Blog and Revenue - SaaS Brief

Usage-Based Revenue Models: Successes and Pitfalls from Checkr COO Lindsey Scrase on CRO Confidential

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. ” Quickly, Lindsey found that comp plans weren’t aligned with Checkr’s revenue goals and incentives.

Revenue

Revenue Scale Sales Hiring Compensation

How to Leverage Pricing and Packaging to Drive Growth, Revenue, and Profit with Miro, Loom, OpenAI, and Splunk

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2024

So, you should think about it the same way and use it intentionally to drive growth, revenue, or whatever else, but think about it more than something you set at once and forget. But if you’re trying to maximize revenue, you have to find the revenue maximization point.

Payments

Payments Pricing Scale Revenue

Can Mobile Games Really Achieve >50% of Revenue From D2C?

FastSpring

JANUARY 9, 2025

That said, you might be wondering what strategies work within the confines of today’s rules and if it’s even possible to earn 50% or more of your game’s revenue through D2C. Why these strategies actually can result in >50% revenue coming from D2C. I’m your host, David Vogelpohl.

Payments

Payments Mobile Payment Methods Revenue

The 250,000 Customer Club: How HubSpot and Monday.com Both Created SMB+ Empires

SaaStr

MAY 20, 2025

HubSpot has twice the revenue (and thus twice the ARPU), but also was founded 6 years earlier. Customer Base : ~258,000 customers across 135+ countries Revenue : $2.63 Customer Base : ~258,000 customers across 135+ countries Revenue : $2.63 Let’s look at where both companies stand today: HubSpot ARR : $2.7B

SMB

SMB Scale Education AI

From $1M to $3B ARR: Databricks CRO Ron Gabrisko on Scaling a Revenue Rocket Ship

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 7, 2025

With Databricks now one of the largest pre-IPO technology companies, with $10 billion of expected non-dilutive financing and a valuation of $62 billion, Ron’s insights are gold for any revenue leader looking to scale. Our founders focused on adoption first, not revenue, Ron explains. The takeaway? The takeaway?

Scale

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Revenue

The 30-Day Test: How to Know if Your VP of Sales Will Succeed

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

They know they’ll need an ever-expanding team to hit compound revenue targets—2 reps, then 4, then 8, then 16, and eventually 64 or more. The 90-Day Revenue Test While 30 days is enough to evaluate their hiring decisions, you should see clear revenue improvements within 90 days (or one full sales cycle).

Sales Hiring

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Headcount

Clari: The Top 10% of Reps Close 65% of Revenue. And The Bottom 50%? Just 7.6%

SaaStr

MAY 1, 2025

Clari found across 10 million sales opportunities: The Top 2% of reps close 37% of all revenue The Top 10% close 65% The Entire “Bottom 98%” close just 63% The Bottom 50% close just 7.6% All the rest still close 35% of your revenue. And the smaller and earlier you are, the more brutal this revenue leakage is.

Scale

Scale Revenue B2B Investment

B2B Startups Spend 15% of Revenue on Sales and 10% on Marketing, Per SaaS Capital

SaaStr

APRIL 14, 2025

Startups that are scaling are spending about: 15% of Revenue on Sales and 18% for higher growth start-ups 10% of Revenue on Marketing (and trending up) 7% on Customer Success (trending down) You can see this goes up as startups costs $5m ARR, and then stays fairly flat. Its not just Marc Benioff hiring more sales execs in the AI era.

Scale

Scale Sales Hiring B2B Startup

Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services?

SaaStr

OCTOBER 25, 2024

A rough yardstick is that most enterprise-focused SaaS companies tend to get about 8%-10% of their revenues from professional services. A few data points: At $800m ARR, Qualtrics was still getting 25% of revenue from professional services. At $500m ARR, OneStream gets about 8% of its revenue from professional services.

Investment

Investment SaaS SMB Enterprise

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Set the Revenue Goals for Next Year?

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 29, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Set the Revenue Goals for Next Year? Here’s how to build them: The 3 Financial Plans You Need for The Year: C-90, C-60 and C-10 (Updated) The base plan, the plan I use for the overall sales and revenue goals, is the C-60 plan. The post Dear SaaStr: How Do I Set the Revenue Goals for Next Year?

Revenue

Revenue Banking Sales Marketing

How to grow your field service platform’s revenue up to 3x with payments

Payrix

APRIL 10, 2025

Embedding payments and financial experiences is the next frontier for trade and field service software platforms looking to boost revenue while enhancing the customer experience. By taking control of your payment processing, platforms focused on the trades industry can unlock new revenue streams and gain a competitive edge.

Payments

Payments Payment Services Outsourcing Services Payment Solutions

How SaaStr Fund-Backed RevenueCat Went from a $1.5M Round at $7M Valuation in 2018 to $500M+ Today

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

And more importantly, revenue and user growth that is accelerating at scale. million seed round led by SaaStr Fund , they were already live with 100 apps and had crossed $1 million in tracked revenue. A huge congrats to @RevenueCat to adding $50m at a big valuation increase to its Series C! By the time they raised their $1.5

Payments

Payments Payment Solutions Underperforming Technical Team Payment Methods

Jason Lemkin + Kyle Notion CRO Owner: “Why Revenue Leaders Must Run Toward Bad News” (Video + Podcast)

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 28, 2024

Kyle Norton CRO of Owner is kicking off a new podcast for Pavillion with revenue leaders, and we were lucky enough to be guest #001 here: It’s a great convo on many SaaStr themes — but from the perspective of a VP Sales / CRO. Never play the blame game As a revenue leader, it’s crucial we take accountability for sales performance.

Technical Review

Technical Review Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Revenue

5 Interesting Learnings from Okta at $2.75 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

JUNE 18, 2025

5 Interesting Learnings: The Core 5: Revenue & Growth Metrics 1. These 4,870 customers likely represent 70%+ of revenue despite being <25% of total customers. International Revenue as a Growth Vector Indicator The Numbers : International revenue represents ~20% of total ($141M of $688M in Q1) The Learning : At $2.6B

Scale

Scale Headcount Outsourced Development Operational efficiency.

5 Interesting Learnings from Klaviyo at Almost $1 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

Just not as quickly as overall revenue growth. #4. A third of revenue is from outside the Americas. #5. But it’s clear that it’s still in the investing phase, and increasing spend in sales & marketing.

Scale

Scale SMB Scaling Enterprise

Dear SaaStr: Why Are Buyers Not Ready to Spend Big on Acquisitions as Readily Today as in the Past?

SaaStr

OCTOBER 12, 2024

Revenues Multiples Are Down Even the best public SaaS companies are worth ~10x revenue today. In 2021, they were often worth 40x revenue. And it also makes it harder to meet the “ask” of a startup that might want a much higher revenue multiple. In tech at least, there are two big issues: #1.

Acquisition

Acquisition Technical Review Startup Revenue

5 Interesting Learnings from Cloudflare at $1.7 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

JANUARY 15, 2025

Top-tier growth, cash-flow positive, and very durable revenue. Wall Street wants revenue that is durable. 221,000 Total Paying Customers, But 65% of Revenue From 3,200 Large Customers This is what you should see when a “long tail” engine is just working at scale. Wall Street wants revenue that is durable.

Scaling

Scaling Cloud AI Engineering

5 Interesting Learnings from RingCentral at $2.43 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Even With a Big Enterprise Push for Years, 60% of Revenue Still From Mid-Market and SMB RingCentral closed 20 $1M+ TCV deals last quarter. of revenue in 2021 to 15.7% 16,000 Channel Partners A very large percent of RingCentral’s revenue comes from the channel. Fast forward to today, it’s at: $2.43

Scale

Scale Compensation SMB Cloud

5 Interesting Learnings from Circle at $2.3 Billion in “ARR”

SaaStr

JUNE 11, 2025

Billion Revenue Run Rate Growing a stunning 60% $16 Billion valuation, so about 8x revenue We're back to IPOs seeming normal again That's quietly a big deal And a good thing [link] — Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ The “Interest Rate Risk” Learning: When 99% of Your Revenue Depends on One Variable Circle generated $1.7B

compliance

compliance Marketplace as a Service B2B Healthcare

How to Train Your Sales Leaders: Key Learnings from HubSpot and BILL with Michelle Benfer

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Former Head of Revenue at BILL and HubSpot Americas leader Michelle Benfer recently joined us on a SaaStr Workshop Wednesday share her insights on one of the most critical roles in any SaaS organization: the frontline sales manager. Driving revenue through acquisition, expansion, and retention. Shaping and maintaining company culture.

Sales Hiring

Sales Hiring Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales

6 Of The Most Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Pitching VCs

SaaStr

OCTOBER 27, 2024

VCs can only invest in folks that can hit $100m+ in revenue or more in 7–10 years. It’s just too competitive today. No one wants to fund a “great business guy” without an A+ CTO there as well. #6. Not growing quickly enough. If you’re not even close to that pace, 99% of VCs won’t invest. No, It’s Not Any Harder to Get Funded Today.

CTO

CTO Investment Revenue Marketing

How to Build a Product Customers Love and Drive Nearly $1B in Revenue Along the Way with Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki

SaaStr

OCTOBER 4, 2024

In today’s dynamic SaaS landscape of hyperfuncational SaaS, the journey of building a product that customers adore, while simultaneously scaling revenue to nearly $1B, is still quite a feat. What matters is the dollars and amount of revenue that the campaign drove. click-through rate, they are a hero for driving actual revenue.

Revenue

Revenue Scale Underperforming Technical Team Sales Hiring

83% Percent of You Haven’t Gotten AI SDRs to Work … Yet

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

So we ran a similar survey , and it showed similar results — so far at least: As you can see above, only 3% of you have generated real revenue from AI SDRs. Tons of B2B companies deploying AI SDRs already, but few deals closed so far. 83% of you haven’t gotten anything from AI SDRs.

AI

AI B2B Engineering Customer Support

Databricks Just Caught Snowflake at $3.7B ARR. Here’s How They Did It (And What’s Next)

SaaStr

JUNE 16, 2025

revenue run-rate this quarter with 50% YoY growth, making them the fastest-growing infrastructure company in the public software universe. revenue run-rate ending this quarter, growing 50% year-over-year. billion revenue run-rate by July, with year-over-year growth of 50%. in net new revenue this year. Three things: 1.

AI

AI AWS Enterprise Scaling

5 Interesting Learnings from Atlassian at $4.75 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 6, 2024

Revenue growth is up 21% overall, and subscription growth is up 33% — at almost $5 Billion in ARR. Raising Guidance and Growth Rate for Cloud Revenue To +24% a Year That’s pretty darn impressive growth at almost $5B in ARR, and just as importantly, they’re raising their prediction here. #2. Wall Street is happy.

Enterprise

Enterprise Pricing Cloud AI

Clicks Don’t Pay the Bills: Use This Audit Framework To Prove Content Revenue [Mozcon 2025 Speaker Series]

The Moz Blog

MAY 29, 2025

Struggling to prove contents revenue impact? Learn a practical audit framework to trim waste, forecast ROI, and show contents true business value.

Revenue

Revenue Forecasting Business

The Keys to Getting to $500M ARR In Just 7 Years with Attentive’s CEO

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2025

Here’s what it really took for Attentive to go from $0 to $500M ARR in just 7 years, sending over 32B text messages and generating $20B+ in revenue for their 8,000+ customers. CEO Amit Jhawar joined us at SaaStr Annual for a deep dive: 1. Solve The Hard Problem First And Patent It The first key insight?

Technical Review

Technical Review Payment Solutions Scale Payment Services

A Founder’s Guide to Building and Scaling Marketing Channels: Lessons from Datadog’s CMO and First Marketing Hire

SaaStr

MARCH 16, 2025

3 Unexpected Learnings from Datadog’s Marketing Playbook Press relations and analyst activities often contribute almost nothing to the bottom line – Datadog found that many “standard” marketing activities didn’t actually drive customer acquisition or revenue, despite their visibility.

Scale

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Marketing

Scaling 6 Products to $100M+ ARR Each: Samsara’s CPO Kiren Sekar on Multi-Product Growth

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2025

By tracking and targeting diverse industries from day one (even pre-revenue), they discovered that solutions developed for one vertical would spark demand in seemingly unrelated industries. During pre-revenue, they hired ADRs to book demos specifically for product managers to gather feedback before writing code.

Scale

Scale Transportation Scaling SMB

When to Hire Your First CFO — From OnlyCFO

SaaStr

MARCH 7, 2025

While other businesses with <$10M in revenue may need a true CFO because of their complexity. I do believe leaders can scale with a company and grow into roles of a bigger company, but I rarely see the finance leader of a $5M business being able to scale all the way to be the best leader of a $250M revenue company.

Scale

Scale Finance Headcount Leadership

Dear SaaStr: What Are the Most Important SaaS Metrics in the Early Days?

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 12, 2024

SaaStr ) And once you have at least a little revenue ($1m-$2m ARR or so), net revenue retention / churn. In the early days, there are probably only 5 metrics that really matter : ARR ARR Growth Rate Burn Rate True Customer Happiness. Probably, measured as NPS (more here: I Was Wrong. NPS is A Great Core Metric.

Metrics

Metrics Venture Capital SaaS Churn

5 Interesting Learnings from Twilio at $4.5 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Top 10 Customers Steady at 10% of Revenue Revenue concentration has always been a small issue at Twilio. It’s ended up being a tough road, with 91% revenue retention and 0% growth. This isn’t easy at scale. #2. NRR Up to 105%, From 101% Mathematically. Before the IPO it lost its largest customer, Uber.

Acquisition

Acquisition Scaling Retention Pricing

Dear SaaStr: What is a Good Benchmark for SaaS Revenue Per Employee by Stage?

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2025

Dear SaaStr: What is a Good Benchmark for SaaS Revenue Per Employee by Stage? Scaling Stage ($10M-$50M ARR) : As you scale, you should aim for $200,000-$250,000 in revenue per employee. Mature Stage ($100M+ ARR) : At scale, the benchmark is typically $300,000-$400,000 in revenue per employee. Overall, efficiency is going up. "Where

Benchmarks

Benchmarks Scale Revenue SaaS

What’s Really Working in Embedded Finance: Key Learnings from Adyen’s $100B+ Experience

SaaStr

JANUARY 20, 2025

The platforms that move first are seeing 70%+ revenue uplifts and dramatically improved retention. But the window for being early won’t last forever. Embedded finance isn’t just a feature – it’s becoming a core part of how the best SaaS companies monetize and retain customers.

Payments

Payments Finance Payment Services SaaS Payments

Approaching Half a Million Customers: How to Win in SMB with BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte

SaaStr

OCTOBER 23, 2024

in revenue. Then, in 2017, with around $50M in revenue, BILL added payment capabilities. When René’s dad had a payroll company, the rule of thumb was always one year’s worth of revenue, four quarters, because a customer lasted a year. Are We In a Downturn? There was an inflection point for BILL around 10k customers.

SMB

SMB Payment Services Payments Payment Methods

The $10M to $1B Vertical SaaS Playbook: Key Lessons from Procore’s Chief Product Officer Wyatt Jenkins

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Meet Wyatt Jenkins: From Construction Sites to Chief Product Officer If you want to understand how vertical SaaS companies scale to $1B+ in revenue while staying true to their customers, there’s no better person to learn from than Wyatt Jenkins, Chief Product Officer at Procore Technologies.

Construction

Construction Scale SaaS Travel

SaaStr on 20VC This Week: Why 40% Cloud Adoption Marks the End of Easy Growth. And Why the AI Budget War is Just Getting Started

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

AI is Eating SaaS Budgets : Companies like Cursor are generating massive revenue by replacing traditional SaaS workflows entirely. Companies like Cursor are generating massive revenue by directly replacing traditional B2B and SaaS workflows. In a world of 10-15% growth rates, those multiples become impossible to justify.

AI

AI Cloud Software Review Underperforming Technical Team

Gong: $100k Deals Take About 70 Days to Close

SaaStr

DECEMBER 26, 2024

Gong has its 2025 State of Revenue out. You can grab it here. In general, the report ties to what were seeing everywhere in SaaS. Were ending the year in general with stronger growth that the prior year. Gong also looked across its entire customer base to measure deal velocity.

Scale

Scale Benchmarks B2B Enterprise

AI, Sales + GTM in 2025/2026: This Changes Everything with Jason Lemkin and Owner CRO Kyle Norton

SaaStr

MAY 29, 2025

The AI-Native CRO: How Revenue Leaders Must Evolve or Risk Obsolescence 4 Top Learnings for Revenue Leaders 1. Revenue-Generating Time for Reps Can Hit 70-80% With AI. Companies are currently achieving 25-30% increases in revenue-generating activity time through intelligent automation. And where it will be very soon.

Sales Hiring

Sales Hiring Underperforming Technical Team AI Scale

Dear SaaStr: What Was Your First Step When You Decided to Do a Startup?

SaaStr

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Someone has to have the conviction at Day 0 it really will work, is worth all the pain and effort just to get to the first customer, the first $5 in revenue. In either case, I did two things that added real value: I made the decision, pre-validation, the idea would work. I made sure I had a great co-founder. How did Jason M.

Startup

Startup Technology Revenue Leadership

The Top SaaStr Posts, Pods and Vids of the Week: HubSpot’s Chairman, Checkr’s CRO, Rippling’s CRO, and a new CRO Confidential!

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2025

Our Data and Some Learnings Top Pods & Vids: #1: HubSpot Co-Founder Brian Halligan on How to Hire Great VPs and How M&A Really Works #2: Usage-Based Revenue Models: Successes & Pitfalls from Checkr COO Lindsey Scrase on CRO Confidential #3: From Outbound to Channel Partnerships: Your Burning Sales Questions Answered by Jason Lemkin #4: (..)

Sales Hiring

Sales Hiring Scale Scaling Revenue

Dear SaaStr: What is The Strangest Thing You Have Learned About Entrepreneurship?

SaaStr

OCTOBER 14, 2024

Wait and see how good you are on Day 1000 (measured after first revenues). So if you are worried you aren’t good enough to go the distance … well maybe you aren’t. But don’t throw in the towel. If you still don’t think you are good enough then … well that’s one thing. But give yourself time to grow until then.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Revenue Management

5 Interesting Learnings from ServiceNow at $11 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

DECEMBER 25, 2024

Highly Durable Revenue Growth, Still Growing +23% a Year Well Past $10 Billion in ARR (!). 26,000 Employees, So About $430,000 in Revenue Per Employee This is the level of efficiency it takes to be a top-tier SaaS company at scale. 5 Interesting Learnings from ServiceNow: #1. And RPO is Up +33% (!). Super Efficient — Rule of 50.

Scaling

Scaling Enterprise AI Revenue

Usage-Based Revenue Models: Successes and Pitfalls from Checkr COO Lindsey Scrase on CRO Confidential

How to Leverage Pricing and Packaging to Drive Growth, Revenue, and Profit with Miro, Loom, OpenAI, and Splunk

Trending Sources

Top SaaStr Post of the Week: The Great AI Reset, OpenAI to Hit $12.7 Billion in Revenue, The 250,000 Customer Club

Can Mobile Games Really Achieve >50% of Revenue From D2C?

The 250,000 Customer Club: How HubSpot and Monday.com Both Created SMB+ Empires

From $1M to $3B ARR: Databricks CRO Ron Gabrisko on Scaling a Revenue Rocket Ship

The 30-Day Test: How to Know if Your VP of Sales Will Succeed

Clari: The Top 10% of Reps Close 65% of Revenue. And The Bottom 50%? Just 7.6%

B2B Startups Spend 15% of Revenue on Sales and 10% on Marketing, Per SaaS Capital

Dear SaaStr: How Much Should a SaaS Company Invest in Professional Services?

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Set the Revenue Goals for Next Year?

How to grow your field service platform’s revenue up to 3x with payments

How SaaStr Fund-Backed RevenueCat Went from a $1.5M Round at $7M Valuation in 2018 to $500M+ Today

Jason Lemkin + Kyle Notion CRO Owner: “Why Revenue Leaders Must Run Toward Bad News” (Video + Podcast)

5 Interesting Learnings from Okta at $2.75 Billion in ARR

5 Interesting Learnings from Klaviyo at Almost $1 Billion in ARR

Dear SaaStr: Why Are Buyers Not Ready to Spend Big on Acquisitions as Readily Today as in the Past?

5 Interesting Learnings from Cloudflare at $1.7 Billion in ARR

5 Interesting Learnings from RingCentral at $2.43 Billion in ARR

5 Interesting Learnings from Circle at $2.3 Billion in “ARR”

How to Train Your Sales Leaders: Key Learnings from HubSpot and BILL with Michelle Benfer

6 Of The Most Common Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Pitching VCs

How to Build a Product Customers Love and Drive Nearly $1B in Revenue Along the Way with Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki

83% Percent of You Haven’t Gotten AI SDRs to Work … Yet

Databricks Just Caught Snowflake at $3.7B ARR. Here’s How They Did It (And What’s Next)

5 Interesting Learnings from Atlassian at $4.75 Billion in ARR

Clicks Don’t Pay the Bills: Use This Audit Framework To Prove Content Revenue [Mozcon 2025 Speaker Series]

The Keys to Getting to $500M ARR In Just 7 Years with Attentive’s CEO

A Founder’s Guide to Building and Scaling Marketing Channels: Lessons from Datadog’s CMO and First Marketing Hire

Scaling 6 Products to $100M+ ARR Each: Samsara’s CPO Kiren Sekar on Multi-Product Growth

When to Hire Your First CFO — From OnlyCFO

Dear SaaStr: What Are the Most Important SaaS Metrics in the Early Days?

5 Interesting Learnings from Twilio at $4.5 Billion in ARR

Dear SaaStr: What is a Good Benchmark for SaaS Revenue Per Employee by Stage?

What’s Really Working in Embedded Finance: Key Learnings from Adyen’s $100B+ Experience

Approaching Half a Million Customers: How to Win in SMB with BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte

The $10M to $1B Vertical SaaS Playbook: Key Lessons from Procore’s Chief Product Officer Wyatt Jenkins

SaaStr on 20VC This Week: Why 40% Cloud Adoption Marks the End of Easy Growth. And Why the AI Budget War is Just Getting Started

Gong: $100k Deals Take About 70 Days to Close

AI, Sales + GTM in 2025/2026: This Changes Everything with Jason Lemkin and Owner CRO Kyle Norton

Dear SaaStr: What Was Your First Step When You Decided to Do a Startup?

The Top SaaStr Posts, Pods and Vids of the Week: HubSpot’s Chairman, Checkr’s CRO, Rippling’s CRO, and a new CRO Confidential!

Dear SaaStr: What is The Strangest Thing You Have Learned About Entrepreneurship?

5 Interesting Learnings from ServiceNow at $11 Billion in ARR

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