Marketing metric

Cost to acquire a site customer

What you spend on ads to win one new customer on your own site. It’s also called site CAC, for customer acquisition cost.

1. 1

   1 · How we calculate it

   Acquisition ad spend divided by new site customers.

   Site CAC=Acquisition ad spend÷New customers

   We divide your acquisition ad spend by your new customers, over the last 12 complete months.

   A new customer placed their first order ever in that period.

2. 2

   2 · Where the data comes from

   It needs 2 kinds of data, each from a system you connect.

   Data	From
   Your Shopify store’s orders and customers	Shopify
   Spend on the ads that bring buyers to your site	Meta Ads, Google Ads

3. 3

   3 · What we compare it with

   The median Shopify CAC is $39.35 to $44.73, by band of gross merchandise value (GMV).

   Band of GMV	Median
   Under $1M	$39.35
   $1M to $5M	$41.88
   $5M to $20M	$40.57
   $20M to $100M	$44.73
   Over $100M	$42.67

   Polar Analytics publishes medians from more than 4,000 Shopify brands for July 2026, in five bands of GMV.¹ We compare you with the median of your band.

   Their period	One month, July 2026. Ours is the last 12 complete months.
   Their definition	The page doesn’t define CAC. We read it as the same division as ours.
   Your band	We place you by your own-site revenue over the last 12 complete months. Their bands are by GMV.
   Who they count	Shopify brands that Polar Analytics tracks.

   $40.57 median, $5M to $20MNorthwind Pet Co · $64

   $0$80

   Above the median of its band

   Polar Analytics, Aug 25, 2026 →