AWS, Azure and SaaS - SaaS Brief

Shopify Says eCommerce is Back. But AWS Says Cloud Under More Scrutiny.

SaaStr

OCTOBER 28, 2022

o this was an interesting week in terms of reading the tea leaves on what’s going on in SaaS, Cloud, the economy, and all that. Second, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all grew nicely, and are still growing like a weed — but the growth rate slowed. But AWS Says Cloud Under More Scrutiny. Perhaps as it should be.

AWS

AWS Cloud Azure Investment

Datadog, ZoomInfo, Atlassian, AWS: Epic Growth — But Some Real Headwinds For The First Time

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

So with the latest batch of earnings out, we can get a sense of where the leaders are in SaaS. Atlassian noted a decline in Free to Paid conversion, but importantly, no decline in demand for their products: Amazon: We’re Seeing Strong But Slowing Growth at AWS to 28%, Albeit at a Stunning $82B Run Rate. More on that here.

AWS

AWS Azure Cloud Scale

Atlassian and AWS Say: “Maybe Worry a Little Bit”

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2020

Zoom is growing at rates we’ve never seen before in SaaS and Cloud. Amazon/AWS and Atlassian both had huge Q2’s. But both Atlassian and Amazon/AWS said … Maybe Not As Much Going Forward, Not Forever. Azure and Google Cloud also saw growth begin to slow. Shopify grew 100% at $3 billion in ARR.

AWS

AWS Azure Cloud SaaS

Webinars

Beyond the Basics of A/B Tests: Highly Innovative Experimentation Tactics You Need to Know

MORE WEBINARS

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS?

SaaStr

JANUARY 27, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS? Typically support consumes about perhaps 5%-7% of your revenue at scale (excluding customer success) in most SaaS models. Another 5%-7% go to core infrastructure costs (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, etc). Have instant support while you can.

Azure

Azure AWS SaaS Customer Success

Gartner: SaaS Will Still Grow 18% in 2023 to $200 Billion Worldwide. And Another 18% in 2024.

SaaStr

MAY 2, 2023

So there’s no doubt things are a bit harder for everyone in SaaS and Cloud right now. A few of us are seeing no macro impacts, but probably the biggest tell are Cloud platform giants — AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. SaaS spend is still growing. All are still growing at very strong rates.

Azure

Azure AWS Cloud SaaS

Clouded Judgement 10.27.23 - Cloud Giants Report Q3 '23

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. Staggering scale already.

Cost optimization & reporting

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS

Clouded Judgement 2.2.24 - Cloud Giants Report Q4 '23

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. ” Microsoft on Azure : “And I think last quarter, we said one, we are going to continue to have these cycles where people will build new workloads. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cost optimization & reporting

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS

Cloud Stocks May Be Down. But the Cloud Remains on Fire. That Matters More.

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2022

So follow AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. So there’s much angst and even panic with so many SaaS and Cloud public stocks down 50% or more from their peaks. Will things get worse for SaaS products themselves on a day-to-day basis? So there’s a lot of stress today in venture and in public SaaS stocks.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Engineering

Pilot: 57% of Venture Startups Will Need to Raise More In 2024

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2023

SaaS products and services like Pilot track the finances of 1,000s of SaaS and other startup so they’re an interesting source of hard data. SaaS and Cloud growth overall will remain strong. Shopify , Datadog, Crowdstrike , Google Cloud-Azure-AWS, Snowflake , etc. What does Pilot’s latest data say?

Startup

Startup Venture Capital Azure AWS

A Look Back at Q4 '23 Public Cloud Software Earnings

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., 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.

Cloud

Cloud Software Azure AWS

5 Interesting Learnings from Digital Ocean at $700,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

DECEMBER 27, 2023

So is it possible to be too efficient in SaaS and Cloud? Many have used Digital Ocean at the cheaper, simpler version of AWS-Azure-Digital Ocean to get going fast and quickly. And if so, maybe that’s Digital Ocean. If you haven’t heard of Digital Ocean, ask your developer. It’s gotten crazy good.

Scale

Scale AWS Azure Cloud

Bessemer: $1 Trillion in Cloud Market Cap Lost Year-to-Date

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2022

There are many ways to slice-and-dice public market data, but the headline one Bessemer called out is the most visceral I’ve seen: Public SaaS and Cloud companies lost $1 Trillion in market cap so far in 2022. And the number of public SaaS and Cloud decacorns has fallen from 50 to 17. Strange Days, Indeed.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Marketing

Clouded Judgement 4.28.23

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Azure reported on Tuesday and gave us that glimmer of hope. Then AWS appeared to add fuel to that hope before giving us a huge rug pull. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). They then guided to 26-27% Azure growth in Q2.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search

Clouded Judgement 8.4.23 - Cloud Giants Q2 Update

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%. You can see more detail about their net new ARR added each quarter below Azure Growth came in at 27%, and guided to 25-26% growth for Q3.

Cloud

Cloud Azure Cost optimization & reporting AWS

Clouded Judgement 1.6.23

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. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Follow along to stay up to date! It’s very tricky to predict.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Underperforming Technical Team

SaaS Multiples Are At a 3+ Year Low. Where It Goes From Here.

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2022

Many SaaS and Cloud leaders are down more than 50% from their all-time highs. A Covid Hangover in SaaS stocks.’ Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and even Google Cloud are on fire, adding insane amounts of revenue this year. The top SaaS and Cloud leaders are even accelerating at $1B in ARR, for goodness sakes!!

SaaS

SaaS Azure Cloud AWS

Founders Today Just Need to Assume the Next Round Never Comes

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

So we’ve talked about it often here at SaaStr, but things are just so … odd right now in SaaS. And while AWS’s growth is down a bit, it’s still at epic levels, Azure isn’t even really down, and Google Cloud is growing faster than ever. It’s very, very quiet at $300m+ valuations.

AWS

AWS Venture Capital Azure Cloud

Clouded Judgement 10.28.22

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%. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting

Clouded Judgement 10.20.23 - Hyperscaler Q3 Preview

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. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Said another way, the 10Y today is double what it averaged from 2010 to 2020.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review

Snow Angels Come Early to Data : Snowflake's Strength Spells Success for Startups

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

” A surprising impact of the cost-cutting may be increased margins for SaaS providers on infrastructure as their own cost reductions manifest as margin improvements. “Yes, we actually saw quite a bit of energy coming from the Azure platform this quarter. Consumption of unstructured data was up 17x year-over-year.”

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure Data Startup

How Nimble + Azure Revolutionize Relationship Management for Office 365 Teams

Nimble - Sales

MAY 22, 2019

Nimble has migrated its market-leading SaaS CRM from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Microsoft Azure. The migration enables Nimble to tap into Microsoft’s world-class Azure platform and partner ecosystem to scale.

Azure

Azure Scale AWS Management

5 Interesting Learnings from Google Cloud at $13 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

So we’ve had a lot of fun in our 5 Interesting Learnings profiling the top SaaS and Cloud companies at scale, from Slack to Zoom, from Shopify to Datadog, from Box to DropBox. But are AWS, Azure and Google Cloud just too big for us to learn from? Google Cloud continues its march upmarket, competing with Azure.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Scale

5 Interesting Learnings from DigitalOcean at $500,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

MARCH 9, 2022

Focusing on smaller developers, in some ways it’s been a bit overshadowed by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. DigitialOcean doesn’t want to take AWS, Azure and Google on in the enterprise and doesn’t really try. Another great challenge to the idea growth has to always slow in Cloud and SaaS.

Azure

Azure AWS SMB Cloud

ISVs vs SaaS: What’s the Difference?

Stax

APRIL 18, 2024

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Software-as-a-Service Providers (SaaS) operate within the same market, thus creating a push-and-pull revenue dynamic. SaaS companies deliver software applications over the internet on a subscription basis, simplifying access and management for users. What are SaaS companies?

Outsourcing Services

Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Methods

The 4 Questions Startups Should Ask Themselves about Building with Generative AI

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 6, 2023

In the cloud, AWS, Azure, & GCP have created about as much market cap as all the top 100 B2B & B2C publics built on cloud (Netflix, ServiceNow, AirBnb, etc). Usage & distribution, like in classical SaaS, are likely the most sustainable & repeatable. Layer : application, platform, or infrastructure?

Generative AI

Generative AI AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Startup

Clouded Judgement 4.21.23

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 21, 2023

Next week we get all 3 hyperscalers reporting (AWS from Amazon, Azure from Microsoft, and GCP from Google). Let’s double click on Azure. On AWS, in their Q4 earnings call they said AWS was growing “mid teens” in January (down from 20% in Q4). The Q4 ‘22 growth rate was 38% YoY.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

Gartner: SaaS Spending Will Grow Another 40% in Next 2 Years Alone

SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2021

Just how fast is SaaS and Cloud growing? After polling CIOs, Gartner found that total SaaS spend will grow from $100B in 2020 to $140B in 2022: A few interesting implications and learnings: The growth in SaaS buying should give you a +20% a year boost on top of your other sales and marketing efforts. Go grab your piece.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS SaaS

Thanks to ChartMogul, ChurnZero, Cledara, Secureframe, and Verdane for Sponsoring SaaStr Europa 2023!

SaaStr

OCTOBER 13, 2022

We’ll see 2,500+ of the best SaaS founders, execs, and VCs June 6-7 at 2022 SaaStr Europa ! ChurnZero is the Customer Success platform and partner for growing SaaS and subscription businesses. From discovery to purchasing, management and cancellation, Cledara is the All-in-One SaaS management platform that companies love.

GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure AWS Enterprise readiness

Clouded Judgement 7.28.23 - Optimization Cycles and Economy Update

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!

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

Thanks to Unit, Everstage, Aiven, Zip, and Mission Cloud for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2022!

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Currently, we offer Apache Kafka, Apache Cassandra, PostgreSQL, MySQL, OpenSearch, Redis, InfluxDB, Grafana, and M3 in more than 90 regions around the world on AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, DigitalOcean, and UpCloud cloud platforms. We’ll see 10,000 of the best SaaS founders, execs and VCs Sep 13-15 at 2022 SaaStrAnnual.com !

Cloud

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Payments SaaS Payments

Clouded Judgement 6.9.23 - Recap of Consumption Trends in Q1 '23

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Usage on Snowflake is driven by queries run on Snowflake Azure: Neutral Tone With Strength in AI Overall I’d characterize Azure’s quarter as a net positive. They guided to 26-27% growth in Azure in Q2 (with 1% coming from AI). The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years.

Trends

Trends Cloud Azure AWS

Snowflake, CrowdStike and SumoLogic: “How to Leverage the Cloud Giants to Scale to 100 Million ARR and Beyond”

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

And it’s one of the three large cloud vendors that we all know: Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Azure’s marketplace has over 4 million monthly visitors. AWS’s marketplace has seen 1.5 million subscriptions transacted and Google’s marketplace has seen 3X growth in SaaS sales.

Scale

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments

Clouded Judgement 3.22.24 - ERR vs ARR and the Conundrum of AI Revenue Streams Today

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

AI Revenue Cloud Technical Advisors

What to Know About the Software Buying Landscape in 2023: What’s Changed, What’s the Same, and What Your Buyers Want with G2 CMO Amanda Malko (Video)

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2022

Despite economic headwinds, SaaS spending continues to grow, with most companies having self-reported increasing or maintaining SaaS spending. G2 track, their proprietary SaaS spend management platform. This includes data from companies on how they utilize SaaS and their spending.

Software Review

Software Review Software Azure Cloud

Are You Getting More Competitive, Or Less Competitive? Hitting the Plan Might Not Be Enough

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

DigitalOcean is growing more slowly than its mega competitors Azure, AWS, etc. Especially in a growing market, like most SaaS categories, you can both grow and fall behind at the same time. . $4B BigCommerce is growing more slowly than its $140B bigger rival, Shopify. That’s a big, big gap. More here. #2.

Azure

Azure Headcount AWS Education

Clouded Judgement 8.11.23 - Datadog Consumption Trends

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

If next quarter we get similar commentary that Azure gave us this quarter (“still a couple quarters away” without any specific guidance), then we may see market loose a little patience. The hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are seeing some uptick, but this is largely from selling compute (ie cloud GPUs).

Cloud

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

When did cloud computing start to become popular?

SaaStr

AUGUST 27, 2019

That $200b+ of additional Cloud and SaaS spend fueled 50+ Cloud unicorns and massive growth in AWS, Azure, etc. It turned our CIOs and bigger companies were ready to transfer as much as another 20% of their $1 trillion+ IT budgets to Cloud far faster than any of us knew. It’s still accelerating. But not this big.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Enterprise

Four Sales Compensation Tactics for Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB’s SVP of Sales

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

Moving from a traditional SaaS to a pure consumption model was a challenging but fun transition for MongoDB. Then, we moved to a more customer-friendly model with SaaS and subscription-based pricing. There are still some complexities around SaaS-based approaches. At a recent Workshop Wednesday, held every Wednesday at 10 a.m,

Compensation

Compensation Sales Azure AWS

How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0

Baremetrics

DECEMBER 7, 2023

The main benefits of categorizing your SaaS company’s expenses are more accurate metrics and forecasts, and getting a better understanding of your company’s overall spending. Here’s an overview of the series: Part 1: How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0 This is a v2.0 New Gross Margins?

Merchant Services

Merchant Services Startup DevOps as a Service SaaS

Clouded Judgement 2.3.23

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

In the short term, enjoy the ride as the chase continues 😊 Kind of related to all of this - we now have seen the Q4’s from AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. The promise of SaaS is that growth in the early years leads to profits in the mature years. Lots of deceleration in growth.

Cloud

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI

The decade software ate the world

Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 31, 2019

The most triumphant transfer of control from an original generation leader to a new CEO was surely that of Microsoft, which pivoted from chasing after Apple’s success in the consumer space under Steve Ballmer (don’t mention Nokia ) to successfully focusing on the cloud under Satya Nadella (please do mention Azure).

Payment Solutions

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Software SaaS Payments

Clouded Judgement 11.10.23 - OpenAI Updates + Datadog Gives the All-Clear?

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. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud

Cloud Artificial Intelligence AI GCP(Google Cloud Platform)

SaaS companies quickly replacing subscriptions with usage-based pricing

OPEXEngine

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Dive Brief: Usage-based pricing has grown 32% this year and now 45% of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies use it all or in part, up from 34%, an OpenView survey shows. The survey is based on responses from 600 SaaS companies. It has tended to be used most in infrastructure platforms, like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.

Subscription

Subscription Payment Features Pricing SaaS

[WEBINAR REPLAY] How to build a culture of security in your software development teams

Audacix

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

When you should conduct SaaS pentests / mobile app pentests to solidify your security posture. How to protect your cloud console with GCP/Azure/ AWS cloud console pentests. How to make your software or SaaS enterprise-ready so that you can sell more to larger B2B customers. Would that be helpful?

Software Development

Software Development GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Development Software

Shopify Says eCommerce is Back. But AWS Says Cloud Under More Scrutiny.

Datadog, ZoomInfo, Atlassian, AWS: Epic Growth — But Some Real Headwinds For The First Time

Webinars

Trending Sources

Atlassian and AWS Say: “Maybe Worry a Little Bit”

Webinars

Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS?

Gartner: SaaS Will Still Grow 18% in 2023 to $200 Billion Worldwide. And Another 18% in 2024.

Clouded Judgement 10.27.23 - Cloud Giants Report Q3 '23

Clouded Judgement 2.2.24 - Cloud Giants Report Q4 '23

Cloud Stocks May Be Down. But the Cloud Remains on Fire. That Matters More.

Pilot: 57% of Venture Startups Will Need to Raise More In 2024

A Look Back at Q4 '23 Public Cloud Software Earnings

5 Interesting Learnings from Digital Ocean at $700,000,000 in ARR

Bessemer: $1 Trillion in Cloud Market Cap Lost Year-to-Date

Clouded Judgement 4.28.23

Clouded Judgement 8.4.23 - Cloud Giants Q2 Update

Clouded Judgement 1.6.23

SaaS Multiples Are At a 3+ Year Low. Where It Goes From Here.

Founders Today Just Need to Assume the Next Round Never Comes

Clouded Judgement 10.28.22

Clouded Judgement 10.20.23 - Hyperscaler Q3 Preview

Snow Angels Come Early to Data : Snowflake's Strength Spells Success for Startups

How Nimble + Azure Revolutionize Relationship Management for Office 365 Teams

5 Interesting Learnings from Google Cloud at $13 Billion in ARR

5 Interesting Learnings from DigitalOcean at $500,000,000 in ARR

ISVs vs SaaS: What’s the Difference?

The 4 Questions Startups Should Ask Themselves about Building with Generative AI

Clouded Judgement 4.21.23

Gartner: SaaS Spending Will Grow Another 40% in Next 2 Years Alone

Thanks to ChartMogul, ChurnZero, Cledara, Secureframe, and Verdane for Sponsoring SaaStr Europa 2023!

Clouded Judgement 7.28.23 - Optimization Cycles and Economy Update

Thanks to Unit, Everstage, Aiven, Zip, and Mission Cloud for Sponsoring SaaStr Annual 2022!

Clouded Judgement 6.9.23 - Recap of Consumption Trends in Q1 '23

Snowflake, CrowdStike and SumoLogic: “How to Leverage the Cloud Giants to Scale to 100 Million ARR and Beyond”

Clouded Judgement 3.22.24 - ERR vs ARR and the Conundrum of AI Revenue Streams Today

What to Know About the Software Buying Landscape in 2023: What’s Changed, What’s the Same, and What Your Buyers Want with G2 CMO Amanda Malko (Video)

Are You Getting More Competitive, Or Less Competitive? Hitting the Plan Might Not Be Enough

Clouded Judgement 8.11.23 - Datadog Consumption Trends

When did cloud computing start to become popular?

Four Sales Compensation Tactics for Consumption-Based GTM with MongoDB’s SVP of Sales

How to Categorize Expenses in a SaaS Startup v2.0

Clouded Judgement 2.3.23

The decade software ate the world

Clouded Judgement 11.10.23 - OpenAI Updates + Datadog Gives the All-Clear?

SaaS companies quickly replacing subscriptions with usage-based pricing

[WEBINAR REPLAY] How to build a culture of security in your software development teams

Stay Connected