Data & Research March 17, 2026 • Updated: 9 November 2026

SaaS statistics
2026

80+ SaaS figures, each checked against its original source: market size, SaaS spend and app sprawl, churn and retention, spend benchmarks, pricing, freemium and trial conversion, Dutch cloud adoption, funding and AI. Sources include Gartner, Zylo, Recurly, SaaS Capital, ChartMogul and Eurostat.

$299.1B

worldwide end-user spending on SaaS in 2025

Source: Gartner, November 2024

+19.2%

growth of SaaS spending in 2025

Source: Gartner, November 2024

70%

of B2B software companies have launched AI features

Source: High Alpha / Growth Unhinged, 2025

Statistics overview

Software as a Service has become the default way businesses buy software. Gartner put worldwide SaaS spending at $299.1 billion for 2025, and organizations now run hundreds of SaaS applications each. But how healthy are SaaS companies really? What are realistic churn and retention rates? And how widely do Dutch companies use cloud software compared to the rest of Europe?

On this page, you'll find 80+ SaaS statistics, each checked against its original source and linked to it: Gartner, Zylo, BetterCloud, Recurly, SaaS Capital, ChartMogul, High Alpha, Forrester, Menlo Ventures, Crunchbase, Techleap and Eurostat. Whether you're building a business case, developing a B2B lead generation strategy for your SaaS product, or simply want to stay informed: this data page gives you the numbers you need.

We cover market size and SaaS spend, churn and retention benchmarks, spend and efficiency benchmarks, pricing models, freemium and trial conversion, product-led buying, Dutch cloud adoption, funding and valuations, and the impact of AI on the industry. Figures from the US or worldwide are labeled as such.

Section 1

Market size & growth

$299.1B

worldwide SaaS spending 2025

Gartner, November 2024

+19.2%

SaaS spending growth 2025

Gartner, November 2024

$1.46T

worldwide software spending 2026 (+15.2%)

Gartner, October 2026

305

SaaS apps in the average company portfolio

Zylo SaaS Management Index, 2026

Public cloud end-user spending by segment, 2025 (worldwide)

SaaS (cloud application services) $299.1B
IaaS (system infrastructure) $211.9B
PaaS (application infrastructure) $208.6B
Desktop-as-a-Service $3.8B

Source: Gartner, forecast November 2024

SaaS spending keeps growing faster than IT as a whole, while app portfolios stay large and partly unused. Zylo and BetterCloud figures mainly reflect larger, mostly US organizations. For Dutch companies, how to use these figures in a launch or market entry: read more about go-to-market approach (in Dutch).

Section 2

Churn rates & retention

SaaS / software
3.22%

median annual churn in the Recurly network

Voluntary: 2.16% Involuntary: 1.06%

Source: Recurly, 2026

All industries
3.60%

median annual churn, all subscription businesses

Voluntary: 2.34% Involuntary: 1.25%

Source: Recurly, 2026

Private B2B SaaS
102%

median net revenue retention (ACV $25k-50k)

Top quartile: 111% Bottom quartile: 97%

Source: SaaS Capital, 2025

82%

median net revenue retention for B2B SaaS (3,500 companies analyzed)

Source: ChartMogul, 2025

24%

median growth of B2B SaaS companies above $1M ARR

Source: SaaS Capital, 2025

  • Below 2% annual churn is strong; 2% to 4% is where most well-run subscription businesses operate, and above 5% is worth investigating (Recurly, 2026)
  • Business and professional services have a median annual churn of 3.44% (Recurly, 2026)
  • Companies with a net revenue retention of at least 110% grew faster than the median; those below 100% grew slower (SaaS Capital, 2025)
  • The top quartile of B2B SaaS reaches 97% NRR; B2C and AI-native products sit around 48-49%, but AI-native products priced above $250 a month reach 85% (ChartMogul, 2025)
  • Price point matters: products above $250 a month retain 70% gross revenue retention, while products under $50 a month drop as low as 23% (ChartMogul, 2025)
  • Companies with NRR below 60% have a median churn of 7%, double that of companies with NRR of 100% or more; the median company in that top group grew 48% (ChartMogul, 2024)
  • Expansion drives up to 40% of growth for companies with $15-30M+ ARR, up from 30% in early 2021 (ChartMogul, 2024)
  • Annual plans generate 50-60% more revenue per user than monthly plans across 76 million subscribers, mostly consumer subscriptions (Recurly State of Subscriptions, 2026)
  • Offering a pause before cancel works: pause usage rose 337% year over year, and 3 out of 4 subscribers who pause eventually return (Recurly State of Subscriptions, 2026)
  • Former subscribers drive nearly 1 in 4 new sign-ups; 52% of consumers canceled at least one subscription in the past year because they did not use it (Recurly State of Subscriptions, 2026)
Section 3

CAC, LTV & unit economics

>3:1

LTV:CAC of the best SaaS businesses (sometimes 7-8)

David Skok, SaaS Metrics 2.0

5-7 mo

CAC payback at many of the best SaaS businesses

David Skok, SaaS Metrics 2.0

76%

median gross margin of public software companies

Clouded Judgement, November 2026

22%

median growth of private B2B SaaS in 2025 (2024: 25%)

SaaS Capital Growth Benchmarks, 2026

Median spend of private B2B SaaS companies as % of ARR (2026)

R&D 22%
Sales 15%
G&A 15%
Customer support / success 9%
Marketing 8%
Hosting 5%
Professional services CoGS 5%
DevOps 4%
Other CoGS 3%

Source: SaaS Capital, 2026 (1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies)

A strong B2B lead generation strategy is essential for keeping your CAC efficient, especially in a SaaS market where capital efficiency takes center stage.

Section 4

Pricing & freemium trends

Freemium conversion
3.4%

traditional freemium to paid

Land & expand: 3.7% Visitor to free: 12.8%

Source: First Page Sage, 2026

Free trial conversion
49.1%

opt-out trial (card required) to paid

Opt-in trial: 17.3% Visitor to trial: 2.7% vs 7.6%

Source: First Page Sage, 2026

Hybrid pricing
37%

of B2B software companies use hybrid pricing, the most common model

12 months earlier: 25% 230 companies

Source: Growth Unhinged, State of B2B Monetization 2026

Pricing model investors prefer (2026)

Hybrid 35%
35%
Outcome-based 26%
26%
Usage-based 24%
24%
Flat-fee subscription 10%
10%
Per seat 5%
5%

Source: Growth Unhinged, State of B2B Monetization 2026

Section 5

Product-led growth vs sales-led

Freemium
Traditional: visitor to free 12.8%
Traditional: free to paid 3.4%
Land & expand: visitor to free 14.1%
Land & expand: free to paid 3.7%
Freeware 2.0: free to paid 3.5%

Source: First Page Sage, 2026

Free trial
Opt-in: visitor to trial 7.6%
Opt-in: trial to paid 17.3%
Opt-out: visitor to trial 2.7%
Opt-out: trial to paid 49.1%
Visitor to free, by industry 11.6-15.1%

Source: First Page Sage, 2026

  • More than 60% of business buyers now use a trial; for purchases of $10 million or more it is 78% (Forrester, 2026)
  • 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying experience, and 45% used AI during a recent purchase (646 buyers) (Gartner, March 2026)
  • A typical buying decision involves 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers; procurement is a decision-maker in 53% of buying cycles (Forrester, 2026)
  • 27% of enterprise spend on AI applications comes in through product-led growth, and 76% of AI solutions are bought rather than built in-house (495 US decision-makers) (Menlo Ventures, 2025)
  • Visitor-to-freemium rates range from 11.6% in real estate/PropTech to 15.1% in healthcare/MedTech (First Page Sage, 2026)
Section 6

Dutch SaaS market

67.3%

of Dutch companies (10+) buy cloud software (EU: 50.9%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

39.8%

use CRM as a cloud service, 2nd in the EU (EU: 14.7%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

€2.64B

venture capital raised by Dutch tech in 2025

Source: Techleap via I amsterdam, 2026

33.2%

of Dutch companies (10+) use AI (EU: 20.0%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025

Companies using paid cloud services by size, Netherlands vs EU (2025)

250+ employees: Netherlands 90.8%
90.8%
250+ employees: EU 84.7%
84.7%
50-249 employees: Netherlands 82.5%
82.5%
50-249 employees: EU 66.8%
66.8%
10-49 employees: Netherlands 64.5%
64.5%
10-49 employees: EU 49.3%
49.3%
2-9 employees: Netherlands 35.0%
35.0%

Source: Eurostat, 2025 (share of enterprises)

  • 68.5% of Dutch companies (10+ employees) buy paid cloud services, against 52.7% in the EU; in 2023 that was 64.2% versus 45.3% (Eurostat, 2025)
  • With 67.3% using cloud software, the Netherlands ranks 7th in the EU, behind Finland, Italy, Malta, Sweden, Ireland and Denmark (Eurostat, 2025)
  • CRM in the cloud: 39.8% of Dutch companies, just behind Finland (39.9%) and far above the EU average of 14.7% (Eurostat, 2025)
  • Finance and accounting software in the cloud: 53.3% in the Netherlands versus 30.7% in the EU; ERP: 32.1% versus 15.9% (3rd in the EU) (Eurostat, 2025)
  • AI use by Dutch companies rose from 23.1% to 33.2% between 2024 and 2025; the EU went from 13.5% to 20.0% (Eurostat, 2025)
  • The Netherlands has 11,301 active tech companies (Techleap via I amsterdam, 2026)
  • 21.2% of Dutch startups convert to scaleup status, against 80.9% in the US (Techleap State of Dutch Tech, 2026)
  • 10.9 AI professionals per 10,000 inhabitants, the highest AI talent density in Europe; deep tech attracted 41% of Dutch venture capital in 2025 (Techleap State of Dutch Tech, 2026)
  • US investors joined 40% of Dutch breakout rounds (€50-100M), a threefold increase, while European participation fell to 21%; the scaleup ecosystem employs 135,000 people locally (Techleap State of Dutch Tech, 2026)

Eurostat measures the share of companies that buy cloud software, not the size of the Dutch SaaS market; we found no verifiable figure for that. Curious how Dutch tech startups perform? Also check out our Dutch startup statistics 2026.

Section 7

Funding & unicorns

$425B

global venture funding 2025 (+30%)

Crunchbase, 2026

~50%

of global venture funding went to AI in 2025

Crunchbase, 2026

4.5x

median EV / next-12-month revenue, public software

Clouded Judgement, November 2026

25%

median growth of equity-backed private SaaS (bootstrapped: 20%)

SaaS Capital Growth Benchmarks, 2026

Global venture funding trends

  • Venture funding rose to $425 billion in 2025, up 30% from $328 billion in 2024, across more than 24,000 private companies (Crunchbase, 2026)
  • AI companies raised $211 billion, up 85% from $114 billion in 2024 and roughly half of all venture funding (Crunchbase, 2026)
  • US companies took $274 billion, or 64% of global startup funding (2024: 56%) (Crunchbase, 2026)
  • More than a third of all funding went to just 68 companies raising rounds of $500 million or more, versus 24% in 2024 (Crunchbase, 2026)
  • In the Netherlands, tech companies raised €2.64 billion in 2025 (Techleap via I amsterdam, 2026)

SaaS valuations & multiples

Section 8

AI impact on SaaS

AI features
70%

of B2B software companies have launched AI features

On the roadmap: 22% AI is core: 36%

Source: High Alpha / Growth Unhinged, 2025

AI-native growth
~3x

faster growth for AI-native companies than B2B SaaS peers

$5-20M ARR: 90% vs 30% Gross margin: 5 pts lower

Source: High Alpha / Growth Unhinged, 2025

AI-native app spend
+108%

year-over-year growth in spend on AI-native apps

10,000+ employees: +393% Expensed SaaS: +267%

Source: Zylo SaaS Management Index, 2026

  • AI-native companies grow faster at every ARR band: under $1M 100% vs 75%, $1-5M 110% vs 40%, $20-50M 60% vs 35%, above $50M 40% vs 15% (median growth, AI-native vs B2B SaaS) (High Alpha / Growth Unhinged, 2025)
  • For startups founded in 2022 or later, AI is core for three in four; across all companies, 64% call AI a supporting feature (High Alpha / Growth Unhinged, 2025)
  • Gartner expects 40% of enterprise applications to include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025 (Gartner, August 2025)
  • In a best-case scenario, agentic AI could drive about 30% of enterprise application software revenue by 2035, more than $450 billion, up from 2% in 2025 (Gartner, August 2025)
  • US enterprises spent $37 billion on generative AI in 2025, 3.2x the $11.5 billion of 2024; $19 billion went to applications and $4.0 billion to coding tools (Menlo Ventures, 2025)
  • Organizations now run an average of 27 AI-powered SaaS applications, about 22% of their portfolio, and 84% are piloting or deploying agentic AI (BetterCloud State of SaaS, 2026)
  • ChatGPT is the most expensed application; expense-based SaaS spend rose 267% year over year (Zylo SaaS Management Index, 2026)

Discover how AI is transforming marketing for SaaS companies at an AI marketing agency that knows the SaaS industry.

Section 9

SaaS by vertical

Cloud software use by application type: Netherlands (EU in brackets), 2025

E-mail 63.7% (44.9%)
Office software 58.9% (37.8%)
Security software 55.7% (34.5%)
Finance / accounting 53.3% (30.7%)
CRM 39.8% (14.7%)
ERP 32.1% (15.9%)
Development platform (PaaS) 24.3% (13.8%)

Source: Eurostat, 2025 (share of enterprises with 10+ employees)

  • E-mail is the most widely used cloud software: 63.7% of Dutch companies versus 44.9% in the EU (Eurostat, 2025)
  • Office software in the cloud: 58.9% in the Netherlands, 3rd in the EU behind Finland and Malta (EU: 37.8%) (Eurostat, 2025)
  • Security software as a cloud service: 55.7% of Dutch companies versus 34.5% in the EU (Eurostat, 2025)
  • Coding is the largest departmental AI category: $4.0 billion in 2025, 55% of departmental AI spend at US enterprises (Menlo Ventures, 2025)
  • Software grows faster than IT services and devices: +15.2% in 2026, against +4.4% for IT services and +7.2% for devices; only data center systems (+73.8%) and infrastructure as a service (+31.3%) grow faster (Gartner, October 2026)

Also see our B2B marketing statistics 2026 for more insight into how B2B SaaS companies deploy their marketing. For Dutch B2B companies, how these figures feed into marketing: read more about our B2B marketing agency (in Dutch).

Summary

Key takeaways

1

$299B and growing

Gartner put SaaS spending at $299.1 billion for 2025 (+19.2%); total software spending grows 15.2% in 2026.

2

Retention is king

Median NRR is 102% for private B2B SaaS (ACV $25k-50k); companies at 110%+ grow faster. SaaS churn in the Recurly network is 3.22% a year.

3

Trials beat freemium on conversion

49.1% of opt-out trial users and 17.3% of opt-in trial users pay, against 3.4-3.7% of freemium users. 60%+ of business buyers use a trial.

4

AI changes everything

70% have launched AI features and AI-native companies grow about 3x faster. Gartner expects AI agents in 40% of enterprise apps by end 2026.

5

NL is cloud country

67.3% of Dutch companies buy cloud software (EU: 50.9%), and 39.8% use cloud CRM, 2nd in the EU.

6

Efficient growth

Companies with high NRR and short CAC payback grew 71% with a Rule of 40 score of 47%. 83% of bootstrapped SaaS is profitable or near breakeven.

Methodology & sources

Every figure on this page was checked on 9 November 2026 against a source we opened ourselves, and each figure links to that source. Figures we could not trace to an original source were removed, not estimated. Figures from the US or worldwide are labeled as such. The sources are:

  • Gartner: public cloud spending forecast (November 2024), IT spending forecast (October 2026), AI agent prediction (August 2025), B2B buyer survey (March 2026)
  • Zylo: 2026 SaaS Management Index (40M+ licenses, $75B in spend); BetterCloud: 2026 State of SaaS (525 IT and security professionals)
  • Recurly: churn rate benchmarks (network data, July 2026) and 2026 State of Subscriptions
  • SaaS Capital: 2025 retention benchmarks and 2026 spending and growth benchmarks (1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies)
  • ChartMogul: retention analyses (3,500 companies, December 2025; 2,500+ companies, 2024)
  • High Alpha / Growth Unhinged: 2025 SaaS Benchmarks (800+ companies) and State of B2B Monetization 2026 (230 companies)
  • First Page Sage: SaaS freemium and trial conversion rates 2026; Forrester: State of Business Buying 2026; David Skok: SaaS Metrics 2.0
  • Clouded Judgement (public software multiples, November 2026), Crunchbase (venture funding 2025), Menlo Ventures (generative AI in the enterprise 2025)
  • Eurostat (cloud and AI use by enterprises, 2025) and Techleap (State of Dutch Tech 2026)

Disclaimer: Several sources are vendors or investors analyzing their own customers or survey respondents; their figures describe that group, not the whole market. This page is compiled for informational purposes and does not constitute financial or strategic advice. For specific guidance, please contact a growth marketing agency that understands the SaaS industry.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How big is the global SaaS market in 2026?

Gartner's latest public SaaS figure puts worldwide end-user spending on SaaS at $299.1 billion in 2025, up 19.2% from $250.8 billion in 2024. SaaS is the largest public cloud segment, ahead of IaaS ($211.9 billion) and PaaS ($208.6 billion). For 2026 Gartner forecasts total software spending of $1.46 trillion (+15.2%), a broader category than SaaS alone.

What is a good churn rate for SaaS companies?

In the Recurly subscription network, the median annual churn for SaaS and software is 3.22% (2.16% voluntary, 1.06% involuntary). Recurly calls below 2% strong and 2% to 4% typical for well-run subscription businesses. For retention, private B2B SaaS companies with an ACV of $25,000-50,000 have a median net revenue retention of 102%, with the top quartile at 111%; companies at 110% or more grow faster than the median.

What is the ideal CAC/LTV ratio for SaaS?

A widely used guideline from David Skok is an LTV:CAC ratio above 3, with the best SaaS businesses reaching 7 or 8. Many of the best SaaS businesses recover their CAC in 5 to 7 months; beyond 12 months, profitability becomes anemic. For reference, the median private B2B SaaS company spends 15% of ARR on sales and 8% on marketing (SaaS Capital, 2026). A strong B2B lead generation strategy helps keep your CAC low.

How big is the Dutch SaaS market?

We found no verifiable figure for the size of the Dutch SaaS market. What Eurostat does measure is adoption: in 2025, 67.3% of Dutch companies with 10+ employees bought cloud software, against 50.9% in the EU, and 39.8% used CRM as a cloud service (EU: 14.7%). Dutch tech companies raised €2.64 billion in venture capital in 2025 (Techleap). Also check out our Dutch startup statistics 2026.

What is the difference between PLG and sales-led SaaS?

Product-led growth (PLG) SaaS companies let the product itself drive acquisition and conversion through freemium or free trial models. According to First Page Sage (2026), 3.4% to 3.7% of freemium users convert to paid, against 17.3% of opt-in and 49.1% of opt-out trial users. Buyers want it: more than 60% of business buyers use a trial (Forrester, 2026) and 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience (Gartner, 2026).

What impact does AI have on the SaaS industry?

70% of B2B software companies have launched AI features and another 22% have them on the roadmap; AI-native companies grow about 3x faster than B2B SaaS peers, with 5 points lower gross margins (High Alpha, 2025). Spend on AI-native apps rose 108% (Zylo, 2026). Gartner expects 40% of enterprise applications to include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% in 2025. Learn more about the possibilities at a growth marketing agency.

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Ruud ten Have

Compiled by

Ruud ten Have

Ruud is a digital marketer with 10+ years of experience in online advertising and AI implementation. At Searchlab, he combines strategic thinking with hands-on AI tooling to deliver measurable results for businesses.

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