The state of things

Nobody agrees what a customer costs.

4 August 2026 · Lir Aroyo

We went looking for one number: what a DTC customer costs to acquire in 2026. For the same channel, in the same year, published answers ranged from $42 to $230.

What we found when we went lookingWe spent an afternoon trying to answer one question: what does a DTC customer cost in 2026? Published answers for the same channel, in the same year, ranged from $42 to $230.

The numbers, as published

For Meta, we found $42 and we found $212 to $230. For TikTok, $51 and $90 to $129. Blended DTC CAC came back as $60 to $120 from one source and $130 to $156 from another. TikTok Shop's projected 2026 US GMV came back as $20 billion, $23.4 billion, and $37 billion, depending on who was counting.

These are not different years or different definitions clearly stated. They are confident round numbers, published as benchmarks, mostly by companies selling something to the people reading them. Almost none of them said what was measured, over what window, for which basket of brands.

A benchmark you cannot reproduce is not a benchmark. It is a decoration.

Why this happens

CAC has no agreed definition. Some counts include organic orders in the denominator and some do not. Some include agency fees and creative costs, most do not. Some are blended across every channel, some are per-platform, and the two get quoted side by side as if they measured the same thing. Then a number gets copied from one post into the next until it has the texture of a fact.

The direction everyone agrees on is up. That much is consistent, and it matches what founders say out loud. The magnitude is unknowable from the outside.

What to do instead

  1. Define your own CAC once, in writing: what is in the numerator, what is in the denominator, over what window. Put it in the same document as your margin sheet.
  2. Measure it monthly against itself. Your March number versus your February number is worth more than your number versus a stranger's blog post.
  3. When you must compare externally, use a source that publishes its method. If the method is missing, treat the figure as a mood, not a measurement.
  4. Be suspicious of any number that arrives already rounded and already flattering to whoever published it.

The honest read

We are aware of the irony of a company writing this while asking you to believe its own figures. That is exactly why the ledger exists, why it is five numbers and not fifteen, and why the first edition of it was entirely zeros.

If we ever publish a benchmark here, it will come with the method attached, or it will not come at all.

Sources

We are linking these as evidence of the disagreement, not as figures we stand behind. None of them is a primary source.

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