China Entry — CAC Feasibility

Premium Benchmark layer · Estimate CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) vs your profit per item before entering China
1 · Market & Audience
0.50
2 · Channel & Funnel
Estimated CAC
RMB 0
0
Core audience (top %)
RMB 0
Cost to reach them once
0
Items to recover CAC
How to read it: feasibility is relative to your unit economics, not an absolute CAC number. If CAC is at or below your profit per item, the first order pays for itself. If it takes a few repeat orders to recover, plan for retention. A CAC that dwarfs unit profit means the brand signals (overseas penetration, social position) are too weak — fix those before spending on media. This feeds the CAC feasibility read of your assessment.
CAC = (CPM / 1000) ÷ (CTR × CVR) ÷ brand_coefficient  |  Payback (items) = CAC ÷ profit per item

Behind the number

CAC is simply what you pay, on average, to win one paying customer. Our model builds it from four things you can actually estimate:

1 · Media cost

CPM is what you pay for 1,000 people to see your ad (RED/Douyin ≈ RMB (Renminbi) 150–250). The more you pay per view, the higher your CAC.

2 · Funnel efficiency

CTR = % who click; CVR = % of clicks who buy. A 1.5% click and 2% buy means only 0.03% convert — so you pay for a LOT of views per sale.

3 · Brand coefficient

The "shortcut." A brand Chinese consumers already know/trust (1.0) gets cheap organic reach; an unknown (0.1) pays full freight. This is the education cost of entering China.

4 · Your profit per item — the filter

CAC alone means nothing. We divide it by your net profit per item to get payback in items: how many products you must sell to recover the acquisition cost. ≤ 1 item means the first order pays for itself.

Formula: CAC = (CPM ÷ 1000) ÷ (CTR × CVR) ÷ brand coefficient Worked example (default inputs): CAC = (180 ÷ 1000) ÷ (1.5% × 2%) ÷ 0.5 = 0.18 ÷ 0.0003 ÷ 0.5 = RMB 1,200 Payback = 1,200 ÷ 180 = 6.7 items → Hard

The lemonade stand

You open a lemonade stand. You print 1,000 flyers and pay RMB 0.25 each to hand them out — that's your CPM. Only 15 kids out of 1,000 even look (your CTR of 1.5%), and only 2 of those buy a cup (your CVR of 2%). To get one sale, you paid for a mountain of flyers — that whole cost for one cup is your CAC.

Now: if the neighbor kids already know and love your lemonade (a strong brand), they tell their friends for free — you barely pay for flyers. That's a high brand coefficient. If nobody knows you, you pay for every single flyer yourself — that's a low coefficient and a painful CAC.

The trick: if each cup earns you RMB 5 profit and your CAC is RMB 10, you lose on the first cup but break even by the second. If your CAC is only RMB 2, the first cup already pays for itself. That's why we check CAC against your profit per cup — not the CAC number alone.

Three brands, one market

CAC · CPM · CTR · CVR · RMB

A · Unknown indie skincare
Inputs: brand 0.3 · CPM 180 · CTR 1.2% · CVR 1.5% · profit RMB 20 CAC = (180 ÷ 1000) ÷ (0.012 × 0.015) ÷ 0.3 = 0.18 ÷ 0.00018 ÷ 0.3 = RMB 3,333 Payback = 3,333 ÷ 20 = 167 items
CAC ≈ RMB 3,333Payback 167 items · HARD

No brand, thin margin → acquisition cost is brutal. Fix the brand signals before spending on media.

B · Beloved global brand
Inputs: brand 1.0 · CPM 180 · CTR 4% · CVR 5% · profit RMB 100 CAC = (180 ÷ 1000) ÷ (0.04 × 0.05) ÷ 1.0 = 0.18 ÷ 0.002 ÷ 1.0 = RMB 90 Payback = 90 ÷ 100 = 0.9 items
CAC ≈ RMB 90Payback 0.9 items · FEASIBLE

Known and trusted → cheap organic reach. The first order already pays for itself.

C · Premium niche, high margin
Inputs: brand 0.4 · CPM 200 · CTR 1.5% · CVR 2% · profit RMB 2,000 CAC = (200 ÷ 1000) ÷ (0.015 × 0.02) ÷ 0.4 = 0.2 ÷ 0.0003 ÷ 0.4 = RMB 1,667 Payback = 1,667 ÷ 2,000 = 0.8 items
CAC ≈ RMB 1,667Payback 0.8 items · FEASIBLE

CAC looks huge — but each sale earns RMB 2,000, so the first order still pays back. Margin beats the raw number.