SaaStr

MAY 25, 2024

Lesson #1: Invest In Customer Support Early Cloudinary strongly believes that customer success and support are enablers of PLG growth and aren’t just a cost center. Twelve years after hiring their first CS person, customer service is still the number two reason people like Cloudinary and what drives word of mouth in the developer ecosystem.

Scale 317

Scale Sales Hiring SaaS Payments Development 317

SaaStr

APRIL 12, 2022

So is Square a SaaS company? The majority of its revenue is now from Bitcoin transactions, not “traditional” payments and software. And yet … and yet … its engine is all software and really SaaS. Its software and services business is the one with the real operating margins. Going upmarket.

Payments 307

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Revenue 307

USIO

JANUARY 15, 2024

Subscription Models: Usio will provide general insights into why subscription-based payment processing is often considered advantageous for Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses. Predictable Revenue Streams: Subscription models provide a consistent and predictable revenue stream for SaaS companies.

SaaS Payments 130

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments Payment Solutions 130

Stax

APRIL 15, 2025

For subscription-based businesses achieving consistent and predictable revenue growth is the holy grail. In fact, monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is one of the most important metrics subscription businesses should be aware of. TL;DR MRR is the average revenue that a company expects to receive each month.

Payments 88

Payments SaaS Payments Revenue Payment Services 88

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

As a growing SaaS company, there is a lot to think about in a day: How is my ARR doing? vary on how they handle sales tax and SaaS. As you scale up, it’s essential to ensure that your sales tax management process is accurate and automated, so you don’t run into compliance issues in the future. . Here’s why you should. .

Payment Services 335

Payment Services compliance SaaS Payments Scale 335

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2021

Over $500,000 revenue per employee. Monetizing ecommerce via subscriptions, but not payment processing. Billion in GMV processed, up a stunning 91% from 2019. Billion in GMV processed, up a stunning 91% from 2019. Rather, it charges for software subscriptions to take payments on its websites. 85% NRR.

Payment Methods 339

Payment Methods Merchant Services Payments Payment Services 339

SaaStr

AUGUST 29, 2022

SMB SaaS has a lot going for it: – Millions of them – Short sales cycles – Easier compete. So many VCs and others have gotten more and more excited about SMB SaaS. But SMB SaaS has a lot of challenges, too: Churn is much higher. of public SaaS companies are primarily SMB focused. Much higher.

SaaS Payments 347

SaaS Payments Scale SMB PayPal 347

SaaStr

APRIL 24, 2021

A lot of our SaaS older times don’t quite know what to make with a lot of B2B startups these days, let alone some public SaaS companies. So many startups these days are claiming they have “ARR” from revenue that … doesn’t recur. Doesn’t ARR stand for Annual Recurring Revenue?

Merchant Services 360

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 360

SaaStr

AUGUST 3, 2022

Few SaaS leaders have gone through more post-pandemic change than Shopify and Zoom. SaaS growth slowed to 10% year-over-year, down from a peak overall growth of almost 100% (!) Gross Margins declining toward 50% as payments, merchant services and more outpace the growth of SaaS subcriptions. More on that here.

Payment Methods 289

Payment Methods Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 289

SaaStr

APRIL 29, 2021

Shopify’s first quarter revenue: Q1 2021: $989 million Q1 2020: $470 million Q1 2019: $321 million Q1 2018: $214 million Q1 2017: $127 million Q1 2016: $73 million Q1 2015: $37 million Q1 2014: $19 million Q1 2013: $9 million. The Covid Boost for SaaS. But likely it’s below 100% excluding payments. Well, it’s murky.

Merchant Services 316

Merchant Services Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payments 316

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

I was lucky to catch up recently with one of my very favorite SaaS founders, René Lacerte, CEO Bill.com. Bill.com had to develop a network that today has millions on vendors processing bills and payments on it. Bill.com had to develop a network that today has millions on vendors processing bills and payments on it.

SaaS Payments 64

SaaS Payments Payments Payment Services Scale 64

SaaStr

APRIL 23, 2021

Bill.com is one of the quiet SaaS success stories. Now they’ve scaled to $200m+ ARR growing 38% selling just to 100,000+ SMBs, solving a hard problem (i.e., automating the back office and payments and billing for SMBs), and doing it with 120%+ NRR. Making more and more money on each payment. Even small customers.

Payment Solutions 347

Payment Solutions Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services 347

SaaStr

MAY 12, 2022

Offering its services as a freemium-based model, CircleCI recognizes driving trials as the cornerstone of a go-to-market strategy for any developer tool. . Developers come to CircleCI to use their services for free but the user needs increase as they build for commercial purposes. changes the key processes of your business.”.

Scale 265

Scale Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services 265

SaaStr

DECEMBER 3, 2023

So over the past decade-and-a-half we’ve come up with a lot of yardsticks, metrics and rules for SaaS companies. But — they are broken if you aren’t really a traditional, 100%+ NRR SaaS company. In particular: Hybrid SaaS with payments and fintech usually has far, far lower gross margins than pure software. It depends.

SaaS Payments 285

SaaS Payments Metrics SMB Payments 285

SaaStr

JULY 10, 2024

So there’s a vertical SaaS company at over $600m ARR that is extremely well known to its customers that you’ve probably never heard of — Instructure. It was founded in 2008 but took a while to get going, hitting $1m in revenue in 2011 selling to Utah schools — and then scaled from there. It took on $1.7

Scale 304

Scale SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 304

SaaStr

MARCH 25, 2021

It’s done it by going more upmarket, and better monetizing partners and services. A reminder that adding a bit of fintech to your SaaS can be a huge accelerant. A reminder that adding a bit of fintech to your SaaS can be a huge accelerant. Driving existing customer revenue up more than new logos.

Outsourcing Services 296

Outsourcing Services Payments Merchant Services SaaS Payments 296

Subscription Flow

DECEMBER 12, 2024

Businesses may never know how much revenue might be leaking from overlooked nooks and crannies. The purpose of the revenue growth management strategy is to steer a business in an organized, and sustainable direction. In this blog, you will find out the meaning of revenue growth management, its importance, components, and challenges.

Payments 52

Payments Payment Services SaaS Payments Revenue 52

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

20X year 1⃣ 12X year 2⃣ 5X year 3⃣ #deelspeed @deel [link] — Shuooo (@shuoshuooshuooo) January 23, 2023 When we look at SaaS companies’ success stories, everything looks great on their growth maps. Shuo Wang is the CRO and co-founder of Deel, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 279

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 28, 2021

UIPath, leaders in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, filed their S-1 last week , revealing an impressive business. Second, UIPath’s cash flow margin, (defined as cash flow from operations divided by revenue), shows the company has attained a turnaround of similar magnitude on a cash basis.

Payment Services 359

Payment Services Metrics Payment Solutions Payments 359

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2022

Toast isn’t accelerating the way some SaaS leaders are, but still, 59% growth at $800m in ARR is something a few years back we would never have thought possible. #2. At least 20% of your customers from referrals and second-order revenue. #4. As the brand scales, they get more of a boost from inbound. #5.

SaaS Payments 329

SaaS Payments Scale SMB Payment Solutions 329

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2021

I felt like when I was a SaaS CEO and had to go profitable, they helped saved my rear. But as time has gone by, and I’ve worked with more SaaS companies, I’ve also seen the downside of annual contracts at many start-ups as well: Annual deal collections can be tough for start-ups. This is still true. So for sure, do that.

SaaS Payments 317

SaaS Payments Payment Services Scale Payments 317

USIO

APRIL 22, 2024

SaaS companies are continually seeking innovative strategies to not just maintain but amplify their growth trajectory and increase revenue. One pivotal yet often overlooked area is payments. We’ll delve into how SaaS companies are leveraging Usio Integrated Payment Solutions to propel their growth and increase revenue.

Payment Services 130

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payments 130

SaaStr

AUGUST 21, 2024

Grew Restaurant Locations 29% Year-Over-Year to 120,000 Perhaps the most important metric at scale. Only 18% of Revenue From SaaS. Shopify and Bill both also get the majority of their revenue from financial fees and transaction fees, not software subscriptions. But Toast even more so, at 18% of revenue.

Scale 307

Scale Payment Methods SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 307

SaaStr

OCTOBER 22, 2021

1M in ARR per employee could be a new efficiency record at IPO for SaaS. Sometimes, the self-serve / PLG engine stalls out at a certain scale. Their tiniest customers still have higher churn, as with almost every other SaaS company. Fintech is the engine of growth at scale. based revenue. Oftentimes, even.

Scale 329

Scale SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 329

SaaStr

APRIL 19, 2023

And their mix of software, payments and hardware revenue drives up the total deal size — but puts a lot of pressure on margins. 39% of their revenues from software, and going down. Payments are the largest segment (like Toast and Shopify as well), but at least low-margin hardware is a small percent of revenue.

Payment Solutions 291

Payment Solutions Point of Sale Payments SaaS Payments 291

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

How is SMB SaaS doing today? Transaction Fees Growing Far Faster (38%) Than Software / SaaS License (21%). Both Bill and Shopifty have morphed over the years from almost pure SaaS companies to payments platforms built on top of a SaaS core. But Bill did it the hard way, and built the payment platforms itself.

Payment Services 340

Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 340

SaaStr

OCTOBER 26, 2022

So this year has been rough on SaaS and Cloud stocks, with multiples down 75% from a year ago and the markets overall down 50% or more. It’s barely trading at 3x revenue. That’s Freemium at scale. Payments and e-commerce drag blended gross margins down to 60%. But payments can be low gross margin, and they are for Wix.

Payments 289

Payments Payment Solutions Payment Methods SaaS Payments 289

SaaStr

MAY 10, 2021

Fast forward to today, and we can add an important nuance to that: a second core product not only helps you grow faster at scale (a bigger TAM), but it drives up NRR and more revenue from your existing customers. Pretty good for SMB SaaS. In fact, now it’s more than 2x the size of its SaaS software alone.

Merchant Services 264

Merchant Services SaaS Payments SMB Payment Solutions 264

FastSpring

JUNE 22, 2022

We don’t have to look far to find examples of B2B SaaS companies that have found traction using a self-service or product-led motion. Historically, when SaaS businesses have gone to market, they’ve done so by finding product-market fit with one of two core audiences: consumers or businesses. How B2B and B2C Are Converging.

B2C 148

B2C Payments SaaS Payments B2B 148

SaaStr

MAY 4, 2022

No matter how innovative a product might be, a business can only succeed if it enables its customers. Suzanne Xie kicked off her journey in SaaS as the Founder and CEO of Lightwell. What makes a SaaS business so hard? You can deploy subscriptions as a service, billing as a service, fraud prevention as a service.

Payment Features 262

Payment Features Payment Services Outsourcing Services Payment Solutions 262

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2019

SurveyMonkey is one of the Old School SaaS companies that has followed an interesting path. days, for years it was run by a tiny team and dominated the self-service side of surveys. That is a similar revenue growth rate to Salesforce’s core CRM product. Price Increases Do Work at Scale. A few learnings: 1.

Scale 273

Scale SaaS Payments Payments Payment Services 273

SaaStr

JULY 20, 2022

It’s something we don’t see too often these days, as $200m+ ARR sort of became the new floor to IPO in SaaS. Weave started off as a dental ERP and comms platform (including VoIP / phone), and then expanded beyond that as it scaled. Many SMB SaaS companies struggle to hit 100% NRR and 80% GRR. Series C ($5.35

SaaS Payments 291

SaaS Payments Scale Payment Methods SMB 291

Stax

JANUARY 22, 2024

In a world where we’re spending more and more time online and every click is a potential transaction, it’s no surprise the eCommerce and digital payments sectors are experiencing exponential growth. In this article, we’ll dive into the intricacies of two types of players in the eCommerce ecosystem: payment gateways and payment facilitators.

Payment Services 88

Payment Services SaaS Payments Merchant Services Payment Facilitation 88

Frontegg

MAY 28, 2022

With more and more businesses offering their services online, payment processing is now taking centerstage. Creating a secure and smooth payment pipeline is becoming increasingly important, with users expecting more in-app freedom with the ability to purchase or upgrade their accounts with just a few clicks.

SaaS Payments 98

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods Payments 98

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Scale. What you’ll see in that cloud spend box is actually Gartner’s 2020 estimate for infrastructure as a service spending for companies, which was $50 billion. million subscriptions transacted and Google’s marketplace has seen 3X growth in SaaS sales.

Scale 263

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 263

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

And its payments network to roll out. But yes, it’s the most incredible SMB growth story in SaaS we’ve ever seen. Like Shopify, Bill.com is now less a SaaS company than a transactions company built on top of a software layer. This is radically different from the IPO, when payments were just getting gone.

SaaS Payments 65

SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions Payments 65

Stax

MARCH 18, 2025

The SaaS industry has seen explosive growth in the past decadeand this is expected to continue this year. Data cited by Statista shows that the software as service is expected to hit $299 billion by the end of 2025. Part of this can be attributed to the SaaS model’s unique aspect of relying primarily on future revenue.

Scale 117

Scale Payment Services Payments SaaS Payments 117