFO of a subscription-based software company, unit economics are very important to understand in this role. At the top of my SaaS metrics lists is Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). With CAC and otther SaaS metrics, I can assess the true health of the business and the […]