Average customer acquisition cost for a DTC brand, and what affiliates change

By the RecruitAffiliates.ai team · 30 October 2026 · 8 min read

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Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is what you spend to win one new customer. Shopify defines it as the total cost of acquiring a single customer (Shopify, 29 July 2024).

So what is the average for a DTC brand? We found no public study we would trust to give you one number. The figures you will see online come from vendor blogs, a small agency panel and a decade-old survey. They disagree by a wide margin. Your own number is the one that matters, and it is easy to work out.

What do the public sources say about average CAC?

We opened every source below. Some figures we saw quoted elsewhere sit behind pages that refused our request, so we left them out.

Source	What it says	Why to be careful
Top Growth Marketing, updated 26 September 2026	Median Meta cost per purchase of $49.04 across 15 DTC brands, July 2025 to June 2026. Range: $6.63 to $195.17	One agency, 15 accounts, orders of about $145. It counts every purchase, not only new customers
MarketingSherpa, 2014 study of 2013 costs	Cost per customer: median $12 to $25 and mean $72 to $109, depending on whether costs were rising, steady or falling	Over a decade old. A few very costly firms pull the mean up (the mean is the plain average and the median is the middle value)
Tenten (a Shopify agency), updated 8 April 2026	Blended CAC of $60 to $120 for DTC, by its own account	No method or links to the studies it names. We can't check it
Shopify, 29 July 2024	A worked example of $500 spread over ten first-time buyers gives $50. No benchmark	A formula, not a market average

Read the table as a spread, not an answer. Only the Top Growth panel shows its method. Its brands sell at about twice the order value of the wider Meta advertiser base. So its cost per purchase isn't comparable with a store selling $40 items (Top Growth Marketing).

MarketingSherpa makes a point worth keeping. Its mean sits far above its median, because a few firms pay a lot (MarketingSherpa). It also warns that the right target depends on price, what buyers weigh before purchase and how mature the brand is. An "average" mixes all of those together.

Cost per purchase and CAC are also not the same. A purchase may come from someone who bought before. CAC counts only the cost of winning new customers, which is how Shopify defines it.

How do I work out my own CAC?

Add up what you spent to win customers in a period. Divide by the number of new customers in that period. Shopify gives the same steps: total the costs, then divide by the new customers who made purchases (Shopify).

Count more than ad spend. Include creative, agency fees, the tools you pay for and the commissions you paid. Leave out sales to returning customers. For a worked example with a Shopify store's own numbers, see how to calculate CAC for a Shopify brand.

There are two versions worth tracking:

Blended CAC: all acquisition spend divided by all new customers, whatever the source.
Channel CAC: the spend on one channel divided by the new customers that channel brought.

Blended CAC is harder to fool. A channel can look cheap because it claimed a sale that would have happened anyway.

What does a CAC check look like with and without affiliates?

Here is a made-up month you can copy. Say your average order is $60. You pay 10% commission to affiliates. Fill in your own figures.

Line	Paid ads	Affiliates
Spend on the channel	$6,000	$0 up front
Creative, tools and time	$1,000	$400
Commission paid	none	$240
First-time buyers	140	40
Cost per first-time buyer	$50	$16

The $240 is 40 first orders at $60, times 10%. Affiliates cost $640 in all, which is $16 a buyer. Across both channels you spent $7,640 to win 180 buyers, or about $42 each. Even with $400 for tools and time, affiliates come out cheaper per buyer here.

Two cautions apply to that $16. First, some affiliate sales would have happened anyway. A discount-code site can claim a buyer who was already at checkout. Our guide to stopping coupon sites from eating your program covers it. Second, if you pay commission on repeat orders too, count that cost against the customer, not the first sale.

Shopify also gives a target to test against. It says a lifetime value to CAC ratio of 3:1 to 5:1 means your acquisition is working well (Shopify). Lifetime value is the profit a customer brings over all their orders. If a customer is worth $120 and your blended CAC is $42, that is about 2.9:1, just under the range.

What do affiliates change about CAC?

They change when you pay and what you pay for. An ad charges you before you know if anyone buys. A commission is due only after a sale. Shopify's guide to affiliate commission describes the pay-per-sale model this way: you only pay when the affiliate makes a sale (Shopify, 11 May 2026).

That means affiliate CAC has a ceiling you set. Say the rate is a flat 10% and the first order is $60. If you pay on the first order only, commission costs at most $6 for each buyer. Add your tool and time on top. That cost cannot spike the way an ad auction can.

The limit is volume. Say affiliates bring 40 buyers while ads bring 140. They add to ads rather than replace them. How many you need depends on your goal, and how many affiliates a Shopify brand should recruit shows the maths.

What rate is safe? In our read of 168 Shopify brands on 23 October 2026, 137 stated a base rate and the median was 10% (method and limits). Check the rate against your own profit per order first. What commission a Shopify program should pay has a margin check, and how the money flows follows one sale to payout.

Is a low CAC always good?

No. A low CAC from the wrong people hurts you. Fake sales and self-referrals look cheap until you reverse them. Read affiliate fraud on Shopify before you count affiliate sales as proof. Check refunds and repeat orders from each source too. A buyer who costs $9 but returns the order is worse than one who costs $40 and reorders.

Watch the time it takes to earn the money back. Divide CAC by the profit a customer gives you per order. A $42 CAC against $24 profit on a first order needs two orders to break even. Ads need that cash up front. A commission comes out of the sale, which is easier on cash when you are small.

Where to start

Pull last month's spend and new customers. Work out blended CAC.
Split it by channel. Note which channels you can't measure.
Pick a commission rate from your profit per order.
Add a handful of affiliates and track their first orders for a month.
Compare channel CAC again, then decide where the next dollar goes.

For a store with no ad budget, recruiting affiliates on a Shopify store with no budget is the place to begin.

Find the people to build your affiliate channel

RecruitAffiliates.ai finds the blogs, review sites, podcasts and creators already covering shops like yours. It looks for each person's email and checks what it finds. It writes a personal first email for you to approve, and sends from your own inbox. It doesn't track sales or pay anyone, so you still need an affiliate tool.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good CAC for a DTC brand?

It depends on your profit per order and how long customers stay. A common test is the ratio of lifetime value to CAC. Shopify says 3:1 to 5:1 shows your acquisition is working. Public averages vary too much to use as a target.

What is the average CAC for ecommerce?

We found no public study that gives a reliable single figure. The oldest source gives a median of $12 to $25. An agency blog claims $60 to $120. See the table above for what each source can and can't tell you.

Is CAC the same as cost per purchase?

No. Cost per purchase counts every sale, including repeat buyers. CAC counts only the cost of winning new customers.

Are affiliates cheaper than paid ads?

In the made-up month above, yes, because you pay only after a sale. Your numbers may differ. They bring fewer customers than ads, and some sales would have happened anyway. Judge them on blended CAC, not on the channel alone.

What counts in my CAC?

Everything you spend to win new customers: ads, creative, tools, agency fees and commissions. Leave out sales to returning customers.