SaaStr

DECEMBER 17, 2024

And as stock prices rip higher, growth VC floods back in. All of which are epic companies with epic metrics. Some rough metrics for the last 4 SaaS IPOs — which again are epic ones: These are rough metrics. 2021 prices were certainly inflated in many cases from valuations today. So SaaS is back.

SaaS 258

SaaS AI Pricing Metrics 258

SaaStr

JULY 25, 2022

SaaS pricing can be overwhelming when there are unlimited paths and opportunities that exist. Even though most companies acknowledge its importance, SaaS founders often choose a simplistic approach to pricing—that is, if they don’t choose to ignore it altogether. Making pricing work for your business.

Pricing 269

Pricing Strategy SaaS Forecasting 269

Sales Hacker

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

SaaS pricing isn’t static – it’s a living strategy that grows with your company. In this article we dive into a playbook for pricing across different stages of company growth, inspired by Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm. Tiered pricing models emerge to address these differences.

Pricing 111

Pricing Scale SaaS Technical Review 111

SaaStr

JANUARY 2, 2025

I knew what a good pitch was, and what good metrics were, and what VCs were interested in. I was advised to push back and ask for a significantly higher price. I asked for something like $7m-$8m at a significantly higher price. And we were a pretty good duo pitching, my co-founder and me. Without even thinking about it.

Pricing 269

Pricing Metrics Marketing 269

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

Let’s jump right into this set of community questions focused on SaaS metrics, growth, and efficiency. What metrics should we expect in this environment? These payback metrics are important for investing. Q: When it comes to GTM efficiency, what are the most important leading indicator metrics? Do zero-cost budgeting.

Metrics 267

Metrics Scale Sales Hiring SaaS 267

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2024

What Are The Odds You Get Acquired Within 5 Years for a Good Price? And a few other related metrics, JIC of interest: 33% of our views came from SEO / search 15% of our views came from our own SaaStr newsletters 8% of our views came from LinkedIn and X/Twitter. A Framework For Your First SaaS Sales Comp Plan #4. Is SaaS Dead? #5.

Venture Capital 253

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Customer Success 253

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2024

What metrics is PE looking for today? Has Pricing Really Changed? Or are clever pricing models worth the friction? Dave answers: “Unless your business plan is predicated on price model disruption, do what everybody else does.” ” The problem with AI right now is those pricing standards are not yet set.

Headcount 264

Headcount SaaS AI Pricing 264

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 18, 2024

As far as an expected timeline - typically companies launch their roadshow ~2-3 weeks after filing their initial S-1 (the roadshow launches with an updated S-1 that contains a price range). ”” Benchmark Data The data shown below depicts how the ServiceTitan data compares to the operating metrics of current public SaaS businesses.

Benchmarks 299

Benchmarks Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments 299

Tom Tunguz

JULY 11, 2024

3x as productive as humans, which would parallel mechanical robots, how does a software company price? Building on yesterday’s post , pricing in software companies may change significantly when AI agents become the norm. This would be a significant increase in price, but the value of the software would be much higher.

AI 231

AI Pricing Software Compensation 231

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 29, 2024

Dan, a Stanford-trained engineer with experience guiding companies like Intuit, understands how to optimize your product metrics for growth by focusing on retention and building a product users truly value. Understanding the product metrics Let’s have two products – A and B. The key is to go beyond surface-level metrics.

Metrics 105

Metrics Scale Acquisition Retention 105

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Metrics are the key to evaluating success and setting goals, but not every SaaS business should orient itself around the same one-size-fits-all numbers. This flexible mindset creates just the right conditions for embracing evolving business models and new metrics. The Metric Monolith: The Rise and Fall.

Metrics 267

Metrics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 267

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2024

Mobile Subscription Pricing is Flat, Not Up This is interesting. I suspect it’s because of the huge friction in mobile of moving beyond organic price points like $9.99 a month to pricing, especially for the existing base. #3. It’s actually even harder over there. So in many ways, they have to be better.

Mobile 315

Mobile Subscription Payment Features Pricing 315

SaaStr

JANUARY 8, 2025

As Checkr follows usage-based pricing, it’s a transactional business that needs to be managed differently than a typical subscription SaaS model since they only earn revenue when the customer is using the product. The team lacked visibility into key metrics like average revenue per customer.

Revenue 286

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation 286

Tom Tunguz

AUGUST 22, 2023

The company’s pricing power at work : limited supply & increased demand pushes prices higher. Looking at some of the inventory metrics (this isn’t a software company!) Metric Q1 Q2 Inventory, $b 4.6 DSI 165 97 Long term supply obligations, $b 7.3 Accounts receivable, $b 4.1

Pricing 246

Pricing AI Business Cloud 246

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Balanced Metrics : While they track traditional SaaS metrics, they also measure customer success indicators specific to the construction industry. This isn’t just about features it’s about understanding where the construction industry is heading.

Construction 248

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 248

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 2, 2025

Companies need to: Ensure secure data handling Maintain clean data for model training Integrate effectively across multiple systems Enable real-time data access where needed Evolution of Business Models The integration of AI is driving changes in how vertical software companies approach pricing and business models: Pricing Strategies Traditional subscription-based (..)

AI 217

AI Technical Review Artificial Intelligence Systems Review 217

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 21, 2025

Price undisclosed but sounds like >$300m DataStax acquired by IBM. Price undisclosed but sounds like >$1B M&A has followed an interesting arc over the last ~20 years. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 188

Cloud Pricing Subscription Payment Features 188

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

The company’s pricing structure, centered around $10,000 average contract values (ACVs), created a problematic middle ground – too expensive for small and medium-sized businesses but not substantial enough to support a partner channel strategy effectively.

Scale 159

Scale Scaling Outsourced Development Sales 159

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Sessions typically focus on real metrics, strategies, and lessons learned, not theoretical concepts. Many vendors offer special event pricing or extended trials, creating additional value. Companies frequently report implementing changes based on SaaStr insights that directly impact their growth metrics within weeks of the event.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

SaaStr

AUGUST 7, 2023

Learn about the most important SaaS metrics for founders in 2023 with the CEOs of the most metric-oriented company, monday.com, and the founder of SaaStr. For a quick recap on SaaS metrics: What is ARR in SaaS? So now we must be smarter about the most important SaaS metrics because they matter again. The takeaway?

Metrics 245

Metrics SaaS Sales Hiring Finance 245

SaaStr

JANUARY 23, 2025

You need to: Engage with procurement early – don’t treat them as a rubber stamp Build relationships with 20+ key accounts in year one Get executive sponsorship on both sides Never negotiate price with the business buyer Document clear ROI and business cases Remember: The actual buyer is often not the end user.

Enterprise 244

Enterprise Sales Hiring Scale Outsourced Development 244

SaaStr

MARCH 18, 2025

This practical, observable metric drove more decision-making than sophisticated dashboards or forecasting models. Trust Was Built Through Admitting Pricing Mistakes Wiz took the counterintuitive approach of quickly acknowledging errors in their pricing models.

Scale 179

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Headcount 179

SaaStr

JANUARY 24, 2025

Paddle’s CMO Andrew Davies and Pricing Strategist Vivian Shao joined us at SaaStr Annual to do a deep dive on growth metrics across 4,000+ B2B companies. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still grow fast – you just need to be smarter about it. What’s Next?

SaaS 130

SaaS Software Review Pricing B2B 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2021

So when building out your forecast, do the math and work backwards to the top of funnel metrics you need under this 20-20-20 framework. #2 Now back to the final call out from Battery Ventures’ 2021 “State of the OpenCloud”: #4 – The Advantages of Consumption-Based Pricing. The much lower R-squared (0.22

Scale 354

Scale Cloud Forecasting Pricing 354

SaaStr

JANUARY 3, 2021

One question I struggled with a lot in the early days was what price points supported inside sales reps. It was clear to me that our freemium offering, priced at from $0 to $19/month, couldn’t really support a traditional inside sales team. What about a $199 or even a $99/mo price point? But how low can you go?

SMB 334

SMB Pricing Sales Metrics 334

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

It requires: Distinct products for each tier Different value propositions Separate price points Aligned organizational structures The companies that fail at PLG usually try to treat it as an add-on feature rather than a fundamental business transformation. Making It Work: The Organizational Playbook Want to make this work?

Enterprise readiness 147

Enterprise readiness Enterprise compliance Acquisition 147

SaaStr

OCTOBER 18, 2022

There are so many metrics out there these days on how public SaaS companies are doing. etc, So many metric sometimes it’s a little hard to get a handle on what they all mean. The latest Bessemer Parting the Cloud summarized it all I think with one helpful metric: SaaS multiples are down 75% from a year ago. .

SaaS 71

SaaS Cloud Metrics Pricing 71

User Pilot

MARCH 27, 2025

For example, you can filter flows by app name and easily track metrics such as when the flow started, ended, or had any issues. Enterprise: Custom pricing based on your specific needs. Expensive compared to alternatives: Appcues’ pricing can be costly, especially for companies with a large monthly active user base.

Mobile 66

Mobile Pricing Technical Review Software Review 66

Tom Tunguz

OCTOBER 4, 2020

Let’s cover one today: does the market price efficiently? I correlated the top 7 metrics to the FMG score to see if there was another factor at play across the data set, but none were significant. The market isn’t pricing modern software companies well if pricing them principally on forward multiple.

Software 348

Software Pricing Revenue Retention 348

Buffer Resources

OCTOBER 2, 2024

It should ideally contain everything from organic traffic to PPC competitor research to engagement metrics to help you do a wholesome analysis. Price : Plans start at €16.58/month. You can filter for views per hour (VPH), publishing date, views, and performance metrics. Pricing starts at $4.50/month.

Social Media 115

Social Media AI Search Benchmarks Software Review 115

Buffer Resources

AUGUST 14, 2024

The most important things to consider when weighing Buffer vs. Hootsuite are the following: Buffer vs Hootsuite feature overview Plans and pricing Social media planning and scheduling Social media analytics Social media engagement Teamwork and collaboration Let’s take a closer look at the two tools.

Social Media 111

Social Media Management AI Pricing 111

Tom Tunguz

MAY 23, 2021

While not as hyperbolic an inflation rate as copper or lumber, the price trajectory of early stage cloud startups does result from a similar supply demand/imbalance. 3 of the years saw declining prices. Perhaps these prices are tied to blockbuster IPO markets. Pricing rounds on multiples like public market investing.

Software Review 364

Software Review Venture Capital Cloud Pricing 364

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2024

They’re still transitioning from onprem / appliciance model to cloud, which makes some of the metrics a touch confusing. For me, Net New Customer Count has become the metric I obsess the most about at scale. But getting them all really requires big stock price growth, all the way up to 759% stock price aprpeciation.

Scale 291

Scale Pricing Scaling Cloud 291

How To Buy Saas

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Manage Subscription Billing: Managing subscription billing models can be a challenging aspect for SaaS businesses as it involves keeping track of different pricing structures over different subscription periods for each customer. Key Metrics of SaaS Accounting Standards Several KPIs determine SaaS accounting standards.

Payment Services 52

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Features 52

Tom Tunguz

MAY 16, 2024

Both the companies with negative account retention still see relatively minor account churn : 15-25% account churn at these price points is common. These data points suggest that AI infused software companies’ metrics will asymptote to overall software metrics in time. NDR is almost equal.

AI 290

AI Churn Trends Pricing 290

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 144

Cloud Banking Subscription Payment Features 144

SaaStr

OCTOBER 11, 2020

Even though the metrics were very impressive. Investing based on a good deal / cheap price. Not investing due merely to a high price. Almost, at any price in Cloud / SaaS. Now, I just ask the founder what they want in terms of price, terms, etc. Making things up is bad. I shouldn’t have invested in this one.

Investment 363

Investment Startup SaaS Pricing 363