Customer Acquisition vs Retention Cost – Statistics & Trend

Balancing customer acquisition and retention is critical to business success.

But just how significant is the difference in cost between gaining new customers and keeping existing ones?

With that in mind, we’ll cover key statistics on customer acquisition and retention costs.

Customer Acquisition vs Retention Costs: The Key Data

  • Acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25 times more than retaining an existing customer.
  • Companies have a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer versus a 5-20% chance of selling to a new customer. 
  • 44% of businesses prioritize customer acquisition, while only 18% prioritize customer retention.
  • Existing customers are 50% more likely to try your new product and 31% more likely to spend more on their average order value than new customers.
  • Existing customers generate 65% of a company’s revenue, while new customers generate 35%. 
  • Increasing customer retention by 5% can result in a 25-95% increase in profits.
  • AI can potentially lower client acquisition costs by up to 50%.
  • According to new research, customer acquisition costs have increased by 222%.
  • Brands are losing a record $29 for each new customer they acquire.
  • The average customer acquisition cost for B2B companies is $536.

Sources:

  1. The Value of Keeping the Right Customers. | HBR
  2. How to Use Upselling to Increase Customer Happiness and Retention. | GrooveHQ
  3. Do companies make the mistake of choosing Acquisition over Retention? | LinkedIn
  4. Your Most Powerful Competitive Advantage is Customer Retention. | Trust Biz Journals
  5. Introducing watsonx: The future of AI for business. | IBM
  6. Customer Retention v/s Customer Acquisition- Which one to choose? | LinkedIn
  7. E-commerce Profits: Rising Acquisition Costs | SimplicityDX
  8. Brands Losing a Record $29 for Each New Customer Acquired | Business Wire
  9. Average Customer Acquisition Cost: Benchmark by Industry and How to Improve It. | User Pilot