Customer acquisition vs retention budgets favor acquisition at 2 of 3 companies. In the 2026 CMO Survey (Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Deloitte, and the American Marketing Association), marketing leaders at 66% of companies say they spend more on acquisition than on retention. 18% say they spend more on retention, and 16% split the budget evenly, down from 32% in the 2024 edition.
Budgets tilt toward acquisition while retention weakens in B2B SaaS and shoppers keep trying new brands. The typical B2B SaaS company kept 84% of its customers' revenue in 2025 after cancellations and downgrades, down from 88% in 2024. In a 2026 U.S. survey, 88% of shoppers had bought from a brand new to them in the previous 3 months. Only 18% expected to buy again from most or all of those brands.
In short
Customer acquisition vs retention budgets lean toward acquisition, and more companies lean that way than in 2024. Marketing leaders at 66% of companies report a larger acquisition budget, and companies with equal budgets halved to 16%. At large companies, Gartner found spending on loyalty and retention down 29% since 2024. In B2B SaaS, existing customers of the typical company paid 102% of what they paid 12 months earlier in 2025, counting upgrades and losses. In the weakest quarter of companies they paid 92% or less.
In consumer markets, shoppers try new brands often, and subscription customers leave early. In subscription apps, 35% of annual-plan cancellations come in month 1, and only 5% of cancelled annual customers return within a year. A sound rule is to compare how fast each dollar of acquisition and of retention earns itself back, and to count retention spending across all teams.
Acquisition Gets More Budget, in 2 of 3 Companies
On average, marketing leaders put their acquisition budget about 26% above retention. About 1 in 5 put it at least 70% above.
Even splits are becoming rarer. In 2024, 32% of companies reported equal budgets and 52% reported a larger acquisition budget. In 2026 those shares are 16% and 66%. The share spending more on retention barely moved, from 16% to 18%.
Leaders say they will focus more on retention. In the same survey, 44% of companies responded to economic shifts by increasing their focus on keeping existing customers loyal, the most common answer. A December 2025 Harris Poll survey for Madison Logic found a similar priority. 45% of U.S. marketing decision-makers expected to prioritize customer experience and retention in 2026, the top answer on the list.
Spending at large companies points the other way. In Gartner's 2026 survey of CMOs, mostly at companies above $1 billion in revenue, awareness and conversion take 62.6% of media spend, up more than 10% since 2024. Spending on loyalty and retention fell 29% over the same period, to below 15% of media spend.
Other 2026 Surveys Report the Split Differently
Two consumer-marketing surveys report a more balanced or retention-heavy split than the 2 surveys above.
| Survey | Who answered | What it reports |
|---|---|---|
| The CMO Survey | Marketing leaders at companies of all sizes | 66% spend more on acquisition, 18% spend more on retention |
| Gartner CMO Spend Survey | CMOs and marketing leaders, mostly at companies above $1 billion in revenue | Loyalty and retention fell 29% since 2024, to below 15% of media spend |
| GetResponse customer loyalty report | Direct-to-consumer brands | 69% split the budget evenly between acquisition and retention |
| Klaviyo report on European marketers | Marketers in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain | 53% spend at least 60% of their marketing budget on retention |
Source: The surveys named. Klaviyo's published summary gives no question wording.
GetResponse and Klaviyo sell email marketing software, and their published summaries leave retention spending undefined. They may count email, loyalty rewards and service as retention, which the 2 surveys above may place elsewhere. Consumers describe the same tilt toward acquisition. In the GetResponse survey, 67% of consumers of health, beauty and wellness products said brands prioritize new customers over existing ones.
Which Companies Favor Acquisition Most
Every business type puts more money into acquisition than into retention. Companies that sell products to consumers show the biggest gap, with the acquisition budget 34% above retention on average. Companies that sell services to other businesses show the smallest gap, at 18%. The differences between business types are small. The clearest difference is by company size. Companies with revenue under $10M run the most balanced budgets, with acquisition 14% larger. Companies with $100M-$499M in revenue lean furthest toward acquisition, at 35%.
| Segment | Acquisition budget larger by |
|---|---|
| B2C Product | 34% |
| B2C Services | 31% |
| B2B Product | 25% |
| B2B Services | 18% |
| Revenue under $10M | 14% |
| Revenue $10M-$99M | 26% |
| Revenue $100M-$499M | 35% |
| Revenue $500M and above | 25% |
Source: The CMO Survey 2026. Averages of marketing leaders' estimates, by business type and by annual revenue.
Why Retention Gets the Smaller Budget: Possible Reasons
The surveys show what companies do and give little explanation. These 4 hypotheses fit the pattern.
Hypothesis 1: Acquisition Is Easier to Measure
A paid ad shows its sign-ups and sales within days. The payoff from keeping customers arrives months later, in renewals, repeat orders and upgrades. Gartner found that marketing teams further along with AI give loyalty and retention a bigger share of budget, and reads this as a sign that teams further behind may over-invest in whatever is easiest to measure. Only 30% of CMOs report mature AI readiness in 2026, so most CMOs lead teams that are further behind.
Hypothesis 2: Budget Pressure Favors Quick Returns
Marketing leaders estimate that marketing is cut before other areas in about 45% of cost-cutting rounds in 2026. Spending that pays back slowly is the easiest to postpone. Loyalty perks, onboarding and customer emails tend to pay back more slowly than ads.
Hypothesis 3: Other Teams Own Part of Retention
Customer success, support and product teams do much of the work of keeping customers. SaaS Capital's 2026 survey of B2B SaaS companies puts a number on it. The typical company spends 9% of its annual recurring revenue (ARR) on customer support and customer success, against 8% on marketing. The marketing leaders who answered the budget surveys may count only the part they control. The full budget allocation may be closer to even than those surveys suggest.
Hypothesis 4: New Customers Are Plentiful
Shoppers keep trying new brands, and a brand that sees so many shoppers open to something new may judge acquisition the bigger opportunity. Klaviyo's Q1 2026 commerce report shows the same lean in discounts. The discount rate for new buyers rose from 9.8% to 10.8%, and for repeat buyers it fell from 12.1% to 11.7%. The report reads this as brands spending more to win first-time customers and pulling back on promotions for existing ones.
What Retention Returns in B2B and in B2C
B2B SaaS: The Gap Between Strong and Weak Retention Is Wide
Aleph and Benchmarkit's 2026 report uses full-year 2025 data from B2B SaaS and AI companies. Net revenue retention (NRR) is the share of revenue from a group of customers still there 12 months later, after upgrades, downgrades and cancellations. Gross revenue retention (GRR) counts only downgrades and cancellations, so 100% is its ceiling.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Net revenue retention, weakest quarter of companies | 92% or lower |
| Net revenue retention, typical company | 102% |
| Net revenue retention, companies with seat-based pricing | 98% |
| Net revenue retention, companies with usage-based pricing | 108% |
| Net revenue retention, typical company under $5M in ARR | 94% |
| Net revenue retention, typical company above $100M in ARR | 103% |
| Gross revenue retention, typical company | 84% |
| Months to earn back the cost of winning a customer (CAC payback), typical company | 16 |
Source: Aleph and Benchmarkit, 2026 SaaS & AI Performance Benchmarks report.
At 110%, a company grows 10% a year from existing customers alone. At 92%, it must win 8% back just to stay level. The typical company at 102% holds steady, so new customers supply its growth. The report treats 110% or more as top-quartile retention. Pricing and size both show a gap. Usage-based pricing beats seat-based pricing by 10 points, and the largest companies keep more than the smallest.
The trend points in 2 directions. Typical gross revenue retention fell from 88% in 2024 to 84% in 2025, and the weakest quarter's net revenue retention slipped from 95% to 92%. New customers repaid their cost faster. The typical time to earn back the cost of winning a customer fell from 18 months in 2024 to 16 months in 2025.
SaaS Capital's 2026 survey of self-funded B2B SaaS companies with $3M to $20M in ARR found a typical net revenue retention of 103% and gross revenue retention of 91%. The 2 sources cover different groups of companies, which can explain the gap in gross retention.
B2C: Shoppers Try New Brands Often and Return Less Often
In Attentive's 2026 survey of U.S. shoppers, 88% bought from a brand new to them in the previous 3 months. Only 18% expect to buy again from most or all of those new brands, and 55% from some. 77% regularly shop with 5 brands or fewer, so a new brand has to earn a place among the few.
Annual-plan customers in subscription apps leave most often in the first month. In RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 report, month 1 accounts for 35% of all cancellations on annual plans, and about half in shopping apps. Customers who cancel rarely come back. 5% of cancelled annual subscribers return within a year, against 20% of cancelled monthly subscribers.
In Bond's 2026 survey, 85% of U.S. loyalty program members said a program makes them more likely to keep doing business with a brand. 73% said they spend more because of it. These answers describe attitudes more than sales.
Retention Results Vary More Than Acquisition Results
Marketing leaders in the CMO Survey also rated how their company performed in the 12 months before January 2026. Acquisition results look steadier than retention results.
| Result | Acquisition | Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Report growth | 72.1% | 52.6% |
| Report no change | 10.4% | 22.7% |
| Report a decline | 17.5% | 24.7% |
| Report gains of 75% | 1.9% | 14.3% |
Source: The CMO Survey 2026. Leaders rate their own company's performance.
Retention results are more spread out. About 14% of companies report retention gains of 75%, and about 25% report a decline. Most acquisition results fall in a narrower range of modest gains. A small group with very large retention gains pulls the average retention result above the average acquisition result. The typical company reports a better acquisition result. Results probably depend on whether a company has a deliberate program for keeping customers, such as onboarding, regular customer emails, a customer success team or upgrades built into the product.
How to Rebalance Acquisition and Retention Budgets
- Decide the split by how fast each dollar pays back. Take each group of customers who first bought in the same period. Work out how long it takes to earn back the cost of winning them, and how long a retention program takes to earn back its cost. In B2B SaaS, the typical payback for winning a customer was 16 months in 2025. Move budget toward the faster payback until the paybacks match. No single split fits every company, and survey answers run from retention budgets 70% larger to acquisition budgets 70% larger.
- Measure retention in money. Subscription and software businesses can track net revenue retention and gross revenue retention. Consumer brands can track repeat purchase revenue from each group of first-time buyers. Use a single agreed definition of marketing return whenever the board asks for proof.
- For subscriptions, start with the first month. Month 1 holds more annual-plan cancellations than any other month, and cancelled customers rarely return. Onboarding and early service are the retention spending most likely to pay back first.
- Count retention spending across all teams. Add customer success, support, customer email software and loyalty rewards to the comparison. The marketing budget alone shows only part of the effort.
- Protect retention spending during cost cuts. Spending that pays back slowly is cut first. Before the budget review, attach to every retention program the revenue it keeps, meaning revenue from customers who would otherwise leave.
- Test 1 retention program each quarter against a comparison group. Leave a group of customers out of the program and compare repeat purchases. The difference shows what the program adds. It also tells whether the next dollar belongs in retention or acquisition.
Acquisition deserves the larger share in 2 situations: when many potential buyers purchase rarely, and when a young brand is still unknown to most buyers.
What to Watch in the Next Survey
The next CMO Survey will be conducted in January 2027. 2 numbers will show whether budgets are rebalancing. The first is the share of companies with equal acquisition and retention budgets, which was 16% in 2026. The second is the share that raised their focus on retention, which was 44%. Gartner's 2027 survey will show whether loyalty and retention stay below 15% of media spend.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between customer acquisition and customer retention?
Customer acquisition, also called new customer acquisition, means winning customers who buy for the first time, through advertising, search, content and outbound sales, for example. Customer retention means keeping existing customers buying through onboarding, service, customer emails, loyalty programs, renewals and upgrades.
Which is more important, customer acquisition or customer retention?
In B2B SaaS, retention sets the base for growth. In 2025, existing customers of the typical company paid 102% of what they paid 12 months earlier, and in the weakest quarter of companies they paid 92% or less. Consumer markets need both. 88% of U.S. shoppers bought from a new brand in 3 months, and 18% expect to buy again from most or all of the new brands they tried. For a single company, the faster payback decides.
How is the budget split between customer acquisition and customer retention?
In the 2026 CMO Survey, marketing leaders at 66% of companies say they spend more on acquisition than on retention. 16% say the budgets are equal, and 18% say they spend more on retention. Gartner's 2026 CMO Spend Survey puts loyalty and retention below 15% of media spend at large companies. Surveys of consumer brands, such as GetResponse's 2026 report, find 69% describing an even split.
Is it cheaper to retain customers than to acquire new customers?
In B2B SaaS, a new customer took a typical 16 months to repay its acquisition cost in 2025. The typical company also lost 16% of its customers' revenue to churn and downgrades. The widely quoted cost statistic says keeping a customer costs 5 to 25 times less than winning a new customer. It comes from a 2014 Harvard Business Review article that says the range depends on the study and cites no study. A comparison for a single business is how many months each dollar takes to pay back in acquisition and in retention.
What is a good net revenue retention rate for B2B SaaS?
The 2026 net revenue retention benchmark from Aleph and Benchmarkit, based on 2025 data, is 102% for the typical company. The weakest quarter had 92% or lower, and companies with usage-based pricing reported 108% against 98% for seat-based pricing. Aleph treats 110% or more as top-quartile retention.
Do B2B and B2C companies split acquisition and retention budgets differently?
The differences are small in the CMO Survey. Companies that sell products to consumers put their acquisition budget 34% above retention on average, and companies that sell services to businesses 18% above. In GetResponse's 2026 survey, 69% of direct-to-consumer brands said they split the budget evenly.
About the Author
Ruslan Abdrakhmanov is an Executive Marketing Advisor and CMO with 13+ years leading international marketing teams across EMEA, SEA, and Americas. Expert in data-driven growth strategies with the track record growing B2B and B2C businesses.
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