This hub collects the best Growth Unhinged writing on SaaS metrics and benchmarks: what “good” and “great” look like across growth, retention, and efficiency — and how the benchmarks are being rewritten in the AI era. It’s built on nine years of surveying 5,000+ private B2B software companies, for founders, operators, and finance teams who want to know exactly how they stack up.
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What’s really going on in software — The 2025 SaaS Benchmarks report: new data from 800+ companies on growth, NRR, gross margins, ARR per FTE, and the AI-native growth gap.
The efficient growth playbook — Why CAC payback period and NRR (not LTV:CAC) are the two metrics that best predict durable, profitable growth.
Your guide to ARR per employee — A primer and benchmarks on the metric investors now use to gauge AI-era efficiency.
Rethinking SaaS metrics for AI — The emerging metrics for next-era companies, where seats and classic SaaS math no longer fit.
Every year I survey hundreds of private B2B software companies to answer one question: how do you actually compare? Nine years and 5,000+ companies in, this is the definitive pulse check on growth rates, headcount, pricing, and efficiency — with fresh data each fall.
What’s really going on in software (2025) — New data from 800+ companies: continued stabilization, compressed early-stage margins, and AI-native startups growing ~3x faster.
Your guide to the 2024 SaaS benchmarks — Data from 800+ SaaS and AI companies on how the market reset after the swings of prior years.
Your guide to 2023 SaaS benchmarks — The benchmarks that defined the efficiency era, and how to see where you stack up.
Ten of the best SaaS growth charts — A visual tour through the data every operator should have in their back pocket.
Most dashboards track too much. The metrics that reliably separate winners from the danger zone are few: CAC payback, net revenue retention, burn multiple, and revenue per employee. These are the ones worth obsessing over — and the common mistakes that distort them.
Your guide to CAC payback period — How to calculate it correctly, the mistakes that flatter the number, and what “good” looks like.
Your guide to ARR per employee — Benchmarks on the efficiency metric that’s become a board-level obsession in the AI era.
Growth or profitability? — Unpacking burn rates, what’s “normal,” and how burn multiples flow through to valuations.
Inside the SaaS efficiency gap — The widening gap between early-stage startups and everyone else, and what it means for headcount.
Growth isn’t linear and it isn’t guaranteed. This is the data on what it actually takes to climb from zero to $20-25M ARR, why growth decays, and how the best companies bend the curve back up.
The compounding startup — A new look at the growth levers on the path from $1M to $20M ARR (winners raised NRR by 12% along the way).
The odds of making it — A data-driven look inside startup growth from zero to $25M ARR.
The slow decay of growth (and how to avoid it) — New data and real examples from companies that reversed decelerating growth.
Who owns “growth”? It’s complicated. — How the best teams structure growth org and operations in SaaS.
AI is breaking the old SaaS scoreboard. Seats decouple from value, gross margins compress under compute costs, and retention behaves differently for AI apps. These pieces map the new metrics that matter — and the traps to avoid.
The AI cost crisis is entirely self-inflicted — How to get AI costs (and gross margins) back in check without killing adoption.
Rethinking SaaS metrics for AI — Emerging metrics for next-era companies where usage and outcomes replace seats.
The best benchmark thinking lives across a handful of operators and finance writers. These are the ones I read to stay current — subscribe to keep your scoreboard sharp.
Growth Unhinged — Kyle Poyar’s newsletter is the home of the annual SaaS Benchmarks report and original data on growth, retention, and efficiency across thousands of B2B software companies. Read by more than 86,000 growth pros. If you follow one SaaS metrics newsletter, make it this one.
Mostly Metrics — CJ Gustafson covers SaaS finance with more personality than any CFO you’ve met. The best place to understand how pricing and growth choices flow through to NRR, payback, and unit economics.
Clouded Judgement — Jamin Ball (Altimeter) breaks down public-company SaaS metrics every week — growth, margins, Rule of 40, and multiples — and it’s the sharpest read on how Wall Street values software.
The SaaS CFO — Ben Murray’s clear, no-nonsense breakdowns of SaaS metrics and financial models, ideal when you need the exact formula and benchmark for a given metric.
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This hub is updated with each new benchmarks report; most recent report: What’s really going on in software — the 2025 SaaS Benchmarks report