Clouded Judgement

APRIL 5, 2024

There are of course caveats to this - public markets go through periods of hype and irrationality as well. Competitors start telling prospects you’re competing on that “that company will screw you in the future because their VCs will force them to price gouge you so they can make money.” This list goes on.

Cloud 161

Cloud Scale Pricing Revenue 161

SaaStr

AUGUST 24, 2022

Of course, their margins are lower than a pure software play (more on that below). 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. Overall, Toast isn’t quite a SaaS company.

SaaS Payments 280

SaaS Payments Scale SMB Payment Solutions 280

FastSpring

APRIL 23, 2024

FastSpring is an experienced merchant of record that provides an all-in-one payment platform for SaaS, software, and digital goods businesses, including VAT and sales tax management, payment localization, and consumer support. FastSpring is a more experienced, knowledgeable partner for your SaaS business. Revenue metrics and analytics.

Payment Services 78

Payment Services Payment Methods Merchant Services Payment Solutions 78

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. Well of course it does. But like “Cloud” and “SaaS”, its definitely has evolved. Bill.com is one of my favorite sleeper SaaS companies.

Merchant Services 357

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payment Services 357

User Pilot

JUNE 19, 2023

What factors should you consider when choosing a SaaS learning management system to support your customers and employees? TL;DR A SaaS learning management system (LMS) is a cloud-based solution for delivering educational experiences. What is a SaaS learning management system? A SaaS LMS is a cloud-based LMS.

Systems Review 98

Systems Review Management SaaS Education 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

You Gotta Do the Work (Of Course) Your Competition is Trying to Sell To, And Steal, Your Customers And yet, I still see so few SaaS companies doing even the most basic steps here. Well, then give them 18 months for the price of 12. It’s that simple: A customer 6 months into a 12-month contract?

Sales 267

Sales Pricing Enterprise Revenue 267

SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2022

They are the great gifts in SaaS. The quality of the average CS experience I’ve had over the past decade has deteriorated as SaaS has grown. A second multi-billion dollar vendor gave us 8 days to pay a massive price increase without notice. That’s the entire annual price we were paying the prior vendor.

Customer Success 242

Customer Success Systems Review AWS Software Review 242

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., This has all resulted in the median stock price declining 5% YTD. The median beat was ~2% Of course, the above chart shows historical (ie lagging) data. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

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 330

SMB Pricing Sales Metrics 330

SaaStr

MAY 18, 2021

Of course, it varies. HubSpot is almost all small businesses, but at a higher price point ($10k) that is sold directly and through channel partners. More here: Public SaaS Company Disclosure Metrics for Retention and Renewal Rates. The post Dear SaaStr: How Much (what %) of Revenue (ARR) Comes From Renewals in a SaaS Company?

Merchant Services 264

Merchant Services Revenue SMB SaaS 264

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2022

The more established your brand, the more complex your pricing page can be. What makes for a good pricing page? It’s a challenging question because most of us don’t have the volume to really do A/B tests (although try, of course). That means their prospects will be more patient with complex pricing.

Pricing 210

Pricing Enterprise Branding Innovation 210

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. In it's truest form, ARR is used by pure SaaS business models to describe the aggregate annual value of the entire customer set.

AI 183

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors 183

SaaStr

JULY 24, 2022

To a Stunning $900 Billion. If we are headed into a recession, it’s a strange one — with SaaS still on fire, and total spend on business software increasing $100 Billion next year. Of course your true TAM isn’t $1T on Day 1. SaaS Pricing Strategies that Work: How to Design an Optimal Pricing Model with FastSpring VP Product.

Scale 232

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Pricing 232

SaaStr

MARCH 11, 2021

Q: Why do SaaS companies bill annually up front? A lot of SaaS pricing originally comes from classic enterprise software. SaaS then remixed this model by charging less in Year 1 for a “subscription”, but often more over time, especially by Year 3. Perhaps they shouldn’t. You no longer bought. You rented :).

Merchant Services 207

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payments 207

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

Let’s break down for example what SMB sales at low price points typically is, and indeed needs to be, to scale: SMB SaaS companies are overloaded with “leads” They often have so many that they cannot follow up with all of them. These 5 key elements to SMB sales are of course nothing at all like enterprise sales.

SMB 304

SMB Sales Hiring Scale Enterprise 304

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 1, 2023

” Of course this happens in some instances, but generally it felt like it was all additive budget as companies are in the exploration phase AWS was coming from behind on the AI front (relative to Microsoft), but has made a number of recent strides that suggest they’re heading in the right direction.

AWS 293

AWS Cloud AI Search Cost optimization & reporting 293

SaaStr

OCTOBER 15, 2020

Of course, you should be thoughtful about what you choose to automate. But—and no one knows this better than you—SaaS solutions can save your team so much time. Sage Intacct is a popular choice for automating bookkeeping because it includes features unique to the SaaS business model. 4 User support. If 62% of U.S. 5 Purchasing.

Business 314

Business AI Search Marketplace as a Service compliance 314

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 5, 2022

Product-led growth (PLG) companies have become a major trend in the world of SaaS over the last few years. Secret #2: Pricing. Many product-led companies do not go to market with the right pricing. These pricing frameworks can seem appealing, but they fail to capture the appropriate value in the heavy usage of a product.

Sales Recruiting 240

Sales Recruiting Business Pricing Churn 240

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 12, 2024

This tells me the market is expecting one of two things - a true re-acceleration in top line that will show up in the short term, or inflation to reverse course and start falling again in the short term. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years.

Cloud 141

Cloud Subscription Payment Features Revenue 141

Andreessen Horowitz

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

One of the most common pricing questions we get from late-stage SaaS companies is: should we switch to a usage-based pricing model (also known as consumption-based pricing)? But just because usage-based pricing has worked for other companies doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work for yours.

Pricing 97

Pricing Compensation Subscription Payment Features 97

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

The SaaS sales model seems so well-established, as hundreds of founders build their businesses and raise funding. Mark Roberge, Founder of Stage 2 Capital and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, shares insights from his years of experience into common SaaS sales missteps and how you can avoid them. Copy your entire product.

Sales Hiring 182

Sales Hiring Scale Compensation Sales 182

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2021

But I thought I’d take a stab at the Top 10 Pieces of Classic SaaS Advice … that, in my experience at least, are usually Just Plain Wrong. If a great VP of Marketing can double your inbound leads — of course you can afford her salary. ” Of course you do — if you have any sort of repeating business.

Part-Time VPE 289

Part-Time VPE Sales Hiring Scale Sales Recruiting 289

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2020

With SaaS sales, annual price or monthly price that’s billed annually? Zoom is even crazier now of course, but Zoom was growing > 100% at $500m in ARR, in an already well-established space. Small businesses and individuals often prefer to pay monthly, even at a significantly higher price (e.g.,

Pricing 217

Pricing Payment Solutions Scale SaaS Payments 217

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 24, 2021

Upwork is one of those products and marketplaces many of us use all the time — including Team SaaStr — but we don’t often see discussing that much as a public SaaS / Cloud company. Upwork charges from 5%-20% of the service price (less the more you make through the platform), averaging out to 12%. But it should be.

Marketplace as a Service 258

Marketplace as a Service SMB Cloud Enterprise 258

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2022

They aren’t scientific, but they do poll out 25,000+ LinkedIn followers, who consist mainly of SaaS executives. Notwithstanding the drama in the public markets, most SaaS companies and startups are growing faster than ever. #6. 59% of you have raised prices this year. Of course not. #24. At least. #23.

Sales Hiring 279

Sales Hiring Pricing Scale Interviewing 279

SaaStr

APRIL 5, 2021

But that’s not Disruption — in SaaS at least. Sometimes in SaaS, there are natural monopolies. But more often, SaaS categories with significant complexity in workflows and features end up in natural oligopolies. Limited M&A Opportunities, and Very Low Prices. Not usually. ———-.

Scale 238

Scale Sales Recruiting Underperforming Technical Team Pricing 238

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 16, 2023

Clearly this is what the market is pricing in. Of course, you could also argue growth expectations are still too high and not factoring in a deeper recession! The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Are we at a similar point today?

Cloud 130

Cloud Software Revenue Subscription 130

SaaStr

MARCH 14, 2021

So of course, by $Xm in ARR, or $1Xm in ARR, growth is going to slow down a lot. The real challenge in SaaS is that, let’s say you just want to go from $5m last year to $10m this year. But bear in mind, there are several “counter-winds” to the Law of Large Numbers: Every SaaS Market is Bigger Than Ever.

Scale 266

Scale Branding Churn Pricing 266

CloudGeometry

MARCH 3, 2022

When developing a SaaS product plan, it’s important to recognize two foundational principles. First, SaaS is a business strategy, not a technology strategy. Second, there is no one-size-fits-all SaaS architecture (the second principle is a corollary of the first). So why put it on our shortlist?

Well Architected Framework 130

Well Architected Framework VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) SaaS Cloud 130

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Optional product pricing can help SaaS companies earn more money while charging less for their otherwise premium product. TL;DR Optional product pricing is a strategy where you sell your core product at a low cost and then encourage consumers to buy more accessories, features, or complementary products.

Pricing 105

Pricing Customer Lifetime Value Advertising Strategy 105

Andreessen Horowitz

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Introducing usage-based pricing requires a fundamental mindset shift away from securing cash up front and toward providing value so your customers consume more. The point of usage-based pricing is to create a great experience that encourages your customers to consume, but overages slow down that seamless adoption and usage experience.

Pricing 110

Pricing Scale Forecasting Compensation 110

User Pilot

OCTOBER 29, 2023

WTP helps SaaS companies choose optimum prices for their products to maximize profit. SaaS product teams also use it to prioritize features and evaluate the feasibility of new motions. Willingness To Pay (WTP) is a concept from pricing research studies describing the maximum price the customer is ready to pay for the product.

SaaS 105

SaaS Interviewing Pricing Market Research 105

Point Nine Land

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

Unveiling the 2023 SaaS Funding Napkin At the annual SaaStr conference in San Mateo three weeks ago, I delved into fundraising trends in 2023, discussing the implications of investors’ new-found love for efficiency vs. growth at all costs for founders, and why you should expect AI to come up in (almost) every pitch meeting.

SaaS 120

SaaS Finance AI Social Media 120

User Pilot

APRIL 24, 2024

Demos are crucial for your sales process success, which is why you need to learn SaaS demo best practices to create beneficial content. Of course not! So if you're looking for sustainable product-led growth , let's dive deeper and learn about the top SaaS demo best practices to help boost conversion rates.

SaaS 95

SaaS Software Review Engagement Data 95

FastSpring

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Cyber Weekend — the weekend encompassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday — is a great time for businesses to slash prices and increase sales volume as the year wraps up. 2023 Cyber Weekend SaaS and Software Deals World Anvil “ World Anvil is the ULTIMATE all-in-one software for anyone who loves creative worldbuilding!

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Software Review Payment Methods SaaS Payments 88

FastSpring

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

In our first post about our online community , we mentioned launching the Global SaaS Leaders Slack group because we saw a need for the kind of software-and-SaaS-focused community we’d want to be a part of. Our Guiding Principle: Our Software and SaaS Community Must Be Good for You in Order for It to Succeed.

SaaS Payments 124

SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Merchant Services Software Review 124

User Pilot

OCTOBER 26, 2023

How can you implement them in the SaaS context? SaaS companies enhance customer acquisition and retention through personalized onboarding and in-app guidance. Iterate on your pricing strategy to make the product competitive while generating enough revenue to support its growth. What are growth initiatives?

Acquisition 105

Acquisition Scale Onboarding Marketplace as a Service 105