SaaS Benchmarks You Should Know in 2025

When you’re running a SaaS business, it’s easy to get lost in your own numbers. But without knowing what others in your industry are achieving, how do you know if you’re doing well?

That’s where SaaS benchmarks come in.

Benchmarks act like your industry’s report card. They help you compare your performance, spot gaps, and set smart, achievable goals. Whether you’re tracking conversions, revenue, or churn, benchmarks give you a reality check.

In this guide, we’ll break down the most important SaaS benchmarks for 2025 — from B2B marketing performance to funnel conversions, gross margins, and more. We’ll also give you practical advice on how to use these numbers in your own business.

Let’s dive in.

What Are SaaS Benchmarks?

SaaS benchmarks are industry-standard performance metrics gathered from hundreds or even thousands of SaaS companies. They help you understand how your business stacks up against others in the same space—whether you’re measuring growth, retention, churn, or other key metrics.

Instead of guessing if your performance is good or not, benchmarks give you hard data to guide decisions.

Why SaaS Benchmarks Matter:

Benchmarking is essential for SaaS companies aiming to stay competitive, improve operations, and make data-driven decisions. Here’s why it matters:

• Performance Tracking: Compare key metrics (e.g., MRR, churn, CAC, LTV) against industry standards to identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Competitive Insight: Understand how you stack up against peers, spot market trends early, and refine your value proposition.
• Investor Appeal: Demonstrating performance relative to benchmarks increases credibility and attracts potential investors.
• Strategic Planning: Set realistic goals and forecasts based on industry averages, such as CAC payback period or sales cycle length.
• Customer Retention: Benchmarking customer success metrics helps improve onboarding, support, and overall satisfaction to reduce churn.
• Operational Efficiency: Identify areas for cost savings and productivity by comparing internal processes with high-performing competitors.

Benchmarking turns raw metrics into actionable insight, helping SaaS businesses grow smarter and faster.

Imagine you’re proud of your 10% monthly growth—sounds great, right? But without benchmarks, you wouldn’t know that top-performing SaaS startups at your stage often grow 25% month-over-month. That’s a massive gap.

B2B SaaS Benchmarks Overview

In the B2B SaaS industry, the sales journey is more complex—longer cycles, multiple stakeholders, and a higher cost of acquisition. This means you need to track the right benchmarks to evaluate performance and growth accurately.

Below are the most critical B2B SaaS benchmarks to monitor in 2025:

Customer Churn Rate

• Healthy churn: Between 4% to 7% annually.
• Anything higher may point to issues with:
  • Product-market fit
  • Onboarding experience
  • Customer support gaps

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Growth

• Early-stage SaaS: Aim for 10%+ month-over-month growth.
• Established SaaS: A solid benchmark is around 3% monthly.
• Indicates whether your product is scaling consistently.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

• Should be at least 3x your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
• A higher CLTV indicates strong product retention and monetization potential.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

• Can vary based on business model and deal size.
• Typical CAC ranges:
  • $300–$2,000 for most B2B SaaS companies.
• It is important to monitor your CAC payback period for sustainable growth.

Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)

• Measures the growth rate of qualified leads month over month.
• A 15%+ increase is considered healthy.
• Indicates future revenue potential and pipeline momentum.

Additional Metrics Worth Tracking

Activation Rate

• Percentage of users who reach a key value milestone (e.g., complete onboarding or perform a core action) within a set time.
• Helps assess how effectively you convert signups into engaged users.

Expansion Revenue

• Revenue from upsells, cross-sells, and account upgrades.
• High-performing B2B SaaS companies generate 30–40% of revenue from expansion.

Sales Cycle Length

• Typically ranges from 30 to 90 days.
• May extend to 120+ days for enterprise deals.
• Knowing your average cycle length helps align sales strategy with forecasting.

Tracking these benchmarks consistently can give you deeper insights into how your B2B SaaS business is growing, where it’s lagging, and what needs to be optimized.

SaaS Funnel Conversion Benchmarks

Your SaaS funnel is more than just a sequence—it’s the engine that drives your growth. Every stage represents a key moment in the buyer’s journey, and optimizing each one can dramatically improve your revenue.

Let’s break down the average conversion rates across a standard SaaS funnel:

• Website Visitor to Lead: 1% – 3%
• Lead to Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): 20% – 30%
• MQL to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): 30% – 40%
• SQL to Opportunity: 40% – 60%
• Opportunity to Customer: 10% – 20%

As leads move through the funnel, a significant percentage drops off at each stage. Even small improvements at one stage can lead to big gains downstream.

Example:

If your SQL to Customer conversion rate is only 5%, it could be due to:

• A weak handoff between sales and marketing
• Misalignment between customer expectations and product value
• Poor follow-up or demo experience

Fixing this one gap could double or triple your customer acquisition rate without increasing traffic or lead volume.

How to Improve SaaS Funnel Conversion

Here are some practical strategies to boost performance at different stages:

• Engage website visitors in real-time with:
  • Live chat support
  • Interactive chatbots
• Personalize lead nurturing:
  • Trigger email workflows based on user behavior
  • Use dynamic content in emails and landing pages
• Re-engage drop-offs:
  • Retarget ads to users who left high-intent pages
  • Offer time-sensitive incentives to return
• Strengthen sales-marketing alignment:
  • Set clear definitions for MQL and SQL
  • Use shared CRM dashboards for visibility
• Optimize demo and onboarding processes:
  • Shorten the time to value
  • Showcase real use cases during demos

Improving SaaS funnel conversion is not about overhauling everything at once. It’s about identifying weak spots, testing improvements, and refining your process step by step.

Each percentage point increase in conversion can translate into significant revenue growth—so treat your funnel like the high-impact asset it is.

SaaS Industry Benchmarks in 2025

To understand how your SaaS business measures up, it’s important to know where the industry stands in 2025. Here are the key performance benchmarks that leading SaaS companies are tracking this year:

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

• Best-in-class: 120% or more
  This indicates you’re not just retaining customers, but expanding revenue through upsells, cross-sells, and renewals.
• Industry average: Around 105%
  Anything above 100% shows you’re growing revenue from your existing customer base.

Annual Contract Value (ACV)

• SMB SaaS: ~$2,000 per contract annually
• Mid-market SaaS: $5,000 – $15,000
• Enterprise SaaS: $20,000+

These numbers help set expectations for average deal sizes based on your target market.

CAC Payback Period (Customer Acquisition Cost)

This is how long it takes to recoup your sales and marketing investment:

• SMB SaaS: 6–12 months
• Enterprise SaaS: 12–24 months

Shorter payback periods mean faster ROI and more efficient growth.

Burn Multiple

• Formula: Burn Rate ÷ Net New ARR
• Ideal Range: Below 1.5
  This shows how efficiently you’re spending to generate revenue. The lower the better.

Additional Metrics to Watch

• LTV:CAC Ratio:
  Aim for 3:1 or higher. This means you’re earning three times more from a customer than it cost to acquire them.
• Bookings Growth:
  Keep an eye on your annual rate of new contract growth. Strong bookings reflect strong future revenue.
• Gross Revenue Churn:
  A churn rate below 10% annually is considered healthy. Anything higher signals issues with product fit or customer satisfaction.

Tracking these key SaaS benchmarks can evaluate a company’s financial health and growth efficiency in 2025. Whether startup or scaling enterprise, these metrics are essential for setting goals, attracting investors, and steering strategic decisions.

SaaS Marketing Benchmarks

Marketing is the growth engine of any SaaS business. Understanding how your efforts stack up against industry benchmarks helps you optimize spend, sharpen strategy, and drive more qualified leads. Here’s a breakdown of key metrics every SaaS marketer should track:

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Your CPL will vary based on the channel you’re investing in:

• Organic Search: $50 – $150
• Paid Search (e.g., Google Ads): $150 – $400
• LinkedIn Ads: Often exceeds $500 for enterprise-level leads

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

B2B SaaS companies typically report:

• CAC Range: $300 – $2,000
• Enterprise sales usually sit on the higher end due to longer cycles and higher touchpoints.

Demo Booking Rates

Getting a lead is one thing; converting it into a booked demo is another. Here’s what you should aim for:

• Organic Channels: 3% – 5%
• Paid Channels: 1% – 2%

Email Marketing Metrics

Email remains a core part of SaaS marketing. These are solid benchmarks:

• Open Rate: 20% – 30%
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): 2% – 5%

Content Marketing Insights

Content takes time but pays off in the long run.

• Blog-to-Lead Conversion Rate:
  • ~1% is the average
  • 2%+ is considered strong
• Time to Rank on Google:
  • Typically 3 to 6 months for new content

Channel Comparison Summary

💡 Pro Tip:

Don’t just look at monthly CPL—track content and campaign ROI over longer periods. A single blog post might yield leads for years, while paid channels stop delivering the moment you pause.

SaaS Gross Margin Benchmarks

Gross margin is one of the most important metrics in SaaS. It tells you how efficiently you’re delivering your service and how scalable your business truly is. Since software is typically delivered online, the cost to serve one more customer is minimal—so gross margins should be high.

What Is Gross Margin?

Formula:

(Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold) / Revenue

• Revenue: Your total income from customers.
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): The direct costs tied to delivering your service (e.g., server costs, third-party tools, customer support).

Why Gross Margin Matters in SaaS?

• Reflects your profitability per dollar of revenue
• Shows how well your operations are optimized
• Indicates scalability of the business model
• High gross margins make your company more attractive to investors and VCs

SaaS Gross Margin Benchmarks

Here’s what gross margin percentages typically look like across different types of SaaS businesses:

• Best-in-Class SaaS: 80% – 90%
• Industry Average: 70% – 80%
• Heavy Infrastructure SaaS (e.g., AI tools, cloud platforms): 60% – 70%

Note: Lower margins don’t always mean inefficiency—it could be a result of higher upfront infrastructure costs.

How to Improve SaaS Gross Margins

If your gross margin is below industry benchmarks, consider the following strategies:

• Optimize Cloud Costs
  • Use reserved instances or spot instances to lower server expenses
• Automate Customer Onboarding
  • Cut support and training time with self-service flows and tutorials
• Use Efficient Architecture
  • Shift to serverless or containerized environments to reduce overhead
• Outsource Smartly
  • Leverage cost-effective external teams for non-core tasks

Why Investors Care

• High gross margin is a signal of strong unit economics
• Shows your ability to scale without proportionate cost increases
• Attracts better funding opportunities and improves business valuation

SaaS companies should aim for gross margins of at least 70%—and ideally closer to 80%–90%. If you’re not there yet, tweaking your infrastructure, processes, and customer delivery model can help you get there faster.

How to Use These Benchmarks Wisely

SaaS benchmarks are helpful indicators—but not hard-and-fast rules. Use them as directional tools to improve your performance and decision-making. Here’s how you can get the most value from them:

Use external benchmarks to:

• Set realistic targets: Use benchmarks to guide your KPIs and OKRs, ensuring your goals are both challenging and achievable.
• Identify bottlenecks: Low conversion from demos to customers? Revisit your sales script or onboarding process.
• Align your team: Benchmarks provide a neutral baseline for evaluating performance, helping team members stay on the same page.
• Impress investors: Benchmark comparisons help investors assess how your metrics stack up against industry norms.

Don’t forget internal benchmarks too:

• Measure progress year-over-year: Track how your metrics evolve over time to evaluate growth and operational efficiency.
• Analyze cohorts: Understand customer behavior by comparing retention, engagement, and conversion across different user groups.
• Evaluate A/B tests: Use industry benchmarks to gauge the success of product or marketing experiments.

Remember, benchmarks are meant to guide strategic actions—not dictate them. Blend them with internal data and context to make smarter, more informed decisions.

Where to Find Up-to-Date SaaS Benchmark Data

If you want to track how your SaaS business compares with others, staying updated with current benchmark data is key. Here are some trusted sources you can rely on:

• OpenView SaaS Benchmark Reports
  Offers detailed insights into Product-Led Growth (PLG), customer retention, and revenue trends.
• KeyBanc Capital Markets SaaS Survey
  Conducted annually, this survey gathers financial and operational data from over 200 private SaaS companies.
• SaaS Capital
  Focuses on finance and fundraising benchmarks specifically for private SaaS businesses.
• ChartMogul Benchmark Explorer
  A visual, interactive tool that allows you to explore real-time SaaS metrics from various companies.
• Baremetrics
  Provides live benchmark comparisons using real financial data from active SaaS businesses.
• Additional Resources for Deeper Insights
  • Blissfully: Offers SaaS management insights.
  • SaaS Revolution Show: Industry podcast featuring experts.
  • Tomasz Tunguz Blog: Analytical deep dives and trends from a seasoned VC.
• DIY Benchmarks
  You can also build your own benchmarks by exporting internal data from tools like your CRM, marketing platforms, or support systems. This can help tailor the benchmarks to your specific business model.

Staying informed with these sources gives you a strong foundation for smarter, data-driven decisions.

Conclusion

If you’re growing a SaaS business in 2025, knowing your numbers isn’t optional — it’s survival.

SaaS benchmarks help you understand where you stand, what to fix, and what to aim for. Whether it’s improving your funnel conversion rate, tightening up your CAC, or boosting your gross margins, these benchmarks are your performance mirror.

And remember, every benchmark you beat becomes a brag-worthy milestone.

Start tracking today, compare monthly, and optimize quarterly. Your future self (and your investors) will thank you.

SaaS benchmarks give you valuable performance insights—but numbers alone won’t drive growth. To truly scale, you need a strong SaaS marketing strategy that turns data into action. Check out our complete guide to SaaS marketing to learn how to attract, convert, and retain more customers in 2025.