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Cost Per Customer Calculator

Work out cost per customer instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Cost Per Customer Calculator

Two figures matter and they answer different questions. Fully loaded cost divides everything by customer count and is the right basis for pricing. Marginal cost excludes shared overhead and is the right basis for deciding whether to accept another customer — which is why a deal that looks unprofitable on fully loaded cost can still be strongly accretive.

Formula

Cost per customer

fully loaded = total cost / customers; marginal = variable cost / customers; contribution = revenue per customer - marginal cost

Worked example

With the default values below, Cost Per Customer Calculator returns Fully loaded cost per customer of $75.00. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Monthly infrastructure costminimum 0
90,000
Paying customersminimum 1
1,200
Share of cost that is shared overheadaccepts 0–100 %
35 %
Average revenue per customerminimum 0
240

Results

Fully loaded cost per customer
$75.00
Marginal cost of one more customer
$48.75
Gross margin per customer
68.8%
Contribution after marginal cost
$191.25

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Cost per customer
  3. 3Fully loaded cost per customer= 75.00
  4. 4Marginal cost of one more customer= 48.75
  5. 5Gross margin per customer= 68.8
  6. 6Contribution after marginal cost= 191.25

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which figure should pricing be based on?

Fully loaded plus target margin, otherwise growth never covers the shared platform. Marginal cost sets the floor below which a deal destroys value.

How is the shared share identified?

Anything that would still be running with one fewer customer: control planes, monitoring, CI, baseline capacity. Per-tenant storage and compute are variable.

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