What’s Changing, Why It Matters, and How to Reignite Momentum
It’s no secret that growth in the SaaS market has cooled considerably from the pandemic surge. Over the past 18 months, median growth across private B2B SaaS companies fell to 25%, down from 30% in 2023. Public clouds are still growing, but at a lower pace than in the 2018-2021 heyday.
The culprits: a post-pandemic return to “normal,” tighter budgets due to economic uncertainty, rising customer acquisition costs due to longer sales cycles and more ROI-focused scrutiny, and an AI-driven shift in product and pricing economics. So what is the path forward to reigniting momentum?
Strategies to Reignite Momentum
To get back on track, SaaS companies need a new, bolder marketing playbook. We recommend five strategies:
- Development of a highly tuned Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- Turn customer marketing into a primary growth strategy
- Implementation of pricing and packaging that better connect with value delivered to customers
- A focus on lifecycle marketing that drives expansion and Net Revenue Retention
- Sharing of crystal-clear ROI proof
At Bold we focus on actionable moves that marketing leaders can deploy near term for immediate impact. Let’s take the above strategies and turn them into actions you can begin executing today:
(1) Tighten up your ICP and clarify the business case
First, focus your narrative on your top one or two highest-fit segments and lead with the economic outcome (time saved, risk reduced, revenue created). Buyers increasingly expect pricing clarity up front to justify the business case internally.
Do this:
- Publish transparent web pricing or a pricing explainer (with ranges, tiers, and usage examples).
- Put a 2-minute ROI explainer video and calculator on the pricing page.
(2) Turn Customer Marketing into a primary growth lever
Next, start treating expansion (Customer Marketing) as the first-class growth lever that it is.
Retention/expansion dominates the growth math. Companies with NRR >100% grow dramatically faster than those below 60%. Lifecycle marketing (onboarding, activation, in-product cues, success education) is where growth is “cheapest.”
Do this:
- Build post-sale journeys: 30/60/90-day playbooks with value milestones, success webinars, and role-based education.
- Launch customer marketing campaigns for expansion modules; align CS + PMM on upgrade triggers.
(3) Re-package and re-price to match how customers get value (esp. for AI)
Seat-only pricing struggles when marginal cost/value varies by usage. Benchmarks show usage/hybrid models outperform at scale and are increasingly common for AI products.
Do this:
- Pilot a hybrid plan: base platform (seats) + pooled AI credits or consumption metric that maps to value.
- Publish usage guardrails and “good/better/best” bundles to reduce price anxiety while preserving upsell paths.
(4) Improve lifecycle marketing by shifting to efficient growth channels as CAC rises
With CAC ratios climbing, prioritize programs with shorter time-to-value and lower payback: product-led acquisition, search with high commercial intent, partner-led co-selling, and customer advocacy.
Do this:
- PLG + sales-assist: ungate trials, add interactive demos, and route “aha-moment” users to reps.
- Stand up a reference engine (reviews, case studies, peer communities) to de-risk decisions for buying groups that prefer late-stage sales contact.
(5) Market your efficiency: help buyers defend the purchase
CFOs & FinOps teams are scrutinizing cloud and SaaS spend, and tightening up tech stacks; meet them where they are with credible cost and governance stories.
Do this:
- Publish a FinOps-friendly TCO page (license, services, infra, and change-management spelled out).
- Offer consolidation bundles and usage analytics that reveal and eliminate waste in adjacent tools.
Ride the macro, but don’t count on it
IT budgets are rising in 2025, though forecasts have been revised during the year; software still grows faster than most categories. Position your category narrative to capture re-accelerating spend, but assume buyer diligence stays high.
Next Steps
If you want a simple 90-day plan to reignite your SaaS marketing, contact us for a free consultation. Our flexible approach means we can provide everything from a simple strategy session to get you started, to a full-scale implementation working directly with your team. Contact us for more information.
Resources
Why growth slowed
- Normalization after the 2020–2021 spike. The pandemic pull-forward is over; retention/expansion has settled into a “new normal,” making outlier NRR harder to sustain. (ChartMogul)
- Budget discipline and FinOps. Finance & IT are tightening governance, rightsizing licenses, and demanding measurable ROI—raising the bar for net-new SaaS. (Flexera, SoftwareOne)
- AI is reshaping product economics. Compute-heavy AI features strain flat, seat-only pricing. Vendors are shifting to usage/hybrid models to align value with costs. (Business Insider)
- Competitive squeeze. AlixPartners’ analysis highlights mid-market software firms getting “squeezed” between AI-native entrants and hyperscalers embedding AI. (Business Insider)
SaaS By The Numbers
- Private SaaS growth: Median growth across private B2B SaaS fell to ~25% (down from ~30% in 2023), with bootstrapped firms at ~23%. (SaaS Capital)
- Market pulse 2025: After a weak Q1 (average monthly CAGR near –0.1% to 3.1%), Q2 rebounded to ~5.1%—the strongest quarterly pace since mid-2024. (Paddle)
- Public cloud cohort: Emerging cloud companies still post ~19–20% average revenue growth, well below the pre-2022 era but solid by historical software standards. (The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index)
- Unit-economics pressure: Benchmarks show NRR hovering near ~101% and new-logo CAC ratios rising(~+14% in 2024), signaling harder expansion and more expensive acquisition. (Benchmarkit)
- Stacks are big (and getting bigger): The average company now uses ~101 apps, with security & collaboration dominating adoption. (Okta)
- Cost control is still a theme: Organizations report ~27% cloud spend waste and frequent budget overruns, which keeps scrutiny high for new software. (Flexera, SoftwareOne)
Sources & further reading
- Private SaaS growth benchmarks (2025). (SaaS Capital)
- SaaS Market Report: Q1 2025 slump; Q2 2025 rebound. (Paddle)
- BVP Cloud Index (growth & multiples snapshot). (The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index)
- Benchmarks on NRR (~101%) and rising CAC ratios. (Benchmarkit)
- App footprint & category adoption (Okta Businesses at Work 2025). (Okta)
- Cloud spend waste & budget pressure (Flexera 2025; recap). (Flexera, SoftwareOne)
- AI’s impact on pricing/economics; shift to usage-based. (Business Insider)
- “Squeezed by AI” analysis for public software. (Business Insider)
- Pricing transparency & buyer expectations (G2 2025). (G2 Learning Hub)
- Vendor consolidation playbooks (Vendr). (Vendr)
- Right-sizing cloud solutions. (TechRadar)
- Second-quarter SaaS earnings (Barron’s)
- Retention as growth driver (ChartMogul). (ChartMogul)
