Also known as: CAC, Cost of Acquisition, Acquisition Cost, Cost Per Acquisition (internal)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total spend required to convert one new depositing client, found by dividing all acquisition costs over a period by the number of funded clients won in that period. It is the partner's true cost side of the ledger.
CAC is broader than ad spend alone. A complete CAC includes media buying, content and SEO production, landing-page and hosting fees, tracking-software subscriptions, creative design, and any commissions paid to sub-affiliates. Counting only the obvious ad cost produces a flattering but false number that hides whether a campaign is really profitable.
Worked example: over a month you spend $3,000 on paid search, $500 on landing-page tools and hosting, and $500 on content, for $4,000 total. That effort produces 10 funded clients. Your CAC is $4,000 / 10 = $400. If the broker pays a $450 CPA per qualified client, your gross margin is only $50 per client before accounting for leads that never qualify.
CAC is meaningful only against what a client is worth to you — the CPA payout, or under revenue share the client's lifetime value (LTV). A healthy partnership keeps CAC comfortably below that value, and the LTV-to-CAC ratio (often targeted at 3:1 or better in subscription economics) is the standard health check partners borrow to judge whether a channel can scale.
You calculate CAC per channel and per period, not as a single blended figure. Sum every cost tied to acquisition in the period, then divide by the count of new depositing clients that period produced. Running it per channel — paid search versus SEO versus a Telegram list — shows which sources are cheap and which quietly lose money inside a healthy blended average.
CAC then pairs with client value. On a CPA deal, compare CAC directly to the payout minus your qualification failure rate. On revenue share, compare CAC to lifetime value, since a $400 CAC is fine if the client generates $1,500 in shared spread over two years. The comparison, not the raw CAC, tells you whether to scale or kill a channel.
Pick a window — usually a month — long enough to capture the full funnel from click to funded account.
Add media spend, content, landing-page and hosting tools, tracking software, creative, and any sub-affiliate commissions.
Count only clients who actually funded an account in the period, not raw clicks or unfunded registrations.
CAC = total acquisition cost divided by number of new depositing clients.
Set CAC against CPA payout or client LTV to decide whether to scale, optimize, or cut the channel.
Why it matters for partnership: Keeping CAC below your CPA payout — or below client lifetime value on revenue share — is the whole basis of a profitable partnership. Track true CAC per channel so you cut losing traffic sources fast and reinvest in the ones that convert cheaply.
A partner promoting Pepperstone runs Google search ads and spends $2,000 in a month plus $400 on tracking and landing tools, winning 6 funded clients — a CAC of $400. With a CPA payout around $500 and roughly one in six clients failing the volume trigger, the effective margin thins to near break-even, signaling the keyword set needs tighter targeting before scaling.
| Metric | What it measures | Direction you want |
|---|---|---|
| CAC | Cost to win one funded client | Lower |
| CPA payout | What the broker pays per qualified client | Higher |
| LTV | Total value a client generates over time | Higher |
| LTV:CAC | Return on acquisition spend | 3:1 or better |
Build long-tail SEO and organic content alongside paid ads — organic clients carry near-zero marginal CAC and pull your blended acquisition cost down over time.
Omitting software, hosting, and content costs so your reported CAC looks profitable while the campaign is actually losing money on every client.
There is no universal figure — a good CAC is any number comfortably below your CPA payout or the client's lifetime value after accounting for leads that never qualify.
No. CAC is your cost to acquire a client; CPA is what the broker pays you. You profit when CAC stays below the CPA you actually collect.
All acquisition costs: media buying, content, creative, landing pages, hosting, tracking software, and any commissions paid to sub-affiliates.
Monthly at least, and per channel, so rising ad costs or a decaying source are caught before they erode a whole campaign.
On revenue share, compare CAC to lifetime value rather than a one-off payout. A higher CAC is justified when clients generate recurring shared revenue over months or years.
A profitable channel can mask a loss-making one inside a blended average. Break CAC out per source to find and cut the drain.