SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Pothole #2 – Increasing Pricing Rate Without a Sustainable Moat. Raising prices might seem like a quick win to grow your revenue, but it’s critical to bear in mind the effect increased prices will have on your sales cycle, close rates, and disruption risk. Sell it to your market for half the price.

Sales Hiring 260

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 260

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 11, 2024

For software companies, this phenomenon can be a tailwind, as it drives accelerated deal closures and increased sales velocity, sometimes with less price sensitivity from buyers looking to quickly deplete their budgets. As a result, software vendors often see an uptick in revenue and bookings during these periods. Cloudflare is up 17%.

Cloud 167

Cloud Cost optimization & reporting GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Review 167

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

They each have some of the largest cloud businesses in the world in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud respectively. Cloud Giants Report Q4 ‘24 We now have the quarterly reports from Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Overall, there was weakness across the board. Not the best start to cloud software earnings season!

Systems Review 144

Systems Review Cloud AI Artificial Intelligence 144

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2024

In the application layer for startups, many face challenges that boil down to retention. If you’re a startup building in this space, retention is a challenge, and you’ll need to be more strategic. Notion launched the first of many upcoming AI features, and they’ve priced it so that it may be at $100M ARR in the near term.

Generative AI 298

Generative AI Outsourcing Services AI Software Review 298

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2023

For example, Google and AWS are already ZoomInfo customers, but only certain sub-segments within those businesses – not the entire org. So, in 2024, there should be a more normalized customer base from a retention perspective as you transition past Q1 and those customers are transitioning with you.

New CTO 316

New CTO Scale Sales Hiring CTO Hire 316

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2022

And account management, which is basically around for retention and also upsell of different products. We look at annual churn, given the nature of those businesses that have annual or multi annual contracts with much bigger price items and tickets. This is where we’re putting that price, et cetera. Is actually very good.

SaaS Payments 246

SaaS Payments Metrics Payment Methods Scale 246

SaaStr

MAY 15, 2024

You need 50M active free users to build a paid business, no matter the price. In B2B, you also have fixed costs, but you can diversify monetization based on tokens or seats, or in the case of AWS, however you like. It really pays to lean into retention, especially if you sell to SMBs. 25% isn’t unusual.

Subscription 306

Subscription Payment Features B2B Mobile 306

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

net retention and CAC payback). This has all resulted in the median stock price declining 5% YTD. It looks at the YoY dollar change in quarterly revenue from the hyperscalers (just looking at Azure / AWS because the data goes back further) going back a few years. Is Software Rebounding? Who are the real AI winners.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). The most notable change in tone was Andy Jassy talking about AWS. Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q1 + Early Look at Software Results Q1 earnings seasons has officially kicked off! ” Full quote below: “We're seeing a few trends right now.

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software Azure 190

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Subscribe now Foundation Models Are to AI what S3 was to the Public Cloud Many people look at 2006 as the birth of the public cloud - the year Amazon launched AWS. On top of that- we HAVE seen significant pricing pressure. In the last 18 months GPT4 has dropped ~90% in price! Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 176

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Azure 176

OpenView Labs

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

This is why we’re seeing more and more SaaS companies—Datadog, Twilio, AWS, Snowflake, and Stripe, to name a few—find success with product led growth paired with usage-based pricing. Usage-based pricing will be the key to successful monetization in the future.”. Usage-based pricing is in all layers of the tech stack.

Scale 98

Scale Pricing Scaling AWS 98

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Amazon on AWS : “…customers are continuing to shift their focus towards driving innovation and bringing new workloads to the cloud. Azure (excluding Azure AI) continued to decelerate, and while AWS did come in ahead of expectations, it wasn’t a blow out. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cost optimization & reporting 167

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 167

ChurnZero

JUNE 24, 2022

In our webinar, 2022 SaaS retention benchmarks , SaaS Capital Manager Director Rob Belcher shares the results from their 11th annual B2B SaaS benchmarking survey. You can download the full report for net retention and gross retention benchmarks as well as retention metrics in relation to ACV, growth, size, and more.

Benchmarks 98

Benchmarks Retention Software Review Technical Review 98

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 1, 2024

Looking for SaaS pricing examples to get inspiration for your own strategy? In this piece, we’ll explore different pricing models and go over some brands that implemented these in real life. Hopefully, by the end of the article, you’ll have ideas on how to design a pricing strategy that contributes to product growth.

Pricing 104

Pricing Strategy SaaS Scale 104

User Pilot

JULY 23, 2020

You’re leaving cash on the table for your competitors to sweep up if you don’t have a strategy for retention marketing. So, in this blog we’ll show you how to keep your customers happy with a targeted retention strategy. What is Retention Marketing? How to Measure Retention. Day 1 Retention. Week 1 Retention.

Retention 95

Retention SaaS Payments Strategy Payment Solutions 95

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q3 ‘23 Not a great signal for software this week from the Cloud Giants (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud)…After Q2 (3 months ago), the tone from the Cloud Giants around optimizations was largely: optimizations have started to ease, and net new workloads have picked up. That is not new.”

Cost optimization & reporting 157

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 157

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

” We saw some green shoots in AWS and a few other consumption names, and overall sentiment seemed more positive. Partly due to larger layoffs, as well as stronger bookings And finally - net retention. Not surprising, net retention continued to fall.

Cloud 176

Cloud Software Review AWS Trends 176

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. Overall, it wasn’t pretty… AWS grew 28% when expectations were 30-31%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Hyperscaler Preview Next week Amazon, Microsoft and Google report earnings and we’ll see Q3 data for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Said another way, the 10Y today is double what it averaged from 2010 to 2020. These are thought to be the early AI winners, largely due to all of the compute they’re selling to power GenAI applications.

Cloud 167

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review 167

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Enterprise software businesses strive for 90-95% gross retention (generally the percent of revenue that sticks with you vs churns altogether), with net expansion in the 120%+ range (the aggregate change in expansion - contraction - churned revenue). Namely, retention!! For “fake” ARR, retention can vary wildly.

AI 190

AI Cloud Revenue Technical Advisors 190

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 6, 2023

Cloud Downgrades This week UBS came out with a couple research reports citing concerns in AWS / Azure growth. This brings me back to AWS / Azure downgrades. This was the worst tone that we’ve heard in years from large AWS/Azure partners, a group that usually expresses different shades of optimism about AWS/Azure growth.”

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Underperforming Technical Team 130

SaaStr

JUNE 1, 2021

One of the challenges with that, one of the requisites, in order to start charging money, is you have to come up with a price. At the time we had to make the pricing decision, we didn’t have the six MBAs yet. ” “Yep, we need a price.” Number one, can we sell this thing at any price? We did that.

Part-Time VPE 296

Part-Time VPE Technical Cofounder CTO Hire New CTO 296

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. After all, they had a lot of AI tailwinds, and benefited tremendously from consolidation (without a headwind of a larger base of smaller startups, like AWS).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 4, 2023

” These are two quotes about AWS on the Amazon earnings call. AWS grew 16% in Q1, but called out growth in April (first month of Q2) was 11%. We’ve all been waiting for cloud optimizations to ease up, and this is our clearest signal that we’re getting there. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 2, 2024

Cloud Giants Report Q2 We also got the Q2 quarters from AWS / Azure / GCP this week! Quarterly Reports Summary Top 10 EV / NTM Revenue Multiples Top 10 Weekly Share Price Movement Update on Multiples SaaS businesses are generally valued on a multiple of their revenue - in most cases the projected revenue for the next 12 months.

Cloud 157

Cloud Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS 157

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 21, 2023

Next week we get all 3 hyperscalers reporting (AWS from Amazon, Azure from Microsoft, and GCP from Google). On AWS, in their Q4 earnings call they said AWS was growing “mid teens” in January (down from 20% in Q4). Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

MAY 31, 2024

This can lead to an airpocket of valuation as companies transition to a different primary valuation metric Outside of the hypserscalers (Azure, AWS, GCP) who have uniquely benefited from AI revenue (mainly selling compute), everyone else has largely struggled. Coming in to Q1 there was broader optimism. Q4’s were generally good!

Cloud 184

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 184

Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

All 3 (AWS, Azure, GCP) saw positive reacceleration Quarterly Reports Summary Top 10 EV / NTM Revenue Multiples Top 10 Weekly Share Price Movement Update on Multiples SaaS businesses are generally valued on a multiple of their revenue - in most cases the projected revenue for the next 12 months.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 167

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. This suggests that we’re at least getting closer to the bottom (but to be clear we’re still well below pre-headwind consumption levels). New customer growth seems to be picking up.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

SaaStr

JULY 1, 2020

Patrick Campbell’s got thousands of SaaS companies and pricing and issues. Because sales folks want to close the biggest deal and they may not like downgrades or logo retention, how are you thinking about this issue? We can save companies $100,000 on their AWS bill. He’s going to tell you what they see.

Merchant Services 265

Merchant Services Scale Sales Recruiting Sales 265

Clouded Judgement

JULY 28, 2023

AI = Data + Compute I’ll continue beating this drum, but we got two great quotes from Azure and AWS this week. ” Then at AWS Summit they called out “Your data is your differentiator when it comes to Generative AI.” AWS reports next week. ” Data is more important than ever! So what did we learn?

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP as companies look for cloud GPUs who aren’t building out their own data centers) Infra (Data layer, orchestration, monitoring, ops, etc) Durable Applications We’ve clearly well underway of the first 3 layers monetizing. Model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc as companies start building out AI).

Cloud 190

Cloud Artificial Intelligence GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 190

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

” From AWS (paraphrased): They said they expect the reaccleration they saw in Q4 to continue into 2024 2024 Estimate Updates One important metric I’m tracking this quarter is the change in 2024 estimates pre / post earnings. Yes, I wouldn't say it's all back to where 2021 was, but there are some green shoots, right?

Cloud 167

Cloud AWS Subscription Metrics 167

Clouded Judgement

JULY 26, 2024

If we rewind the clock back to the cloud buildout, the competition between the 3 main players has lead to numerous price changes. I asked ChatGPT how many price changes AWS has made to S3 since it’s inception in 2006, and the answer it gave me was 65. Absent the Llama 3.1 release, would this feature have been made free?

Cloud 144

Cloud Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Software Review 144

User Pilot

APRIL 2, 2025

Userpilots data is fully encrypted and stored with SOC-compliant vendors like Amazon AWS and Google Cloud. Onboard users, make announcements, and boost retention with mobile-first UI patterns. Thus, you have a single platform that addresses everything you need, from onboarding to retention.

Mobile 66

Mobile Underperforming Technical Team Onboarding AWS 66

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

The majority of COGS (revenue less COGS = gross profit) fall in hosting costs (ie AWS), and some customer support. The only way for software companies to avoid this gross margin compression when incorporating AI features is to raise prices. Double the price! Consumption Pricing.

Cloud 130

Cloud Sales Hiring AI Headcount 130

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

There’s a real chance the fed funds rate isn’t going >5%, and a soft landing or delayed recession is certainly possible (maybe even being priced in). If the market thinks the setup for H2 is great, it won’t wait until H2 to “price it in.” But what’s happened since? Lots of deceleration in growth.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI 130