With an upfront of $10-15k you are in the 'sales range'. Companies won't part with that money without a few conference calls and whether it's you or a team someone needs to hold their hand to get that sale.

CAC is a lot easier to gauge on consumer products because they can be sold on an advertisement. But you can't sell airplanes on adwords, as they say.

So assuming you will be using a sales team to close this sale, the real question become cost per lead. And that is a 'how long is a piece of string' question. But don't worry.

Industry averages won't really help you anyways for two reasons.

1. Consider the fact that the average human has one testicle and one breast. Forecast around the average and you'll be no better off than guessing
2. CAC will rise to match LTV over time. There were these guys selling sugar water at a ridiculous margin called Coca Cola until these other guys started selling their own. Now instead of making gobs of cash on each can, they are duking it out with some of the most expensive advertising in the world.

What I would do instead is test a proxy. You know your market, you know your message, and even if you have the most elaborate campaign out there you will be able to develop a proxy for it using plain old images and copy.

Test it small scale and you'll have a MUCH closer approximation for what a lead will actually cost than any industry average. You can look at your own historical close rates and divide your CPL by that for an effective CAC.

Hope this helps. Give me a shout if you have any questions.

There is no average cost per customer/lead (not the same thing) acquisition. It all depends on
- vertical
- seniority of targeting personnel (costs more to recruit a CIO than the average punter for instance)
- country (US very costly, UK average, France lower etc.)
- value of service: in this you are right.
- affiliate marketing company including their ability to deliver

Rule of thumb is 20% but check with an affiliate marketing company first

Beware of recruting "customers", leads are easier to come by.

Last but not least, there are many methods for you to recruit leads including inbound marketing and that is cheap by comparison (I do nothing else as far as I am concerned). Think about it.

I think that your question is a little too broad but let's see if we can narrow it down. Based on the unknown, CPA = Cost Per Lead divided by Conversion Rate. However, these metrics are mostly applicable in the SEM world when advertising using PPC models. In my opinion, your CPA is undefined as it stands. The more important question you need to ask yourselves is the monthly paid media budget you'll need to invest. There's a different formula for that. Typically when considering a PPC advertising model, budget plays a factorial role until you have available metrics that can help you determine your Average CPA. Hopefully this helps. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.