8 SaaS-Specific Benchmarks to Help You with Setting Your Annual Plan and Quarterly OKRs
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Depending on how you operate your financial calendar, you’re probably either wrapping up your annual growth plan now or just getting started. And If you’re using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to manage your business, you may be either setting OKRs for the year or next quarter.
Regardless, SaaS industry benchmarks are great barometers for setting goals in the short and long-term.
Plus, if you’re like most, you’re probably asking your team, “How does our SaaS company compare to similar companies in this regard?” on a daily basis.
The next time that question comes up and you want to keep your team honest about where you may be falling short or realistic about what’s possible, you should turn to benchmarks.
Finding solid benchmarks is another challenge, though.
Most benchmark reports are static or done annually. These are still helpful and we’ve included a bunch of these in our list below.
But, it’s also really nice to know how your most recent month’s performance compares to other companies. Especially during these turbulent times of inflation, the great resignation and the SaaS layoff spree we’re currently experiencing. So, some of these benchmarks are real-time or real close to real-time.
Without further ado, here’s the list we compiled:
Real-time SaaS Sales & Marketing Benchmarks
We’ve partnered with Databox to build out our own Benchmark Group using their amazing, new tool. It has allowed us to build a proprietary benchmark just for SaaS companies. We’ve chosen to restrict our group just to SaaS companies over $5M in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and who sell to enterprise-sized accounts. In other words, if you’re a startup or selling exclusively to SMBs, this isn’t really for you.
Here’s a sneak peak of what the data will look like once you join.
The only difference is that once you join the group, you’ll see a vertical line that shows how your performance compares to the group and your charts will be red or green depending on whether you’re above or below the median. Plus, there’s significantly more benchmarks available for other metrics.
It’s perfect for internal presentations if you want to show off where you’re excelling or if you’re battling for budget to improve certain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
If you’re interested in joining, just reach out to us by email or fill out this form: https://www.42agency.com/lets-talk
Assuming you meet the criteria, we’ll send you an invitation to join, you’ll connect some of the tools you use and voila! – your own custom benchmark report.
You’ll be able to join our group for free. You — and only you — will be able to see your performance relative to the aggregate of the group.
Of course, we’re happy to chat with you about how you can improve your performance, but we can’t see your data and there’s no obligation to talk to us. In fact, we appreciate you being willing to join the group since having more members helps us build a better benchmark.
And in 2023, we’ll be running quick surveys to help all our members identify the best practices that lead to high performance.
Real-time SaaS Financial Benchmarks.
Profitwell’s free analytics tool has amazing benchmarks for SaaS business. Just like our marketing benchmark, they provide free access too! You can see how your growth rate, churn, lifetime value (LTV), average revenue per customer (ARPC) and more – all compare. But, the best part is that you can compare your company to cohorts of companies just like yours. For example, if you are doing $5M ARR with a $10k ACV, you can compare to just companies in that range if you want.
Check it out here: https://www.profitwell.com/benchmarks
Not to be outdone, ChartMogul has very similar benchmarks available in their product too: https://chartmogul.com/saas-benchmarks-report/
Annual SaaS Spending Benchmark
For 10 years in a row, SaaS Capital has done a survey in Q1 of what SaaS companies spend their $$$ on. Here’s a great graph showing a high-level breakdown
Don’t just rely on this chart, though. Check out their report for a full run down to see which of your expenses may be out of line.
https://www.saas-capital.com/blog-posts/spending-benchmarks-for-private-b2b-saas-companies
Annual SaaS Growth Rate Benchmarks
The best benchmarks are up-to-date and also give historical context. OpenViews’s 2022 Benchmark survey was run between July and August 2022 and over many years. So, they effectively caught what happened in SaaS this year (vs the previous years): the fact that most SaaS companies switched from a growth-focus to an efficiency focus. They even nicknamed it the “Whiplash effect” to capture how companies went from investing aggressively in growth to focusing on reducing payback and cash burn.
For example, here’s a great benchmark on CAC payback:
Check out their full report here: https://openviewpartners.com/2022-saas-benchmarks-report/#key-takeaways
OpenView doesn’t have a monopoly on SaaS growth rate benchmarks. Other very thorough and noteworthy growth rate benchmarks include:
Revops Squared B2B SaaS Benchmark Report https://www.revopssquared.com/benchmarks
The CapChase SaaS Benchmark Report https://www.capchase.com/lp/benchmark
Nathan Latka’s SaaS Benchmarks data including revenue, growth rate, valuation and customer count/acv data from interviews from with 3k+ SaaS founders: https://getlatka.com/
Hopefully, this list of benchmarks helps you in setting your strategy and goals for 2023. If you’d like to chat with us about how we can help or just to join our group, contact us here. https://www.42agency.com/lets-talk
We’re big believers in Benchmarks and we’ll be building out lots of benchmark data in 2023 in our group for everything from Google Analytics and Search Console data to HubSpot marketing and CRM metrics, as well as data from all of the major ad platforms.
I hope you’ll join our group. When it comes to growing a SaaS business and benchmarks, there’s power in numbers!
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