The full data table: every organic and inorganic B2B channel First Page Sage tracks, its 2026 cost per customer, and where Reddit and community marketing actually fit.
Written for founders and marketing leads building a channel mix, deciding budget allocation, or benchmarking their own CAC against published B2B data.
Organic marketing channels average roughly half the cost per customer of paid channels. Per First Page Sage’s 2026 CAC by Channel benchmarks, B2B organic channels average $942 per new customer while inorganic (paid) channels average $1,907. The cheapest single channel is thought-leadership content SEO at $647, and the most expensive is account-based marketing at $4,664.
That said, the averages hide a lot of spread. PPC/SEM at $802 beats several organic rows, including basic SEO at $1,786 and industry trade shows at $1,390, so channel selection within a category matters more than whether the category is labeled organic or paid. The full table below has every row.
Customer acquisition cost, or CAC, is the total marketing and sales spend divided by the number of new customers that spend produced. Reported as a single company-wide number, blended CAC hides a lot. Reported per channel, it shows which specific tactic, SEO, PPC, SDR outbound, ABM, is actually delivering customers cheaply and which one is quietly draining budget.
This page uses First Page Sage’s per-channel B2B figures, the most complete published breakdown available, and organizes every row into one data table so you can see the full spread instead of a single averaged number.
In one sentence
Per-channel CAC tells you where a dollar of budget is currently working hardest, which a single blended CAC number cannot show on its own.
Every B2B channel First Page Sage tracks, sorted organic first, then inorganic. 2026 benchmarks.
| Channel | Type | B2B CAC | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thought-Leadership / Content SEO | Organic | $647 | Cheapest channel in the entire dataset. Long-form, expert-authored content built around a niche. |
| Email Marketing | Organic | $510 | Second-cheapest overall. Relies on an existing list, so it is rarely a standalone acquisition channel. |
| Social Media Marketing (organic) | Organic | $658 | Organic posting and community engagement, not paid social ads. |
| Content Marketing | Organic | $1,254 | Broader content production beyond a narrow thought-leadership SEO focus. |
| Basic SEO | Organic | $1,786 | On-page and technical SEO without a thought-leadership content layer, over 2.7x costlier than content SEO. |
| Podcasts | Organic | $1,472 | Hosting or regular guesting, production-heavy relative to blog content. |
| Informal Networking | Organic | $711 | Founder and executive relationship-building, hard to scale but cheap per customer. |
| Webinars | Organic | $603 | One of the cheaper organic channels, particularly for mid-funnel B2B education. |
| Public Speaking | Organic | $518 | Conference talks and panels, close to email marketing in cost efficiency. |
| Industry Trade Shows | Organic | $1,390 | Booth costs and travel push this well above most other organic rows. |
| Video Marketing | Organic | $815 | Owned-channel video content, not paid video ads. |
| All Organic (Average) | Organic | $942 | Blended average across all organic rows in First Page Sage’s dataset. |
| PPC / SEM | Inorganic | $802 | The cheapest paid channel in the dataset, still above most organic rows. |
| LinkedIn Ads | Inorganic | $982 | The most efficient paid social channel for B2B in this dataset. |
| Direct Mail | Inorganic | $864 | Physical mail campaigns, cheaper than most other paid channels here. |
| Outdoor Advertising | Inorganic | $1,690 | Billboards and out-of-home, high cost relative to reach precision. |
| PR | Inorganic | $1,720 | Agency-driven press and media placement. |
| SDRs / Outbound | Inorganic | $1,980 | Sales development rep-led outbound prospecting and cold outreach. |
| Radio Ads | Inorganic | $2,430 | One of the priciest channels in the full dataset. |
| TV Ads | Inorganic | $2,028 | High production and media buy costs relative to B2B conversion volume. |
| Account-Based Marketing | Inorganic | $4,664 | The single most expensive channel First Page Sage tracks, reflecting highly targeted, high-touch campaigns. |
| All Inorganic (Average) | Inorganic | $1,907 | Blended average across all inorganic rows in First Page Sage’s dataset. |
| Community / Reddit | Community | Not yet published | Not part of the First Page Sage dataset. MediaFast is aggregating this figure from first-party user acquisition data. |
Source: First Page Sage, CAC by Channel, 2026 Benchmarks (firstpagesage.com). Figures are B2B averages based on roughly 120 client engagements.
First Page Sage’s published dataset does not include a Community or Reddit-specific row. It was not tracked separately in their client base, most likely because it is folded into organic social or informal networking depending on how each client ran it. Rather than guess at a dollar figure and pass it off as sourced, this page labels it honestly: not yet published.
MediaFast is aggregating a real Community / Reddit CAC figure from its own first-party user acquisition data. Once there is a defensible sample size, that number will replace this placeholder, sourced the same way as every other row on this page.
First Page Sage defines CAC as total marketing and sales spend for a given channel divided by the number of new customers that channel produced. The CAC by Channel figures on this page come from roughly 120 B2B client engagements, tracked between December 2021 and November 2024, and are presented as a 3-year average per channel.
First Page Sage notes that individual channels typically show a 4 to 6 month learning period after launch, during which CAC runs meaningfully higher than the steady-state number, before settling into the averages shown here. Their companion industry report also notes their own client mix skews toward SEO-heavy organic work and B2B-focused paid search, a bias worth keeping in mind when comparing this data to your own channel mix.
Definition used throughout this page
CAC = fully-loaded marketing and sales spend for a channel, divided by new customers acquired through that channel, over the reporting window.
| Group | Average CAC | Payback Shape | Scalability |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Organic Channels | $942 average | Slower to ramp, cost stays flat once content or relationships compound | Scales with content and network effects rather than ad spend |
| All Inorganic Channels | $1,907 average | Faster to start, cost is tied directly to ongoing spend | Scales linearly with budget, stops the moment spend stops |
| Community / Reddit | Not yet published | Directionally organic in shape, cost still being aggregated by MediaFast | Unclear until first-party data is published, treat as a hypothesis for now |
Founders comparing this table against their own numbers often end up trying to figure out which channel to prioritize first. The best marketing channel for B2B SaaS page takes this same dataset and turns it into a single opinionated recommendation, rather than a neutral table like this one.
Four things to keep in mind before you apply these numbers to your own budget.
These are averages across roughly 120 B2B clients, not your company specifically
Your actual CAC on any given channel depends heavily on your industry, your team’s execution, and how long you have been running that channel.
The organic vs inorganic split is a category average, not a guarantee
PPC at $802 beats basic SEO at $1,786. A cheap paid channel can beat an expensive organic one on the same table.
A low CAC channel is not automatically the right channel
Email marketing at $510 is cheap partly because it depends on an existing list. It rarely works as a standalone top-of-funnel acquisition channel on its own.
The Community/Reddit gap is real, not a data error
No published dataset currently isolates Reddit or community-led acquisition cost. Treat any specific dollar figure you see elsewhere for that channel with skepticism until it names a source and sample size.
Most paid channels charge for reach every time you want it. Stop the PPC budget, and traffic stops the same week. Organic channels front-load the cost, writing the content, building the relationships, showing up in the community, and then keep producing customers with little to no marginal spend once that work is compounding.
That compounding effect is the main reason the organic average of $942 sits under the inorganic average of $1,907 across First Page Sage’s dataset. It is also why organic channels take longer to show results, the content or relationships need time to accumulate before the cost curve bends down.
Reddit and other communities work on a similar compounding logic to content SEO, a well-answered thread or a genuinely useful comment keeps surfacing to new readers for years. Tools like MediaFast exist to help founders find and join those conversations without guessing which subreddit or thread is worth the time.
No benchmark dataset is a perfect substitute for tracking your own numbers.
First Page Sage is an SEO agency. Their organic data is weighted more heavily toward SEO than other organic tactics, and their paid data skews toward B2B PPC/SEM over paid social, by their own admission.
B2C CAC runs meaningfully lower across nearly every channel in their companion data. Do not apply these B2B numbers to a consumer product.
A channel you just launched will likely run above these averages for the first 4 to 6 months before it stabilizes, per First Page Sage’s own note.
As covered above, this is an honest gap in the published data, not an oversight on this page.
Customer Acquisition Cost. The total marketing and sales spend for a channel divided by the number of new customers that channel produced.
A channel where the marginal cost of reaching one more prospect does not require a matching ad spend increase, such as SEO, email, or organic social.
A channel where reach is bought directly, such as PPC, paid social, direct mail, or outbound SDR salaries tied to volume.
A single weighted-average CAC figure combining multiple channels, often weighted by how much budget or lead volume each channel actually represents.
The early window after launching a channel, typically 4 to 6 months per First Page Sage, when CAC runs higher before the channel stabilizes.
Total spend on a channel including salaries, tools, agency fees, and media buys, not just the media buy line item alone.
How long it takes the revenue from a newly acquired customer to cover what it cost to acquire them.
The primary sources behind every figure on this page.
First Page Sage
The primary source for every channel row and the organic/inorganic averages on this page.
First Page Sage
The companion report covering CAC by industry, with the blended CAC methodology and organic/inorganic weighting.
Organic B2B channels average $942 per customer against $1,907 for inorganic channels, per First Page Sage’s 2026 benchmarks, but the category label matters less than the specific channel. Thought-leadership content SEO at $647 and email at $510 anchor the cheap end, account-based marketing at $4,664 anchors the expensive end, and several paid channels beat several organic ones.
Reddit and community-led acquisition is not in this dataset yet. Until a sourced number exists, the honest move is to treat it as a channel worth testing on the strength of its organic-shaped economics, not a line item you can benchmark against a table.
This page is the neutral data table. These siblings turn the same data into decisions.
MediaFast finds the Reddit threads where your exact buyers are already asking for a solution, an organic channel most B2B teams have not systematically worked yet.
The questions marketing leads ask most before allocating budget across channels.
Per First Page Sage’s 2026 CAC by Channel benchmarks, B2B organic channels average $942 per new customer while inorganic (paid) channels average $1,907, roughly double. Individual channels range from $510 for email marketing up to $4,664 for account-based marketing.
Thought-leadership content SEO is the cheapest channel in First Page Sage’s dataset at $647 per customer, followed closely by email marketing at $510. Basic SEO without a thought-leadership layer costs $1,786, nearly 2.8 times more, showing that content quality matters more than the SEO label itself.
Account-based marketing is the most expensive channel First Page Sage tracks at $4,664 per customer. Among more commonly used channels, SDR-led outbound ($1,980) and radio ads ($2,430) also rank near the top of the cost range.
First Page Sage defines CAC as total marketing and sales spend for a channel divided by the number of new customers that channel produced, based on roughly 120 B2B client engagements tracked between December 2021 and November 2024, expressed as a 3-year average.
It does not appear in First Page Sage’s published dataset yet. MediaFast is compiling a Community / Reddit CAC figure from its own first-party user acquisition data rather than inventing a number, and will publish it once there is enough sample size to be credible.
Yes, on individual rows. PPC/SEM at $802 beats several organic rows including basic SEO ($1,786), podcasts ($1,472), and industry trade shows ($1,390). The averages favor organic overall, but the cheapest paid channel still beats several of the pricier organic ones.
