What is User acquisition cost?

User acquisition cost (UAC), also known as customer acquisition cost (CAC), is the total cost of acquiring a new customer or user, calculated by dividing total marketing and sales spend by the number of new customers acquired in a given period. UAC includes ad spend, creative production costs, agency fees, software tools, and any other expenses directly attributable to acquiring customers. In performance marketing, UAC is the north-star efficiency metric: a lower UAC means you can acquire more customers for the same budget or maintain volume while improving profitability. UAC varies dramatically by industry, channel, and creative quality—a well-targeted ad with compelling creative can halve UAC compared to a generic ad with stock imagery. Creative quality is one of the highest-leverage inputs for reducing UAC because better creative improves click-through rates, conversion rates, and ad relevance scores simultaneously.