Which reps acquire customers cheaply?
№ 146 · Cost of acquired customer by rep
Definition
MetricFully loaded rep cost divided by new customers closed by that rep
UnitUSD of rep cost per new customer acquired
Bar of CAC per rep: their fully-loaded cost divided by new customers they closed. Identifies low-efficiency reps. Build by summing rep cost and dividing by closed deals per period. Example: Top rep $4.2K per logo; bottom rep $18K per logo (4x spread, investigate).
- CAC
- Customer acquisition cost. Fully loaded sales and marketing spend in a period divided by new customers won in that period.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| $55K or more per new customer | $28K per new customer | $14K or less per new customer |
B2B SaaS at roughly $50K median ASP, direct rep cost only, meaning OTE plus burden plus tooling. Excludes marketing programme spend, SDR cost and management allocation. 2024 to 2026 data. · This is deliberately a narrower measure than CAC and the two should not be compared. At the $50K median ASP reported by Bridge Group's 2025 SDR study, the median figure above is roughly 0.55x first-year ACV for the rep line alone. Benchmarkit's New CAC Ratio of $2.00 of sales and marketing expense per $1 of new customer ARR covers the whole go-to-market machine including marketing, SDRs, management and the cost of every lost deal, which is why it lands near 2x ACV rather than 0.55x. Reading a per-rep number against a company-level CAC benchmark will make every rep look efficient. The denominator also punishes reps working larger deals, so this chart should always be read next to ASP by rep rather than alone. One supporting figure below, the finding that only 15% of opportunities were fully qualified, is from Ebsta's 2023 report and is three years old at time of writing, so treat it as directional rather than current.
| Category | Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMB, sub-$10K ACV | $1.30 or more, cost per opportunity above $8K | $0.80 of S&M per $1 new ARR, cost per opportunity $5.2K to $6.3K | $0.60 or less of S&M per $1 new ARR, cost per opportunity around $4K |
| Mid-market, $10K to $100K ACV | $2.81 or more, cost per opportunity above $12K | $1.71 of S&M per $1 new ARR, cost per opportunity $8.0K to $9.3K | $1.15 or less of S&M per $1 new ARR, cost per opportunity around $6K |
| Enterprise and strategic, $100K+ ACV | above $3.50, cost per opportunity above $18K | $2.20 to $2.81, cost per opportunity $11.2K to $15.9K | $1.40 or less of S&M per $1 new ARR, cost per opportunity around $9K |
When it looks bad
The per-rep bars fan out by more than three times and the expensive reps are also the ones carrying the smallest deals, so cost per customer and deal size are moving in the wrong direction together.
Cheapest rep at $12K per new customer on a $60K ASP, most expensive at $62K per new customer on a $28K ASP.
What to do about it
- Reroute the $10K to $50K ACV band to a lighter motion. Benchmarkit 2025 finds this band consistently more expensive to acquire than the $50K to $100K band above it, and the anomaly has held for more than one year, so it is structural rather than noise.
- Weight territory toward the sources that convert. Ebsta's 2025 channel velocity data ranks partner and referral at 1.3x, organic at 1.2x, outbound at 1.05x, events at 0.78x and paid at 0.68x, so cost per acquired customer is partly a routing decision made before the rep is involved.
- Disqualify earlier and harder. Ebsta's 2023 study found only 15% of opportunities fully qualified despite 61% of businesses adopting a methodology, and the full cost of every lost deal sits inside the cost of the deals that close.
- Read this chart with ASP side by side and normalise to cost as a share of first-year ACV. Absolute cost per customer will always favour whoever holds the small-deal territory.
Sources
- Benchmarkit (with Pavilion) New CAC Ratio median $2.00 of S&M per $1 of new customer ARR, up 14%, with the fourth quartile at $2.82. Blended CAC Ratio $1.40, down 12%. Expansion CAC Ratio $1.00. CAC payback 18 months median. Gross margin 77% total, 81% subscription, 30% professional services. S&M 37% of revenue median, 45% for VC-backed versus 33% for PE-backed. ARR per FTE $240,000 at $50M-$100M ARR and $283,379 above $100M. GRR 88%, NRR 101%. benchmarkit.ai ↗
- Benchmarkit Glossary defines CAC Payback as S&M expenses divided by (new customer ARR x gross subscription margin) x 12. Solutions in the $10K-$50K ACV band are consistently more expensive to acquire than $50K-$100K. New CAC Ratio above $100K ACV is lower than the $10K-$100K range. PLG companies show higher S&M as a share of revenue over time, contrary to common belief. Expansion ARR is 40% of total new ARR at median. hibob.com ↗
- The Bridge Group 60% of SDRs at quota, lowest on record. Median SDR OTE $80K at 68:32 base to variable. Pipeline per SDR $3.78M, with 50% of respondents between $1.9M and $6.4M. Monthly held-meeting quota median 10 at Stage 0 and 6 converted at Stage 1. Ramp 3.0 months. Attrition 40% median, 21% to 57% interquartile. 4.1 quality conversations per day on 112 total daily activities. bridgegroupinc.com ↗
- The Bridge Group 48% of reps at quota, down from 51% in 2024. Median AE OTE $200K. Median AE quota $960K at 4.6x quota-to-OTE. Average ramp 6.2 months, highest in study history. Required experience at hire 3.7 years, up from 2.7 in 2022. SaaS median quota $875K. bridgegroupinc.com ↗
- Ebsta and Pavilion Average win rate 19%, down from 29% the prior year. 78% of sellers missed quota, up from 69%. Top performers close 11x faster than bottom performers, up from 8.9x in 2024 and 4x in 2022. Top 14% of sellers generate 80% of revenue. Engaging 6 or more stakeholders early moves win rate from 12% to above 40%. Channel velocity: partner and referral 1.3x, organic 1.2x, outbound 1.05x, events 0.78x, paid 0.68x. Expansion is 52% of new revenue. 46% of SaaS and tech companies moving to full-cycle sales. joinpavilion.com ↗
- Ebsta Despite 61% of businesses adopting a sales methodology, most commonly MEDDPICC, just 15% of opportunities were fully qualified. Lost opportunities with strong early relationships closed 211% faster. ebsta.com ↗
- RepVue Median AE OTE $200,000. Top performers earn $502,796 or more. About 42% of AEs reach or exceed annual quota. repvue.com ↗
- Maxio (analysis of Benchmarkit 2025) Blended CAC Ratio fell from $1.61 in 2023 to $1.40 in 2024, while New CAC Ratio rose, indicating the improvement came from expansion ARR rather than more efficient new-logo acquisition. maxio.com ↗