Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 26, 2022

Constellation Software is a $30b+ publicly-traded software holding company employing more than 25,000. A former venture capitalist, Mark Leonard started Constellation in 1995 with $15m of outside investment & a goal of buying vertical software companies with a moat & good unit economics. Customer Churn. -5%.

Software Review 295

Software Review Investment Software Acquisition 295

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

This isn’t feature addition—it’s fundamental workflow replacement that’s compressing overall software spend. The Disruption Math Can Be Brutal : In contact centers, AI replaces 40-50% of human agents but only increases software ACV by 50%. Consolidation Wave Incoming : Mature markets consolidate. 150 billion.

AI 252

AI Cloud Software Review Underperforming Technical Team 252

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

The Evolution of Vertical SaaS The shift from horizontal to vertical SaaS solutions represents a fundamental change in how enterprises buy and implement software. They don’t just build software they become construction industry experts. Efficient Growth : Word-of-mouth in tight-knit industries reduces customer acquisition costs.

Construction 248

Construction Scale SaaS Travel 248

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 28, 2024

Many Vertical SaaS leaders do payroll, finance, accounting, and much more — not just the core software. Churn is all over the place with SMBs. Toast and Shopify and Bill are really more payments companies today than SaaS companies. You probably have to go multi-product much earlier. So be honest.

Payment Solutions 258

Payment Solutions Inbound Sales Team Marketing Scale 258

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 19, 2024

Q1 was a very weak quarter of software earnings. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs. For businesses selling predominantly to SMB customers, these benchmarks are all slightly lower given the higher-churn nature of SMBs. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 318

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Software Azure 318

USIO

MAY 16, 2024

Here are some of the most FAQs software companies ask Usio about integrated payments, along with comprehensive answers to help you navigate this critical aspect of your business. Integrated payments refer to the seamless incorporation of payment processing capabilities directly within a software application.

Payment Services 263

Payment Services Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions 263

SaaStr

DECEMBER 1, 2021

The state of software buying has changed. During SaaStr Annual 2021, Amanda Malko, CMO at G2, shared a fascinating look at the data that reveals shifting patterns in the way consumers purchase software. . Furthermore, 55% of companies plan to increase software spending in 2022.

Software Review 278

Software Review SMB Enterprise Software 278

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2025

Basic questions like “What’s our churn rate?” They were two developers who had lived through the nightmare of subscription infrastructure while working at Elevate. The Problem Was Real: Apple and Google’s app stores weren’t giving developers the data they needed.

Payments 274

Payments Payment Solutions Underperforming Technical Team Payment Methods 274

SaaStr

JUNE 13, 2025

Immediate ROI Demonstration Unlike previous enterprise software categories that required long implementation periods to show value, AI applications can often demonstrate ROI within days or weeks. CIOs and CTOs who might have spent 6-9 months evaluating traditional software are making AI purchasing decisions in 30-60 days.

Enterprise 167

Enterprise AI Startup Benchmarks 167

Stax

JUNE 18, 2025

Software tailored to your industry? TL;DR Vertical software solutions are those that are hyperfocused on addressing the pain points or specific needs of small and medium businesses (SMBs) in certain industries or niches. Vertical SaaS is industry-specific software designed to meet the unique needs of a particular niche or market.

Merchant Services 167

Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Services Payments 167

SaaStr

JUNE 14, 2025

This chart from Altimeter Capital tells one of the most dramatic stories in software history. 42% of businesses don’t intend to allocate additional funds to AI in 2025, and monthly AI churn rates are significantly higher at 3.25% compared to traditional B2B tools. Google took 15 years to reach 1.2 trillion annual searches.

ChatGPT 218

ChatGPT AI Search AI Growth Hacking 218

Stax

JUNE 3, 2025

The term SaaS platform gets tossed around a lotbut what does it actually mean, and why does it matter for today’s software companies? In this article, we’ll break down what a SaaS platform is, highlight real-world examples, and explore key strategies to succeed in the fast-moving software-as-a-service industry.

Payment Services 88

Payment Services DevOps as a Service SaaS Payments Payments 88

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2025

The metrics are very strong: $2B ARR (run rate — but not really software revenue) Generated from $121B in transactions on platform Growing 23% $251 ARPU 88% Gross Margins Average customer uses 3.3 So Chime is ready to IPO, and while it’s not SaaS or true B2B today, there are enough interesting lessons for us to learn from.

Outsourcing Services 197

Outsourcing Services Scale Banking Customer Lifetime Value 197

SaaStr

JUNE 2, 2022

The amount of folks buying SaaS software is a force like we’ve never seen before, and even with some stock market drama, many top SaaS companies still trade at $4B, $10B, $20B or more just a decade after being founded. Two things though did get hit harder — SMB Churn and Upsell s. That never even slowed down.

SMB 361

SMB SaaS Churn Enterprise 361

Clouded Judgement

JULY 2, 2025

And while the workflow of creating software and other digital products and experiences can take many paths and forms, the process has traditionally involved the following key phases: Ideate and Align. ” Product Overview From the S-1: “We are a platform for design and product development.

Benchmarks 196

Benchmarks Data Software Review AI 196

Tom Tunguz

JULY 21, 2022

” This sentence echoes in conference rooms across many software buyers today, irrespective of whether the business is healthy. Account executives selling mission-critical software should breathe easy. Software does more with less. AEs must convince the buyer can achieve their goals with software instead of a new hire.

Sales Hiring 189

Sales Hiring Headcount Software Finance 189

SaaStr

JUNE 23, 2025

Traditional software engineering skills and AI engineering skills have meaningful overlap, but they’re not the same thing. Your existing product roadmap, your engineering processes, your QA workflows—much of it was designed for deterministic software in a pre-AI world. It’s about raising the bar for what software can do.

AI Search 167

AI Search AI Technical Review CTO Hire 167

Tom Tunguz

MAY 16, 2024

Both the companies with negative account retention still see relatively minor account churn : 15-25% account churn at these price points is common. The top quartile software companies around 125% today & the companies above are very similar with a median of 129% net dollar retention (NDR). NDR is almost equal.

AI 300

AI Churn Trends Pricing 300

USIO

JUNE 19, 2025

It’s a powerful value-add that makes your software more useful and opens up a new stream of revenue. According to Goldman Sachs and Fast Company , platforms like Bill.com and AvidXchange generate over 60% of their total revenue from payments, not software fees. So don’t just build tools.

Payments 130

Payments SaaS Payments Payment Services Payment Solutions 130

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Is Software Rebounding? The first few months of this year felt like a lot of churning in the market. Azure has gone back above trend as they’ve benefited quite a bit form the recent AI boom There’s many ways of answering the question of “is software rebounding” when looking at performance from Q4.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Subscribe now Is Software Rebounding? This is the first quarter we’ve heard that message, and a good leading indicator for the rest of the software buying universe. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs. net retention and CAC payback).

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 184

Groove HQ

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

Your support team is getting sidetracked by repetitive tickets, the churn rate is creeping up, and you’re losing sleep over missed follow-ups. Sound familiar?

Software 59

Software SaaS Customer Support Churn 59

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 3, 2024

It’s still rough out there selling software! I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs. For businesses selling predominantly to SMB customers, these benchmarks are all slightly lower given the higher-churn nature of SMBs.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 167

User Pilot

JUNE 2, 2025

78% of users churn in the first week after installation when brands dont have a clear engagement strategy based on regular push notifications. Instead of wrestling with fragile, error-prone infrastructure, follow our best practices and deploy a push software tool engineered for precision, personalization, and privacy.

Mobile 100

Mobile Churn Scale Onboarding 100

Subscription Flow

OCTOBER 16, 2024

In today’s fast-tracked financial landscape, billing software has become a need. That is why most modern SaaS and subscription-based businesses have transitioned to using a good billing software, reducing their workload by a great deal. A billing software is the ultimate solution to your growing business’s complex needs.

Payment Services 59

Payment Services Payment Solutions Payment Features SaaS Payments 59

User Pilot

OCTOBER 10, 2024

When done well, it can be the difference between a user becoming a loyal customer or churning after the first week. The SaaS user onboarding process is the guidance that users go through from the moment they sign up for a software product. ” moment quickly, you can enhance customer satisfaction and reduce churn.

Onboarding 105

Onboarding SaaS Software Communication 105

Tom Tunguz

NOVEMBER 6, 2021

A multi-year prepay offers even greater benefit to a software company. Most startups today prefer to run their sales teams on annual deals to accelerate sales cycles and minimize the risk of clawing back commissions on multi-year deals that churn at some point in the service period.

Sales Hiring 352

Sales Hiring Scale Payments Payment Solutions 352

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 20, 2023

The question on everyone’s mind - when will we see software re-accelerate? The real headwinds to software (tougher expansion, longer sales cycles / procurement, slower new business, budget crunches / RIFs, etc) started last August. And I’m optimistic we’ll see reacceleration in software by the end of the year.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Benchmarks Scale 167

SaaStr

APRIL 17, 2021

Rather, it charges for software subscriptions to take payments on its websites. But perhaps not that uncommon for higher-churn SMB categories. Most higher-churn SaaS companies seem to obscure, or at least, not highlight any NRR below 100%. Wix doesn’t disclose its churn, but it’s likely similar. #4.

Payment Methods 334

Payment Methods Merchant Services Payments Payment Services 334

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2020

Divvy is a seamless expense management software combined with the world’s smartest business card giving your company total control of finances. Profitwell solves the hardest parts of subscription growth with outcome-centered products that reduce churn, optimize pricing, and grow your subscription business end-to-end.

Machine Learning 298

Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence SaaS Consulting 298

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Extra pressures around optimizations still exist, however gross churn levels have stabilized, and commentary on earnings calls suggest conversations around new bookings are starting to pick up. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs.

Cloud 176

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 176

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 27, 2021

Its growth is 20% Year-over-Year, an incredible growth rate at $24B ARR … and faster than anyone has ever grown in software at $20B+ ARR … but at the edge of what it takes to be a “fast-growing” SaaS company. Churn Still a Bit Elevated Since Covid. Below 20% growth, and you’re a mature SaaS company.

Deferred Revenue 306

Deferred Revenue Cloud Churn Scale 306

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 12, 2023

Less than half of the software universe is guiding above consensus, and the median guide has gone from ~2.5% This quarter more than half of cloud software businesses missed next quarters consensus. I’m calculating FCF by taking the Operating Cash Flow and subtracting CapEx and Capitalized Software Costs.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Benchmarks Retention 167

Tom Tunguz

MARCH 15, 2020

As we readjust to the impacts of the coronavirus, I’ve been asking myself: what is a basic useful model for estimating the growth impact to a software company? It doesn’t model cash, hiring, account churn, new latency in sales cycles. I expect the venture market to slow round counts for a quarter, but then resume.

Sales Hiring 338

Sales Hiring Churn Development Software 338

SaaStr

AUGUST 28, 2024

Fast forward to today, and only 20% of its revenue is from software subscriptions. But both are still at their core software platforms. But a reminder how software + payments can really work well, when it works. #3. Float began to get material pre-IPO. Shopify has seen the same trend with its SMBs as well.

Payments 285

Payments Payment Solutions SMB Acquisition 285

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2021

UiPath is one of the most amazing not-really-an-overnight success stories in Cloud, SaaS and software. It was founded way back in 2005 as an outsourcing company, then developed Windows software to automate scripts and more, and turned this into a powerhouse for automating complex functions integrating Cloud and on-prem. seed round.

Outsourcing Services 362

Outsourcing Services Outsourced Development Payment Features Cloud 362