Most SaaS benchmark reports focus on one company stage, one category of metrics, or one survey population.
That makes it difficult to answer a more practical question:
What should a SaaS company's performance look like at its current stage?
We assembled 112 SaaS KPIs across the company lifecycle, from seed through IPO, into a single stage-aware reference.
The study covers:
Revenue growth and scale
Net and gross revenue retention
Customer acquisition efficiency
Sales productivity and payback
Gross margin and operating leverage
Burn, runway, and capital efficiency
Headcount and compensation
Fundraising and valuation
Public-market performance
Each reported benchmark includes its definition, applicable cohort, percentile where available, and original source.
A few findings from the latest available data
Private SaaS growth remains constrained.
Broad private B2B SaaS companies reported median growth of 22% for 2025, according to SaaS Capital's March 2026 survey.
Retention is stable, but not exceptional.
Benchmarkit reported median net revenue retention of 101% and gross revenue retention of 88% in its latest available cohort.
New-logo acquisition remains expensive.
The median new-logo CAC ratio was $2.00 of sales and marketing expense for every $1.00 of new ARR acquired.
Expansion is an increasingly important part of the growth model.
Expansion revenue represented 40% of total new ARR in the same benchmark set.
These figures are useful reference points, but they should not be applied without context. A company's ARR, ACV, customer segment, funding model, growth strategy, and product mix can materially change what constitutes strong performance.
How to read the study
P25: The 25th percentile of the reported cohort
Median: The midpoint of the reported cohort
P75: The 75th percentile of the reported cohort
Top decile: Performance at or above approximately the 90th percentile
The underlying surveys do not always measure the same population or use identical definitions. The study therefore includes cohort and methodology notes alongside the reported figures.
Some metrics are marked 'not reported.' This is intentional. We omitted figures when the available evidence did not support a defensible stage-specific benchmark.
Benchmarks should be used to identify questions, not to replace company-specific analysis.
Which metric is currently furthest from the assumptions in your 2027 operating plan? Reply to this email or review the full study above.
Dave Hafford, Founder - ShardCFO