02 / SAAS PAID ACQUISITION
SLG, direct to paid
Spend in, customers out. CAC, payback, LTV to CAC and the funnel step where your money is leaking.
All calculatorsGROWTH MOTION
Sales led: ads generate leads, your team qualifies them, books a call and closes the deal. No trial in the middle.
YOUR INPUTS
Every field is explained underneath it
$25,000
Money paid to the platforms such as Google, Meta and LinkedIn. Not agency fees or salaries.
$120
What you pay for one form fill of any quality. Spend divided by leads.
$380
Cost for one lead that actually fits your ICP, meaning right company size, budget and problem. Always higher than CPL.
45%
Of the good fit leads, how many end up with a call on the calendar.
72%
Booked calls that actually turn up. 60 to 80 percent is normal and reminders move this a lot.
24%
Your win rate on calls that happened.
$8,000
Average revenue one new customer pays you in year one.
80%
Revenue left after hosting, support and third party costs. Software is usually 75 to 90 percent.
14%
Share of revenue that cancels over a year. Sets how long a customer pays you.
$25,000
Platform media spend only.
$90
Cost of one email captured, trial or not.
$260
What you pay for one person to actually start the free trial.
40%
Trials that reach the moment of value and fit your ICP. The rest never convert.
45%
Sales assist rate: activated trials your team gets on a call.
72%
Booked calls that actually happen.
30%
Trial to paid win rate once a human is involved. Usually higher than cold outbound.
$14,000
Year one revenue per converted trial.
80%
Watch this one, because free trials consume infrastructure you never get paid for.
18%
Trial sourced customers often churn faster than sales sourced ones.
$25,000
Platform media spend only.
$45
What you pay for one self serve account created.
35%
Signups that complete the action that predicts payment, such as importing data or inviting a teammate.
9%
Activated users who put a card in without a sales call. Self serve products often see 5 to 15 percent.
$149
What a paying account pays you each month, blended across plans.
1.2%
Extra revenue from existing accounts upgrading, adding seats or usage.
3.5%
Share of revenue lost each month to cancels and downgrades. Self serve runs hotter than sales led.
82%
Revenue left after serving the account, including the cost of your free plan.
ARR ADDED PER YEAR FROM PAID
$0
at $300K annual media spend
CAC
$4,887
CAC payback
n/a
LTV to CAC
0.0x
FUNNEL PER MONTH
Leads
Qualified leads
Calls booked
Calls held
New customers
New customers
Cost per acquisition
Media only. Add team and agency cost for fully loaded CAC
$0
Gross margin LTV
$0
Year one ROAS
First year contract value booked divided by media spend
0.00x
Max sustainable CAC
What you can pay per customer and still hold a healthy 3:1 LTV to CAC
$0
Spend for plus $1M ARR
Media required at these exact conversion rates
n/a
HOW THIS IS CALCULATED
- Direct to paid path: spend divided by CPQL, then booked calls, held calls and closed deals. CPQL, not CPL, is the number that predicts revenue.
- CAC payback: equals CAC divided by monthly revenue times gross margin. Under 12 months is fundable, and past 18 months paid growth widens your cash gap instead of your ARR.
- LTV: here is gross margin LTV: deal size times gross margin times one divided by annual churn. Revenue based LTV flatters every deck it appears in.
- Show rate: is the cheapest fix in this whole model, because 10 points there is a straight 10 percent cut in cost per held call.
- Trial path: spend divided by cost per trial, then activated trials, booked calls, held calls and paid. The trial only helps if activation is real, because unactivated trials are cost rather than pipeline.
- CAC payback: equals CAC divided by monthly revenue times gross margin. Under 12 months is fundable, and past 18 months paid growth widens your cash gap instead of your ARR.
- LTV: here is gross margin LTV: deal size times gross margin times one divided by annual churn. Revenue based LTV flatters every deck it appears in.
- Show rate: is the cheapest fix in this whole model, because 10 points there is a straight 10 percent cut in cost per held call.
- PLG path: spend divided by cost per signup, then activation, then self serve conversion. Activation is the step that decides everything downstream.
- Payback: should be far shorter than sales led, ideally under 3 months and certainly under 6, because self serve has no human margin buffer.
- Account life: is one divided by churn minus expansion. Once expansion beats churn the base compounds and LTV stops being a fixed number.
- Free plan serving cost: belongs in gross margin. Leaving it out is the most common way PLG models lie.
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Estimates only, for general information. Outputs depend entirely on the accuracy of your inputs. Benchmarks reflect 2026 lower middle market SaaS data. Nothing here is financial, tax, legal or investment advice, and no advisory relationship is created by using this page.