Stripe Metric
Payments
CAC = Total Sales & Marketing Spend / New Paying Customers Acquired
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing expenditure required to acquire one new paying customer. When paired with Stripe payment data, it links spend to verified first-payment events rather than sign-ups alone.
Full guide: definition, formula, and benchmarksStripePaymentsCustomer Acquisition Cost
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing expenditure required to acquire one new paying customer. When paired with Stripe payment data, it links spend to verified first-payment events rather than sign-ups alone.
How to calculate customer acquisition cost
Why customer acquisition cost matters for Stripe users
CAC determines whether your growth engine is economically sustainable. When CAC exceeds the revenue a customer will generate, the business loses money on every new customer regardless of top-line growth.
Stripe users can anchor CAC to actual first payments rather than registrations, giving a more accurate view of true acquisition cost. Comparing CAC to customer lifetime value by channel reveals which acquisition sources deliver profitable growth.
Understand and act on customer acquisition cost with KPI Tree
Connect Stripe new-customer payment events and your marketing spend data to KPI Tree via your warehouse. Place CAC in a unit economics tree alongside customer lifetime value and payback period.
Assign marketing or growth ownership and set alerts when CAC rises above target thresholds or when the LTV-to-CAC ratio falls below acceptable levels.
Get started with your Stripe data
MCPPull metrics from Stripe directly through the Model Context Protocol.
Connect your existing warehouse where Stripe data already lands.
Our professional services team can build you turn-key AI foundations in a matter of weeks. Data warehouse on Snowflake/BigQuery, ELT with Fivetran, all modelled in dbt with a semantic layer.
Related Stripe metrics
Customer Lifetime Value
PaymentsMetric Definition
LTV = Average Revenue Per Customer × Average Customer Lifespan
Customer lifetime value (LTV) estimates the total revenue a customer will generate across all transactions over their relationship. For Stripe users, it aggregates both one-time and recurring payments into a comprehensive value figure.
Revenue Per Customer
PaymentsMetric Definition
Revenue Per Customer = Total Revenue / Unique Paying Customers
Revenue per customer divides total revenue by the number of unique paying customers. It captures how effectively you monetise each customer relationship through pricing, upselling, and cross-selling.
Trial Conversion Rate
PaymentsMetric Definition
Trial Conversion Rate = (Trials Converted to Paid / Total Trials Ended) × 100
Trial conversion rate measures the percentage of trial subscriptions that convert to paid plans at the end of the trial period. It is a critical indicator of product-market fit and onboarding effectiveness.
Revenue Growth Rate
PaymentsMetric Definition
Revenue Growth Rate = ((Current Period Revenue - Prior Period Revenue) / Prior Period Revenue) × 100
Revenue growth rate measures the percentage change in total revenue between periods. It captures the combined effect of new customer acquisition, existing customer expansion, and churn on overall revenue trajectory.
Explore customer acquisition cost across integrations
All Stripe metrics
Average Revenue Per TransactionCharge Success RateChargeback RateCustomer Lifetime ValueDispute Resolution RateFailed Payment Recovery RateFraud Detection RateGross Payment VolumeMonthly Recurring RevenueNet RevenuePayment Method DistributionPayout Timing AnalysisRecurring vs One-Time RevenueRefund RateRevenue by CurrencyRevenue by ProductRevenue Growth RateRevenue Per CustomerSubscription Churn RateSubscription Growth RateSubscription Upgrade RateTransaction Fee AnalysisTransfer Volume AnalysisTrial Conversion RateVolume by Payment MethodCard Decline RateCohort Revenue AnalysisDispute RateGross Profit MarginRepeat Customer RateEmpower your team to understand and act on Stripe data
Map what drives your metrics, measure progress at any grain, prove what works statistically, and deliver personalised action plans to every team member.
