BetterCloud

MARCH 17, 2025

Get ready to turn those monthly charges into strategic investments that fuel your business growth. You likely already have a laundry list of SaaS subscriptions that have been around the company longer than you have. Are you using too much or too little of your budget on these subscriptions? What is SaaS budgeting?

Technical Review

SaaStr

JULY 31, 2025

” Gil’s approach defies traditional LP wisdom: Multi-stage investing (seed to growth) Concentrated sector betting Single decision-maker structure Massive fund sizes Yet it’s working spectacularly. I’m ignoring it.'” The reason? “Winners win.”

AI Search

ChurnZero

DECEMBER 19, 2024

We needed a structured approach to monitor customer engagement, assess feature adoption, and ensure that clients were fully leveraging their investment, says Robin Driver, NinjaCat’s vice president of customer success. We also expanded our ARR by almost 25% without needing to add any CSM headcount.

Customer Success

SaaStr

AUGUST 21, 2024

Shopify and Bill both also get the majority of their revenue from financial fees and transaction fees, not software subscriptions. Only Grew Sales & Marketing Expense 12%, and Cut R&D (Product + Engineering) and G&A Expenses Toast has gotten to profitability by truly holding the line on headcount and revenue expenses.

Scale

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 16, 2024

Today, IT budgets are roughly broken down into: ~50% headcount / personnel, ~25% software, ~15% hardware, and ~10% outsourcing / consultants. As software grows as a percentage, I think we see headcount / outsourcing shrinking. Companies that do not disclose subscription rev have been left out of the analysis and are listed as NA.

Outsourcing Services

SaaStr

JULY 2, 2025

🚨 Microsoft's 2025 strategy in numbers: ❌ 15,300+ employees laid off (7% of workforce) YTD: •9,000 cuts announced July 2 •6,000 cuts in May •300+ cuts in June •Performance cuts in January •and only halfway through year 💰 $80 billion invested in AI infrastructure 40%… pic.twitter.com/LJVfwStpW9 — Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨

Technical Review

The Angel VC

MARCH 23, 2016

If you have a SaaS startup with a higher-touch sales model where revenue growth is largely driven by sales headcount, the plan needs to be modified accordingly. For Enterprise customers, the model assumes pricing increases at the time of renewal but not during the term of the subscription.

SaaS Payments

SaaStr

MARCH 15, 2024

They also have a media segment, a separate business supporting creators who want to do subscription-based video monetization. Vimeo has spent a fair amount historically on advertising, primarily to fuel the more prosumer individual online subscription business. They top out of what you can do in advertising and rev share on YouTube.

AI Search

Intercom, Inc.

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

Ryan Johnston, Head of Customer Success at Tanda, explains that as their customer base has grown in recent years, the team has been able to scale their support without dramatically increasing headcount, which has been a big benefit to the team. Here’s how they’re doing it.

Scale

Clouded Judgement

MAY 24, 2024

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen… The Workday earnings call summarized it well: “But within the quarter, we experienced increased deal scrutiny as compared to prior quarters, and we are seeing customers committing to lower headcount levels on renewals compared to what we had expected. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cloud

Clouded Judgement

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Companies have reduced headcount, but new bookings aren’t getting any easier Quarterly net new ARR growth : Some green-shoots! Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). Altimeter is an investment adviser registered with the U.S.

Cloud

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 6, 2023

That’s a big difference, especially when you layer in the growth in headcount from 2021 to 2022. Essentially companies grew headcount significantly to add less ARR. We’re obviously seeing the rightsizing of this now with headcount reductions. The second chart comes from the latest MS CIO survey (below).

Cloud

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

Customer Success benchmark: headcount How many people should be on a Customer Success team? of revenue or less…and overall 64% of respondents reported non-headcount budgets of $200,000 or less: a severe under-investment in this critical business function.” When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount

ChurnZero

MARCH 23, 2023

Customer Success benchmark: headcount How many people should be on a Customer Success team? of revenue or less…and overall 64% of respondents reported non-headcount budgets of $200,000 or less: a severe under-investment in this critical business function.” When asked about non-headcount budgets; 8.3%

Headcount

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Headcount planning, budgeting, fundraising, etc can often be largely based on a top line plan. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). Companies that do not disclose subscription rev have been left out of the analysis and are listed as NA.

AI

SaaSOptics

JANUARY 9, 2020

One person to manage expense reports, commissions, billing and invoicing, cap tables, revenue recognition, deferred revenue and more. Could you imagine sending out an invoice to a customer whose office is in Dallas, headquarters are in North Dakota and your business operates in New York accurately stating sales tax before it gets sent out?

Payment Features

Chart Mogul

APRIL 2, 2021

Everything you need to consider before you’re ready to make the Build vs Buy decision for your subscription analytics platform. In this post, we want to share some of that knowledge in order to help companies that are trying to decide whether they should build or buy their subscription analytics software. Further reading.

Subscription

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 29, 2019

When I started, they had a big growth plan as far as headcount, but they were a little bit looser on processes and cadences and things like that framework I was talking about. So again, we got aggressive headcount to see the growth, and we put together a plan where we can actually see maybe even a little bit more growth with the same people.

Scale

OpenView Labs

MAY 24, 2021

For private SaaS companies that do not publish their financials, you can alternatively compare R&D headcount with Sales and Marketing headcount using LinkedIn data as an approximation. Veeva sees similar dynamics among its Vault customers, with 2013/2014 cohorts growing subscription revenue by 26.8x and now adopting 4.4

Scale

InsightSquared

MAY 7, 2019

When scaling the business, sales typically averages roughly 30% of revenue, so therefore sales spend is one of the biggest investments a company can make. At the highest level, SaaS companies look at sales expense, headcount, sales productivity and SaaS metrics like: The cost of new customer acquisition (CAC).

Scale

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 31, 2023

If we believe that AI will ultimately allow us to do “more with less,” we may see headcount growth slow for traditional roles. Most public companies don’t report net new ARR, so I’m taking an implied ARR metric (quarterly subscription revenue x 4). What do I mean by this?

Cloud

ChurnZero

MAY 17, 2022

The company plans on doubling its headcount in 2022. About ChurnZero ChurnZero is a real-time Customer Success platform that helps subscription businesses fight customer churn. ChurnZero has quickly become one of Washington, D.C.’s For more information visit [link]. Media contact Heather Philbin pr@churnzero.net.

Marketplace as a Service

Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth

MARCH 23, 2020

Subscription business model. The lesson here is to view your products in terms of S Curves and ensure you’re investing in your next greatest hit. The Horizons Framework is an effective way to categorise projects, which in turn helps with assigning budget, headcount and timelines. Customer data. Economies of scale.

Underperforming Technical Team

Chart Mogul

APRIL 2, 2021

Everything you need to consider before you’re ready to make the Build vs Buy decision for your subscription analytics platform. In this post, we want to share some of that knowledge in order to help companies that are trying to decide whether they should build or buy their subscription analytics software. Further reading.

Subscription

ChurnZero

JANUARY 3, 2020

The new Customer Success Software Momentum Grid from G2 showcases CS solutions with the highest growth trajectory on a product’s user satisfaction, online presence, and employee headcount growth over the last year. ChurnZero helps subscription businesses fight customer churn. You see their work mentioned in almost every G2 review.”.

Customer Success

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 3, 2025

Traditionally, scaling support meant simply adding headcount, creating a linear relationship between business growth and support costs. Repeated onboarding and training investments. The poor ROI of DIY Some companies consider building their own AI support solutions to maintain control and save on subscription costs.

Payment Services

Outseta

JANUARY 20, 2020

At this point Buildium raised $2M from K1 Capital , investing the money primarily in marketing and hiring. Buildium’s valuation highlights how the idea that all revenue needs to be recurring doesn’t take any sort of nuance into consideration. While these revenues are pay-per-use, rent payments are both large and regular.

SaaS Payments

Intercom, Inc.

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

I recently hosted Rachel on our podcast to learn why Slack needed to invest in growth marketing, what her team prioritized first, how they’ve partnered with Slack’s rapidly scaling sales team, and more. Then, it’s not successful, because you didn’t invest enough. The temptation is to scale it back too much.

Growth Marketing

ChurnZero

AUGUST 23, 2019

The new Customer Success Software Momentum Grid from G2 showcases CS solutions with the highest growth trajectory on a product’s user satisfaction, online presence, and employee headcount growth over the last year. ChurnZero helps subscription businesses fight customer churn. About G2 (formerly G2 Crowd). Headquartered in Chicago, G2.com

Software Review

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 3, 2021

New areas of investment have been identified and you are ready to speak with the CEO/CFO about additional budget requirements. You may find yourself protecting your headcount, rooting for investments you want in tech, and giving suggestions for new product features. Areas for Customer Success investment. Revenue growth.

Customer Success

SaaSOptics

JULY 20, 2020

They had to take out 7-8 headcount in order to get their burn rate down. The first step is to put down the spreadsheet and invest in technology that can automate the calculations of complex SaaS metrics and financials. . “They had these long spreadsheets for calculating deferred revenue,” Philip explains. “We

Technical Review

OPEXEngine

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

From variations on the subscription model itself, to inbound marketing or product led growth, account based sales models and Customer Success organizations, the CFO is in the driver’s seat to guide the corporate vessel through evolving models and changing economics.

Benchmarks

ProfitWell

MARCH 27, 2019

Grab your pals, whatever the heck their names are, and let’s get into some midweek subscription. com can expect to be bumped up a class, thanks to a $37 million dollar investment by General Catalyst and Accel. You pay for a CRM to see a boost in that all-important return on investment, right? The Rundown In resources.

Travel

Totango

APRIL 14, 2020

While most of us associate the digital leap to subscription and third-party software services with customer empowerment, those same tech advances make it easier than ever to provide personalized care in a targeted, scalable manner. 4. Establish Early Warning Systems.

B2B

ChurnZero

MAY 17, 2022

The company plans on doubling its headcount in 2022. About ChurnZero ChurnZero is a real-time Customer Success platform that helps subscription businesses fight customer churn. ChurnZero has quickly become one of Washington, D.C.’s For more information visit [link].

Marketplace as a Service

ProfitWell

MARCH 3, 2020

Listen wherever you get podcasts: Your top subscription news. Slack, for instance, grew their sales headcount by 66% year over year, compared to 31% for other functions. In just two days, the Chargify crew goes live and beyond subscription —and they’re taking us with them. That’s it for your March 3 episode of Recur Now.

Sales Hiring

CustomerSuccessBox

DECEMBER 14, 2021

That’s the beauty of the subscription economy. Thus, Customer Success is the one responsible for getting more licenses and subscriptions from those customers. Viewing CS as a cost center and cutting costs by cutting headcount will definitely backfire. Well, how can you grow your business through current customers?

Customer Success