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 157

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 157

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

” 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. Azure (excluding Azure AI) continued to decelerate, and while AWS did come in ahead of expectations, it wasn’t a blow out.

Cost optimization & reporting 167

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 167

Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). 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.

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software AWS 190

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Microsoft launched Azure in 2010, and Google launched GCP to the public in 2011 (they launched a preview of Google App Engine in 2008, but made it publicly available in 2011). On top of that- we HAVE seen significant pricing pressure. S3 has dropped nearly 97% in price, while EC2 has fallen nearly 90%!

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

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

JANUARY 27, 2023

Azure (Microsoft) Quarter The week the first of the cloud giants reported - Azure. Early Look at 2023 Guides Given the Azure weakness reported on Tuesday, all software tumbled Wednesday morning with most names down 5-10%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 144

Cloud Azure Pricing Subscription 144

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 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Azure called out an incremental $800m of costs expected throughout the year (they just finished their Fiscal Q1).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

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

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. Azure : Coming into the quarter, a growth rate that would have satisfied the market would have been ~29%. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 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

JUNE 9, 2023

Expansion revenue is still declining (we see this in falling net retention rates), but gross retention remains strong. 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.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 4, 2023

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. Then Q2 came in at 12% (must have seen improvements throughout the quarter). And most importantly, they’ve seen these positive trends continue. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

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. This week we had two of the hypserscalers report (Microsoft / Azure and Google / GCP), and everyone was eager to see their results. The bars represent the YoY revenue growth, and the yellow line is the stock price.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

MAY 26, 2023

Azure / Confluent / Datadog reported a few weeks back (they all had March quarter ends), and their commentary suggested the worst was behind us. An element of re-acceleration is definitely priced in to current 2024 estimates, so we may see 2024 estimates fall. This means we got commentary for the first time on May trends.

Cloud 144

Cloud Azure Trends Forecasting 144

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. Q1 Earnings Season We’re on the eve of Q1 earning season. The Q4 ‘22 growth rate was 38% YoY. Revenue multiples are a shorthand valuation framework.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 20, 2023

net retention and CAC payback). On the Microsoft earnings call they said (related to Azure): “But at some point, workloads just can't be optimized much further. The market is clearly pricing in lower rates + reacceleration of growth. Subscribe now Do We See a Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Benchmarks Scale 167

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

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

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

AUGUST 11, 2023

The good news is gross retention (ie churn) stayed constant. 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 weakness they called out was from larger cloud-native businesses.

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 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

Neil Patel

DECEMBER 24, 2020

Additionally, the free plan offers two months of log retention and one status page. Some of the additional functions include: Voice calls and SMS alerts 24-month log retention One-minute checks Cron job monitoring Keyword monitoring Maintenance windows SSL certificate expiry monitoring Advanced notification settings Unlimited status pages.

DevOps as a Service 145

DevOps as a Service Software Review GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Systems Review 145

User Pilot

JULY 18, 2023

The tools are constantly evolving and changing their pricing plans, so it may be difficult to ensure that your product team is using the right tools and getting the best value for the money. Pay attention to support and customization, and make sure it has the right templates, integrations , and scalable pricing plans.

Software Review 98

Software Review Software Management Azure 98

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. Pricing model growth. Usage-based pricing has been growing since at least 2018, when about a quarter of companies were using it, according to OpenView’s data.

Subscription 52

Subscription Payment Features Pricing Venture Capital 52

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Maybe with the exception of hyperscalers (particularly Azure). But for now, these are my views 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.

Software Review 167

Software Review Cloud Software Azure 167

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 17, 2023

As you can tell, there’s a BIG drop-off projected in 2023 Like Azure, they called for a big slowdown of consumption trends in the month of December. However, they guided for 2023 and called for 23-24% growth. The graph below shows their annual growth (and projected 2023 growth) for the last few years.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure Subscription Payment Features 130

Sales Hacker

APRIL 1, 2025

Why retention isn’t just a CS metricand how to build a sales team that cares about it. The revenue leader needs to have an overwhelming amount of focus on retention. Dynamics on Azure with integration with office or, uh, modern workplace and being able to do, uh, [00:15:00] CRM things within your outlook or vice versa?

Scale 63

Scale VP of Engineering Outsourcing Services Enterprise 63

How To Buy Saas

MAY 21, 2025

In this guide, well explore the best applicant tracking systems of 2025 , covering both cloud and on-premise options, their key features, pricing, pros/cons, and ideal use cases. Breezy HR Best Free ATS for Small Businesses Pricing: Key Features: Ideal Use Case: 2. What ATS is best for small businesses or startups?

Systems Review 52

Systems Review Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 52

User Pilot

JULY 17, 2023

Pricing Userpilot offers excellent value for money, and its pricing plans are flexible and scalable to accommodate companies of different sizes and needs. Growth: Comes at custom pricing and usage limits, with unlimited feature tags and more. Growth: Comes at custom pricing and usage limits, with unlimited feature tags and more.

Software Review 19

Software Review Software AI Search DevOps as a Service 19

ProfitWell

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

Running your own server to handle your customer's valuable data requires a huge investment to match the same level of security and reliability that comes baked into services like Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure cloud. Pricing Changes. There is currently a surge in usage-based pricing and other creative pricing strategies.

SaaS Payments 66

SaaS Payments Trends Merchant Services Payments 66

User Pilot

APRIL 30, 2024

Appcues enhances user onboarding, adoption , and retention with targeted walkthroughs, in-app messaging, and feature adoption tools. Key examples are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, which provide scalable resources like virtual servers and storage. What are the benefits of the SaaS model?

SaaS Payments 104

SaaS Payments Payment Methods Payment Services Payment Solutions 104

Stax

APRIL 17, 2025

This could mean building an app that runs on Azure, integrating payments through Stax Connect , or creating an add-on for Oracles software suite. You and your payments partner must mutually agree on a revenue share percentage (or a split) which may depend on factors such as your processing volumes, pricing model, or the number of merchants.

Merchant Services 88

Merchant Services Payment Solutions Payment Services Payments 88

How To Buy Saas

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

Either way, a decrease in attrition could be achieved using digital retention methods and an improved customer interaction site. Whether it’s anticipating consumer behavior, improving pricing models, or identifying fraud, such solutions help you remain competitive and responsive in a data-driven environment.

Blockchain 52

Blockchain Technical Review Underperforming Technical Team Systems Review 52

Chart Mogul

APRIL 7, 2022

With ChartMogul you can quickly build segments to apply across all of your charts, helping you discover which pricing plans are most profitable, which customer profiles are likely to convert, and who your great-fit customers really are. ChartMogul is offering all of those features at a lower price. Data output and integrations.

Payment Features 52

Payment Features Systems Review Churn Azure 52