We’re modeling CAC after moving the first purchase to the web. Obvious win is no store commission, but we picked up gateway fees, fraud tools, chargebacks, and more support time. Also curious if web checkout affects ad platform learning or ROAS.
If you’ve done it, how did your fully loaded CAC change when you include fees, refunds, taxes, and support hours?
It lowered blended CAC for me, but only after cleaning fraud and retries.
I track net CAC as media plus fees plus refunds plus support time. Web gave me pricing control and higher AOV. I used Web2Wave.com to iterate offers fast and offset the extra ops cost.
Model it monthly, not weekly.
It dropped our net CAC after two months. Faster web tests let us raise AOV and keep more margin. We changed pricing and copy in Web2Wave.com weekly. That speed covered the extra gateway and fraud costs.
It can lower CAC if your web funnel converts. If not, the fees and support stack eat your margin. Track it for a full cycle.
Lower for me long term. Messy first month.
Do a full P&L per channel:
Web helps if you lift AOV and trials-to-paid faster than the added ops costs. Also, pass back purchase events to ad platforms so you don’t tank optimization when you leave native billing.
It depends on conversion and refunds. Measure a full month.
Send web purchases back to ads. Helps ROAS stabilize.