The top 100 SaaS companies

The software companies displaying best-in-class approaches to pricing
The software companies displaying best-in-class approaches to pricing
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The top 100 SaaS companies
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With around 30,000 SaaS companies currently in operation across the globe – a number that’s expected to more than double in the coming years – organizations now have an overwhelming amount of choice when it comes to deciding on which tools to add to their tech stacks. But with choice comes pressure. Pressure to ensure they’re purchasing the right tool, that these tools deliver ROI and that each one will be fully utilized by employees. While the best SaaS tools for your business will be dependent on a number of factors such as functionality, customer support, scalability and so on – cost still very much drives the decision. The problem is, with the majority of SaaS companies obscuring their costs, prospective buyers are often left without any frame of reference on pricing – something that has contributed to as many as 90% overpaying by an average of 26%. It is for this reason that we’ve chosen to shine a light on the software providers that are making the process easier for buyers by displaying best-in-class approaches to pricing. In other words, these are the top 100 SaaS companies that are democratizing pricing in the B2B software space, enabling buyer groups to make informed purchasing decisions, safe in the knowledge they’re getting a fair price

Looking at purchasing a new software application? You can view all 100 SaaS vendors segmented by software category in our recent report, along with exclusive pricing and discounting insights.

The Top 100 SaaS Companies

With around 30,000 SaaS companies currently in operation across the globe – a number that’s expected to more than double in the coming years – organizations now have an overwhelming amount of choice when it comes to deciding on which tools to add to their tech stacks. 

But with choice comes pressure. Pressure to ensure they’re purchasing the right tool, that these tools deliver ROI and that each one will be fully utilized by employees.  

While the best SaaS tools for your business will be dependent on a number of factors such as functionality, customer support, scalability and so on – cost still very much drives the decision. 

The problem is, with the majority of SaaS companies obscuring their costs, prospective buyers are often left without any frame of reference on what is the right price to pay for a toolpricing – something that has contributed to as many as 90% overpaying by an average of 26%.  

It is for this reason thatwhy we’ve chosen to shine a light on the software providers that are making the process easier for buyers by displaying best-in-class approaches to pricing transparency and clarity.  

In other words, these are the top 100 companies ose that are democratizing pricing in the B2B software space, enabling buyer groupscompanies to make informed purchasing decisions, safe in the knowledge they’re getting a fair price. With this in mind, here’s our list of the top 100 B2B SaaS companies on the market right now.  

The Full List

1.  Factorial

2.  Holded

3.  Fracttal

4.  Donut

5.  Trello

6.  Otta

7.  Figma

8.  GoCo

9.  Kandji

10.  Census

11.  Grammarly

12.  Tableau

13.  GitHub

14.  Sketch

15.  LaunchDarkly

16.  Invisible Technologies

17.  Calendly

18.  Celtra

19.  WP Engine

20.  McAfee

21.  Paddle

22.  SaleCycle

23.  Canva

24.  AppDynamics

25.  Pingboard

26.  Proofpoint

27.  Salsify

28.  Seamless

29.  Dataminr

30.  SparkPost

31.  Integrate. io

32.  Coschedule

33.  Dribbble

34.  appcues

35.  SAS

36.  Digital River

37.  Cognito Forms

38.  Personio

39.  ngrok

40.  Tapatalk

41.  Traction Guest

42.  Virtana

43.  Gem

44.  Proposify

45.  Contentful

46.  OpenVPN

47.  Boomi

48.  Lusha

49.  Dixa

50.  Validity

51.  Anvyl

52.  Asana

53.  accessiBe

54.  Manager

55.  HireRight

56.  Customer. io

57.  Smartsheet

58.  Sendlane

59.  Smartlook

60.  Krisp

61.  OneLogin

62.  Signalfx

63.  Logz

64.  SendGrid

65.  Flashtalking

66.  Broadcom

67.  Equifax

68.  DealHub

69.  LeadIQ

70.  Qwilr

71.  Spocket

72.  Weaveworks

73.  Marketo

74.  FullStory 

75.  Automation Anywhere

76.  Aritic

77.  AWeber

78.  Podium

79.  UserGuiding

80.  ActiveCampaign

81.  Softonic

82.  Litmus

83.  Sophos

84.  Cheetah Digital

85.  IronNet

86.  Domestika

87.  BambooHR

88.  MURAL

89.  Stamps. com

90.  Robin

91.  BlackBerry

92.  Performio

93.  Keeper Security

94.  ProProfs

95.  tray. io

96.  Orca Security

97.  Wistia

98.  Blender

99.  Diagrams. net

100.  Paylocity

The full breakdown by category

Today, there are thousands of SaaS tools available designed to help your business succeed. Many of these services have become so essential to the workplace that they’re required for your business to function.

But with the average 1,000-employee company now maintaining 177 active software subscriptions, managing SaaS services is burdensome and expensive. 

“How can we cut our software spending when so many vendors are secretive about pricing?” 

It’s a question we hear from Finance leaders pretty much every day. And with good reason. 

55% of software vendors hide their costs, making it difficult for companies to get a fair price at every step of the procurement process - from signature to renewals. It’s no surprise, then, that companies are overspending on SaaS by an average of 26%. 

The good news for Finance and Procurement leaders is that we’re seeing a new breed of SaaS companies leading the way in being more open and transparent with customers on pricing. 

In our inaugural guide, we’re shining a light on the software brands with best-in-class pricing practices. Read on to find out the companies that top our list. 

Introduction to the ranking 

When reviewing upcoming SaaS renewals or new purchases, the more insight you can gain about a vendor’s pricing habits, the better. 

At Vertice, we use data from [thousands/millions of SaaS vendors] to evaluate a vendor’s approach to pricing and compare it to other SaaS companies. This helps us get the best deals for our customers. 

To measure a vendor’s approach to pricing, we look at three things: 

  • Simplicity: How easy is the pricing model to understand?
  • Transparency: Is pricing publicly available? For example, a vendor listing pricing structures on its website scores high for transparency. 
  • Consistency: How consistent is pricing from customer to customer? Are there big variations in pricing for a similar service?

We take these three metrics and wrap them into an overall ‘Pricing Clarity’ score, which shows you how a vendor’s pricing transparency compares with its peers.

To help you get ahead in negotiations, we pair the Pricing Clarity score with an Average Discount score. The Average Discount score indicates how rigid or flexible a vendor is when it comes to offering a discount on list prices.

Things to note 

  1. The ranking is grouped by category 

To meaningfully analyze a vendor’s approach to pricing, it’s vital to compare it to its peers. Pricing practices vary hugely between categories, so it wouldn’t be helpful to compare an HR vendor with a Sales vendor, for example. The categories you’ll find in our ranking are: HR, 

  1. Pricing clarity is not about how expensive or inexpensive a vendor is 

The ranking is about how a vendor compares with its peers on the transparency, availability, and consistency of its pricing structure. It is not determined by the actual price a vendor charges. 

  1. A vendor with a low pricing clarity score might be more likely to raise prices  

A recent analysis of annual SaaS pricing increases revealed that vendors with complicated pricing structures are the most likely to implement year-over-year price increases. In this ranking, finance, sales and productivity are the vendor categories with the lowest average Pricing Clarity scores, indicating that vendors in these groups may be more likely to up their costs on an annual basis. This is something to keep in mind for any customer that has upcoming contract renewals or new purchases with vendors in these categories.

The SaaS Pricing Champions  

Business Ops 

Category PC Score
55

Vendors in report
19

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher
12
Standouts
Fractal, 87, 3rd overall
• Tableau, 76, 13th overall
• Invisible Technologies, 75, 17th overall
• Calendly, 75, 18th overall

The average Pricing Clarity rating across the Business Operations software category is 55, putting it ahead of only Marketing and (49) and Sales (49) among the vendor groups in this report. The average discount possibility for the Business Ops category as a whole is 17%, indicating that vendors in this group tend to be more rigid in pricing negotiations.

Of the 19 vendors in this group that made our top 100 list, 11 of them have Pricing Clarity Scores above 70. The standout vendor in this group is Fracttal, a Spanish cloud-based maintenance and asset management software solution, with a Pricing Clarity Score of 87, putting it at #3 overall.


Customer Support

Category PC Score

• 56

Vendors in report

• 3

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 2

Standouts

• UserGuiding, 83, 5th overall

Of the three Customer Support software vendors that made our top 100 list, the standout is UserGuiding with a Pricing Clarity Score of 83, putting it at #3 overall. Customer Support software vendors do, however, have a slightly higher average discount possibility (19%) compared with Business Ops (17%), but this is still a few paces behind the leaders in this metric, Sales (25%) and IT & Security (22%).

Dev Ops

Category PC Score

• 59

Vendors in report

• 3

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 3 

Standouts

• WP Engine, 75, 19th overall

• LaunchDarkly, 75, 20th overall

All four vendors listed within this group score well above their category average. Managed WordPress platform WP Engine and feature management platform LaunchDarkly both have a Pricing Clarity Score of 75, putting them in positions #19 and #20 overall. With an average discount possibility of 18%, Dev Ops vendors tend to be less flexible in pricing negotiations than the other software categories included in this list, with the exception of Business Ops vendors (17%).

Engineering

Category PC Score

• 63

Vendors in report

• 6

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 5

Standouts

• GitHub, 76, 14th overall

• ngrok, 73, 31st overall

With a Pricing Clarity rating of 63, the Engineering software category ranks ahead of most other vendor groups included in this report. Of the six Engineering software providers featured in this top 100 list, five have a score of 70 or higher. The two standout vendors are GitHub (76), a code hosting platform, and ngrok (73), a remote access solution. The overall Engineering software category has an average discount possibility of 20%, which is right at the average mark comparing all vendor categories featured in this report.    

Finance

Category PC Score

• 66

Vendors in report

• 6

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 6

Standouts

• Holded, 94, 2nd overall

• Digital River, 73, 32nd overall

Of all the software categories featured in this report, Finance has the highest average Pricing Clarity rating (66), indicating that vendors in this sector often show best-in-class approaches when it comes to their pricing transparency, parity and simplicity. Finance software providers also tend to be reasonably flexible with their discounting, with an average discount possibility of 20%. All six Finance vendors listed in this report have a Pricing Clarity rating of 70 or higher. Holded, a business management software platform, ranks second overall with a Pricing Clarity Score of 94.

HR

Category PC Score

• 58

Vendors in report

• 12

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 8

Standouts

• Factorial, 95, 1st overall

• Donut, 85, 4th overall

• Otta, 81, 8th overall

• GoCo, 78, 10th overall

Despite having an industry-wide Pricing Clarity rating of 58, 12 HR software providers made it into our top 100 list, with four ranking in the top 10. Factorial, a Spanish HRIS platform, ranks first overall with a Pricing Clarity Score of 95. Breaking down the key metrics across this category, HR holds the highest average pricing transparency rating (67) among the vendor groups featured in this report. However, the average pricing parity rating for this group is at the lower end (44), indicating that there are high degrees of variance in the actual prices customers pay for HR tools. 

IT & Security

Category PC Score

63

Vendors in report

16

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

 10

Standouts
Kandji, 78, 11th overall

mcAfee, 74, 23rd overall

AppDynamics, 74, 24th overall

The average Pricing Clarity rating across the IT & Security software category is 63, putting it ahead of most other categories included in this report. Of the 16 vendors from this group that made our top 100 list, 10 of them have Pricing Clarity Scores above 70. Standouts include Kandji, an Apple device management and security platform, with a Pricing Clarity Score of 78 (#11 overall) and McAfee, a major security software provider, with a score of 74. The average discount possibility of the IT & Security category is 22%, putting it behind only Sales (25%). 

Marketing

Category PC Score

• 49

Vendors in report

• 21

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 14

Standouts

• Grammarly, 76, 15th overall

• Celtra, 75, 21st overall

• SaleCycle, 74, 25th overall

• Canva, 74, 26th overall

With a Pricing Clarity rating of only 49, the Marketing software category is tied with Sales for the lowest among the vendor groups listed in this report. However, there are many high-end outliers in this category, with 19 Marketing vendors making our top 100 list and all but one of them having a Pricing Clarity Score of 70 or higher (Wistia, 69). Standout vendors include the AI-assisted writing tool, Grammarly (76) and Celtra, a creative automation platform (75). 

Although the two groups have the same Pricing Clarity rating, Marketing is behind Sales in terms of average discount possibility (19% vs. 25%). Both groups rate similarly low in pricing parity, with Marketing at 43 and Sales at 40, indicating lower degrees of pricing consistency among vendors in these categories. Marketing also ranks lowest among all groups featured in pricing simplicity (45), which suggests that many marketing vendors have overly complex or confusing pricing models. 

Product

Category PC Score

• 65

Vendors in report

• 8

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 7

Standouts

• Figma, 79, 9th overall

• Census, 78, 12th overall

• Sketch, 76, 16th overall

The Product software category has the second highest average Pricing Clarity rating (65) of all groups featured within this report. Of the eight Product vendors that made our top 100 list, seven had Pricing Clarity scores of 70 or higher. This includes Figma (79), a collaborative interface design tool that scored 79 (#9 overall) and data activation platform, Census, that scored 78, putting it in 12th place on our list. Compared to the Sales, Finance and IT & Security software categories, Product vendors tend to be less flexible with discounts, with an average industry discount possibility of 19%. 

Sales

Category PC Score

• 49

Vendors in report

• 6

Vendors with a score of 70 or higher

• 3

Standouts

• Lusha, 72, 50th overall

• Proposify, 72, 51st overall

• Validity, 72, 52nd overall

With an average Pricing Clarity score of 49, the Sales software category has one of the lowest ratings of all vendor groups featured in this report. Seven vendors from this category have, however, made it into our top 100 list, with standouts including sales intelligence platform, Lusha, and proposal software solution, Proposify, both with a Pricing Clarity rating of 72. When it comes to average discounts, Sales vendors are the most generous of all groups featured in this report, with an average discount possibility of 25%. 

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