The most you can pay to acquire a customer through influencers is their gross profit: AOV times margin on the first order, or times every order they place over their lifetime. Enter yours below to get the ceiling.
Results update as you type and the inputs are saved in the page URL, so you can share your numbers by copying the link. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Starting values are placeholders so the page has a result to show. Replace every one with your own.
After product cost, shipping and payment fees, before any marketing spend.
1 means no repeat purchases. Use a number you can defend from your own data.
Set to 1 to see pure break-even.
Fees + product + shipping + commissions + tools.
First-time buyers only.
The most you can pay per new customer, and how you compare.
Max CAC at a 3.0:1 LTV:CAC ratio
Inside your ceiling: $25.00 is at or below $32.00.
Next: see what commission fits inside this ceiling with the influencer commission calculator.
Compare influencers with your other channels against the same ceiling. Paid social and search figures below are placeholders: type in your own spend and new-customer counts.
| Channel | Spend ($) | New customers | CAC | LTV:CAC | Against your ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Influencer / creator (from the inputs above) | 1,500 | 60 | $25.00 | 3.8x | Within |
| Paid social | $40.00 | 2.4x | Over ceiling, under first-order break-even | ||
| Search ads | $33.33 | 2.9x | Over ceiling, under first-order break-even |
Channel figures are only as good as your attribution. Influencer sales tracked by code usually undercount, which makes influencer CAC look worse than it is.
Seed sends the free product, tracks who posts, and keeps your creator cost in one place so your CAC is easier to count.
Install Seed on ShopifyFirst-order break-even CAC is simply AOV times gross margin. The grid below is arithmetic, not a market benchmark: find your AOV row and margin column to see the most you can spend on a customer's first order before losing money. Repeat purchases raise the ceiling; the calculator above handles that.
| AOV | 30% margin | 40% margin | 50% margin | 60% margin | 70% margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $30 | $9.00 | $12.00 | $15.00 | $18.00 | $21.00 |
| $50 | $15.00 | $20.00 | $25.00 | $30.00 | $35.00 |
| $80 | $24.00 | $32.00 | $40.00 | $48.00 | $56.00 |
| $120 | $36.00 | $48.00 | $60.00 | $72.00 | $84.00 |
| $200 | $60.00 | $80.00 | $100.00 | $120.00 | $140.00 |
Gross margin here means after product cost, shipping and payment fees. If you discount creator-code orders, use the discounted AOV. To turn a ceiling into a commission rate, use the influencer commission calculator; to see whether a whole campaign paid back, use the influencer marketing ROI calculator. Gifting-only campaigns have their own math in the gifting ROI calculator, and you can price creator fees with the influencer rate calculator. More in all free tools and the Seed blog.
There is no universal good number. A good CAC sits comfortably below what a customer is worth to you: first-order gross profit if you need to break even on the first sale, or lifetime gross profit divided by your target LTV:CAC ratio. This calculator derives that ceiling from your own margin and repeat rate.
Add everything spent on creators in the period: flat fees, product cost, shipping, commissions and tool fees. Divide by the number of new customers those creators brought in, not total orders. Repeat buyers who were already in your customer list inflate the result if you count them.
Break-even CAC is the most you can spend to acquire one customer without losing money. On a first-order basis it equals gross profit per order (AOV times gross margin). On a lifetime basis it equals gross profit across all the orders a customer places, which is higher but arrives later.
Yes. Gifted product is a cash cost to you even though no invoice is paid. Include the product cost (COGS), shipping and packaging for every unit you sent, including units to creators who never posted. Leaving them out makes gifting look cheaper than it is.
There is no official number. A 3:1 ratio is a widely quoted rule of thumb and is the editable default here, but the right target depends on your cash position, how fast you need payback and how much you trust your repeat-order estimate. Set the ratio to 1 to see pure break-even.
Give each creator a unique discount code and tracked link, then count first-time customers who used them. A post-purchase survey ("how did you hear about us?") catches the rest. No method is perfect, so treat the result as a floor rather than an exact count.
Gross profit per order = AOV x gross margin. Lifetime value (LTV) here is gross-profit LTV: gross profit per order x orders per customer, with no discounting for time. Maximum CAC = LTV divided by your target LTV:CAC ratio. Your CAC = total influencer cost divided by new customers. Orders needed to pay back = your CAC divided by gross profit per order.
The 3:1 ratio, the orders-per-customer value and every other default are illustrative starting assumptions, not Seed data or industry benchmarks. Replace them with your own. Lifetime estimates are the weakest input: if you have under a year of data, lean on the first-order break-even instead.
Build a gifting agreement in under a minute — deliverables, posting window, usage rights, and FTC disclosure. Copy it or save as PDF. Free, no email.
The same contract generator, pre-set for an Instagram deliverable: in-feed post plus story.
The same contract generator, pre-set for a TikTok deliverable.
A content-licensing agreement for UGC, not a posting agreement. Usage rights and deliverables only.
For unpaid product-gifting sends specifically: the gift, deliverables, and usage rights.
Send personalized bulk Instagram DMs to creators without copy-pasting one message at a time. Built for outreach at volume.
The Chrome extension behind the DM assistant above. Install it, connect your Seed account, send from your own session.
Put in your product cost, shipping, and creator count, and get your real cost per piece of content, including your own hours. Ungated.
How much should you pay an influencer? Enter views and a CPM to get a fair cash range, and see if your gifted product alone is a fair trade.
Work out a creator's engagement rate on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, by followers and by views. Average up to 12 posts. Free, no email.
Build an influencer media kit with stats, audience, past collabs and rates. Live preview, three layouts, save as PDF. Free, no signup.
A UGC or influencer rate card with deliverables, usage rights, whitelisting and bundles. Preview it, then save as PDF. Free, no signup.
Three ready-to-send pitch emails (cold, warm, follow-up) for creators asking brands for PR packages or collabs. Free, no signup.
What can you actually earn on TikTok? Sponsored-post rate by tier, Creator Rewards eligibility, and a TikTok Shop affiliate estimate. Free, no signup.
Sponsored feed post, Reel and Story rate ranges by follower tier, plus an affiliate-earnings estimate. Free, no signup.
Score a creator's video against your brief in about two minutes. Free, no login.
Enter how many posts you want and get the number of creators to contact and gift, using your own acceptance and post rates.
Plan a gifting campaign budget: product, packaging and shipping cost by lane, total cost and cost per creator.
Compare the cost per 1,000 views and per content piece of influencer gifting against Meta and TikTok ads, with your own numbers.
Answer six questions to find the right influencer deal type for a creator: gifting, a flat fee, or affiliate commission.
Build a free influencer gifting application form with the exact fields to ask, then copy it or run it live on Shopify.
A free outreach CRM template with statuses, follow-up dates and notes. Download the CSV for Google Sheets or Excel.
Track sends, posts, discount codes, revenue and ROI with formulas built in. Download the CSV for Google Sheets.
Generate a one-page influencer brief: product, key messages, dos and don'ts, disclosure and deadlines. Free, no signup.
Generate a short outreach DM or email offering influencers a gifted product, in your own tone and language.
Score your influencer outreach subject lines against a transparent checklist, and get better variants.
Pick a niche and platform for a hand-written hashtag set, mixed broad to niche. No made-up volume numbers.
Get a recommended monthly influencer budget, split across gifting, paid posts and UGC, from your revenue and stage.
Estimate the real cost of a PR package: product, box, inserts, packing materials and shipping.
Calculate what the content from your gifting campaign would cost to buy from an agency or UGC creators instead.
Estimate fair UGC rates from experience level, deliverables and usage rights, for brands and creators, sources linked.
Estimate fair YouTube sponsorship rates from a channel's average views, format and usage rights, sources linked.
Estimate expected reach for a creator's post, Reel or Story from follower count, using published benchmarks.
Calculate follower growth rate over any period and flag suspicious spikes between two checkpoints.
Enter a follower count to see its influencer tier under three published definitions, with typical CPM ranges.
Create $0 influencer orders in Shopify, tag them, and calculate the real COGS and shipping cost of every gift.
Generate hundreds of unique influencer discount codes from a prefix and download a CSV, ready for a Shopify bulk-codes app or the API.
Per-creator code conversion plus an estimate of the halo sales promo codes miss, with every assumption editable.
Paste your landing page and a list of creators and get one tagged UTM link per creator in bulk, as a CSV.
Price usage rights for creator content in ads: duration, channels and exclusivity, with editable percentages. Free, no signup.
Add the creator fee to your media spend to get blended CPM and CPA for TikTok Spark Ads or Meta partnership ads.
Turn a creator's fee and post stats into CPM, cost per engagement and cost per view, and compare with your own benchmark.
Estimate EMV from views, likes, comments and shares using values you set, plus an honest look at why EMV isn't revenue.
Find the highest affiliate commission you can pay influencers from your order value, costs and the profit you want to keep.
Build a tiered ambassador commission ladder from your margin, a starting rate and sales thresholds. Copy it or download CSV.
Work out ROI, ROAS and break-even revenue for a paid or gifted influencer campaign from your costs, commission and margin.
Get a step-by-step gifting campaign plan with dates and creator counts, from your goal, product and budget.
Score how well a creator fits your brand on a transparent, weighted checklist before you reach out.
Pick a launch date or holiday and get backward-planned recruit, ship and posting-window dates for 2026 and 2027.
See whether import VAT and duty likely apply when gifting product abroad, for the EU, UK, Switzerland and Norway, with official sources.
The regulator, required label and gifted-product rule in 10 countries, each with an official source. Not legal advice.
What the IRS, HMRC, CRA, ATO and other tax authorities say about gifted product as creator income, with sources. Not tax advice.
Share one branded link. The creator picks a product and types their address, and a $0 draft order lands in your Shopify admin. Seed then follows up and tracks their posts.