Benchmarking data in ecommerce usually gets published as a single average across all categories. That makes it almost useless as a diagnostic tool. A supplement brand with a 37% repurchase rate is performing at category median (inBeat/MobiLoud retention data), while a home goods brand at the same rate would be doing something exceptional. A $53 CAC in food and beverage is average (First Page Sage, 80+ ecommerce clients, 2020-2025). That same number in jewelry would mean you've found an acquisition channel nobody else has.
Knowing your numbers is the first step to seeing the business clearly. The numbers below are pulled from six primary datasets: First Page Sage (CAC benchmarks, 80+ ecommerce clients, 2020-2025), Finaloop (P&L benchmarks across 800+ DTC brands), Hahnbeck (DTC valuation and channel mix data), Onramp Funds (inventory turnover benchmarks by industry), MobiLoud (LTV benchmarks), and inBeat (DTC retention and repurchase trends). I use these benchmarks in my advisory work with consumer brand founders, and I update them as new data comes in.
If you run a consumer brand between $5M and $75M, these are the numbers your business should be measured against. The goal here is diagnosis, not vanity: understanding where you sit relative to your category so you can make better decisions about where to focus.
The comparison table
This table shows the core operating metrics across six consumer brand categories. Each number represents a category-level average or median from the source datasets. The "Key Insight" column highlights the single most important thing to understand about operating in that category.
| Category | Avg CAC | Gross Margin | Repurchase Rate | Key Insight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty | $61 | 60–70% | 25–30% | Highest margins in DTC. The risk is CAC inflation eating the advantage. |
| Fashion | $66 | 50–60% | 20–25% | Returns and inventory kill more fashion brands than slow growth does. |
| Supplements | $61 (est.) | 60–70% | 37.7% | Best repeat purchase in DTC. The business model runs on subscriptions. |
| Food & Beverage | $53 | 40–55% | 25–35% | Lowest CAC, but the margins are thin. Retail distribution is where the profitability math works. |
| Pet | $59 (est.) | 50% (median) | 25–35% (est.) | Huge top-quartile spread (74% GM vs 27%). Category rewards loyalty. |
| Home | $58–$77 | 45–55% | 15–20% | Lowest repeat, but highest LTV potential: $122 more per customer by Year 1. |
A few things stand out. First, CAC varies less across categories than you might expect: $53 to $91 for the full range (First Page Sage, 80+ ecommerce clients, 2020-2025). The real differentiator is what happens after the first purchase. Supplement brands get 37.7% of customers to buy again within 24 months (inBeat DTC brand statistics). Home brands get 15–20%. That difference in repurchase rate is why a supplement brand can afford the same CAC as a beauty brand but build a fundamentally different P&L. If you are looking at your CAC in isolation, you are answering the wrong question. The question is: what does your CAC buy you in terms of repeat orders, and does that payback math close within 12 months?
Second, gross margin alone is not a reliable indicator of business health. Pet brands have a 47-percentage-point spread between top and bottom quartile (74% vs 27%, Finaloop 2025, 800+ brands). That spread is wider than the difference between the highest-margin category (beauty at 70%) and the lowest (food at 40%). The variation within a category is often larger than the variation between categories. The operating implication: comparing your margin to a cross-category average is misleading. Compare against your own category, then check whether your contribution margin (gross profit minus fulfillment, shipping, processing, and variable marketing) still looks healthy after the real costs are loaded in.
Why category-level benchmarks matter
Generic ecommerce benchmarks create two problems. They give high-margin categories false confidence ("our gross margin is above average") and they make low-margin categories look broken when they're actually performing well for their vertical.
A food and beverage brand running a 48% gross margin is performing solidly for its category. A beauty brand at the same margin is in warning territory. Without category context, both would be measured against the same all-industry median of 52%, and the food brand would look slightly below average while the beauty brand would look slightly below average. Both readings would be misleading.
The same logic applies to CAC. Customer acquisition cost has increased 222% over 8 years across ecommerce. The median New CAC Ratio hit $2.00 in 2024, up 14% year-over-year. Those are the macro trends. But the question that matters for your business is: given your category's margin structure and repeat purchase behavior, what CAC can you actually afford? That requires category-level math, not a universal benchmark.
How to use these benchmarks
Start with your category page below. Compare your gross margin, CAC, and repurchase rate against the category data. Then run the math on your LTV-to-CAC ratio: the healthy target is 3:1 minimum after three years in business (Genesys Growth CAC benchmarks), measured over a 36-month window using fully burdened gross profit (net of COGS, discounts, returns, fulfillment, shipping, and processing fees). Below 2:1, you are losing money on acquisition regardless of what your top line looks like. If you are sitting between 2:1 and 3:1, the priority is retention economics: increasing repeat rate and AOV on existing customers will move the ratio faster than cutting CAC.
Next, look at your contribution margin. This is gross profit minus variable costs (fulfillment, shipping, payment processing, variable marketing). Top-quartile DTC brands run 54–56% contribution margin (Finaloop, 800+ brands). The median is around 25%. If your contribution margin is below 15%, the business is in critical territory regardless of what gross margin says. Gross margin tells you what the product earns. Contribution margin tells you what the business earns after it actually gets the product to the customer. If you have never separated these two numbers, that is the single most important financial exercise you can do this quarter.
Finally, check your EBITDA margin against your revenue tier. Median EBITDA for brands doing $1M–$10M is 4%. For $10M–$100M, it is 7% (Finaloop, 800+ brands; Hahnbeck DTC valuation data). Top performers at 8-figure revenue target 15–20%+. These numbers have compressed significantly over the past 3 years, so if your EBITDA margin has dropped, you are not alone. The question is whether you are aware of the drop and doing something about it. If your EBITDA is below 5% at the $10M+ stage, the path to improvement almost always runs through cost structure (G&A, headcount, tool spend), not revenue growth.
Benchmarks by category
Beauty & Personal Care
Highest margins in DTC. The challenge is rising CAC and crowded paid channels.
Fashion & Apparel
Moderate margins with high return rates and inventory complexity.
Supplements & Wellness
Best repeat purchase in DTC. The business model is built on subscriptions.
Food & Beverage
Lowest CAC, but thinner margins. Retail distribution is where profitability lives.
Pet & Animal
Huge performance spread. Top-quartile brands run 74% GM vs 27% at bottom.
Home & Accessories
Lowest repeat purchase, but highest LTV potential per customer.
The cross-category patterns
CAC keeps rising everywhere
The 222% increase in customer acquisition cost over 8 years is not category-specific (First Page Sage, 80+ ecommerce clients, 2020-2025). It is hitting beauty, fashion, supplements, and food brands alike. The bottom quartile New CAC Ratio is $2.82, which is 41% worse than the $2.00 median (Genesys Growth CAC benchmarks). If your CAC has climbed in the past 12 months, the first question is whether you are tracking it at all. The second is whether you are measuring blended CAC or channel-level CAC. The difference matters: your Meta CAC might be $85 while your organic CAC is $12, and a blended number of $55 tells you nothing useful. Pull your channel-level CAC from your ad accounts and attribution tool this week. If blended is the only number you have, that is the first thing to fix.
Contribution margin separates healthy from struggling
Gross margin gets the attention. Contribution margin determines the outcome (Finaloop, 800+ brands). The gap between the two is fulfillment, shipping, payment processing, and variable marketing costs. For the median DTC brand, those costs eat roughly 25-30 percentage points of gross margin. A beauty brand at 65% gross margin might run a 35% contribution margin after variable costs, while a food brand at 48% gross margin might run a 20% contribution margin. The beauty brand has more room to absorb mistakes. The food brand does not. If you have never calculated your contribution margin as a standalone number, start there: Gross Profit minus fulfillment, shipping, processing, and variable marketing. If the result is below 20%, your business is making money on paper and losing it in the warehouse.
Channel mix is shifting fast
Wholesale grew 51% in 2024 while DTC sites grew 6% (Hahnbeck DTC valuation data, Business of Fashion). Pure DTC is no longer a viable path to scale for the majority of consumer brands. The typical channel mix for an established brand is 30-45% DTC, 40-60% wholesale, 10-25% marketplace (Amazon), and 5-15% owned retail (Hahnbeck DTC valuation data). If any single channel represents more than 70% of revenue, that is a high-risk concentration. Your margins might look great today, but you are one algorithm change or terms renegotiation away from a problem. Check your trailing-12-month revenue by channel. If one channel is above 60%, start planning the second channel now, not after the first one gets disrupted.
Inventory is the silent margin killer
Median inventory turnover across ecommerce is 2.8x, which translates to 129 days on hand (Onramp Funds inventory benchmarks, Finaloop 2025). Top-quartile brands turn inventory 7-12x per year (30-52 days). The spread is enormous. Hardgoods and home categories turn at 2-4x, while fast fashion targets 10-12x. If product has been sitting for 90-120 days with no sales, it is time to consider discontinuing. Dead inventory does not show up on the P&L until you write it off, but it ties up cash every single day. Run an aging report on your current inventory. Any SKU over 90 days with zero sales velocity is a markdown candidate, and anything over 180 days is a liquidation or write-off decision you are deferring.
Universal benchmarks across all categories
Some metrics apply regardless of what you sell. Here are the thresholds I use when reviewing a brand's financial health:
LTV:CAC: Green above 3:1, yellow at 2:1 to 3:1, red below 2:1.
Gross Margin: Green above 55%, yellow at 45-55%, red below 45%.
Contribution Margin: Green above 30%, yellow at 20-30%, red below 20%.
EBITDA Margin: Green above 10%, yellow at 5-10%, red below 5%.
Inventory Turnover: Green above 4x, yellow at 2-4x, red below 2x.
Channel Concentration: Green below 50%, yellow at 50-70%, red above 70%.
Pull these 3 numbers from your Shopify admin and accounting system: trailing-12-month gross margin, blended CAC from your ad accounts, and 24-month repurchase rate from your email/CDP platform. Compare against the category benchmarks in the table above. If your gross margin is healthy but your repurchase rate is below category median, the priority is retention (email flows, subscription, hero SKU strategy). If your CAC is above category average while your repurchase rate is strong, the priority is acquisition efficiency (channel-level CAC tracking, creative testing, organic investment).
Methodology and sources
The data in these benchmarks comes from six primary sources: First Page Sage (CAC data from 80+ ecommerce clients, 2020-2025), Finaloop (P&L benchmarks across 7-figure and 8-figure DTC brands), Hahnbeck (DTC valuation and channel mix data), Onramp Funds (inventory turnover benchmarks by industry), MobiLoud (LTV benchmarks), and inBeat (DTC statistics and repurchase trends). Where category-specific data is not available from these sources, I've noted estimates based on adjacent category data and cross-referenced against patterns from my advisory work.
These benchmarks cover brands in the $5M to $75M revenue range. Smaller brands (under $5M) typically have higher volatility in all metrics and should use these as directional targets rather than performance standards. Larger brands ($75M+) will have different cost structures and margin profiles that diverge from these midmarket ranges.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good CAC for a DTC brand?
Average CAC varies by category, from $53 for food and beverage to $91 for jewelry. A good CAC depends on your LTV: the benchmark is a 3:1 LTV-to-CAC ratio minimum after 3 years in business. Below 2:1, you're likely losing money on customer acquisition.
What gross margin should a DTC brand target?
Strong DTC brands target gross margins above 60%. The healthy range is 50-60%, with warning signals below 45%. Beauty and personal care brands typically run 60-70% median gross margins, while fashion and apparel run 50-60%. These vary significantly by category and business model.
What is a healthy EBITDA margin for an ecommerce brand?
Median EBITDA margins for DTC brands have compressed to 7-8% as of 2024. Brands doing $1M-$10M typically run around 4% median, while $10M-$100M brands run about 7%. Top performers target 15-20%+. Below 5% is a warning signal, and negative EBITDA is critical.
How do I compare my brand's metrics to industry benchmarks?
Start with category-specific benchmarks rather than all-industry averages. Compare your gross margin, CAC, LTV-to-CAC ratio, contribution margin, and EBITDA margin against your specific category, then look at revenue-tier benchmarks for brands your size.