![22% Median SaaS Growth Rate in 2026 [Benchmarks]](/_astro/saas-growth-rate-2026.CJmGSfW7_2iIGgj.webp)
Median annual growth for private B2B SaaS companies fell to 22% in 2025, down from 25% in 2024, according to SaaS Capital’s 14th annual survey of more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies. Growth keeps slowing as companies scale, but which benchmark you trust depends heavily on which population of companies that benchmark actually measures. A growth-stage-weighted survey from KeyBanc found the opposite direction in the same year: ARR growth accelerating to 20%, up from 15% in 2024.
What is the median SaaS growth rate in 2026?
Median growth for private B2B SaaS companies registered 22% in 2025, according to SaaS Capital’s 14th annual growth-rate survey of more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies. That is down from 25% in 2024 and continues a four-year slide from 35% in 2022, the last year of pandemic-era growth.
The decline is broad, not concentrated in one segment. Companies reporting flat or negative growth grew from 6.9% of the survey population in 2024 to 7.3% in 2025, and average annual contract value showed no reliable correlation with growth rate at all, according to SaaS Capital’s own analysis. That means a small-ACV product and a large-ACV product were about equally likely to be decelerating in 2025.
Figure 1: Median private SaaS growth rate, 2022 to 2025. Source: SaaS Capital, annual B2B SaaS growth-rate benchmark surveys.
A company growing at the 2025 median is decelerating more slowly than the survey population did a year earlier, not accelerating in absolute terms.
Do bootstrapped or venture-backed SaaS companies grow faster?
Equity-backed SaaS companies out-grew bootstrapped companies by 5 percentage points in 2025, and the gap has held for three straight years. SaaS Capital’s 2025 survey put median growth at 25% for equity-backed companies, unchanged from 2024, versus 20% for bootstrapped companies, down from 23%.
Funding source is not the biggest growth lever, though. Net revenue retention (NRR) is. Raising NRR from the 90% to 100% range into the 100% to 110% range lifts a company’s growth rate by 5 percentage points on its own, and companies in the highest NRR band post median growth rates 173% above the overall population median.
| NRR band | Growth rate impact |
|---|---|
| 90% to 100% NRR | Baseline |
| 100% to 110% NRR | +5 percentage points over baseline |
| Highest NRR band | 173% above the population median |
Source: SaaS Capital, 2025 growth-rate benchmark survey.
Figure 2: Median growth rate by funding type, 2023 to 2025. Source: SaaS Capital annual benchmark surveys.
Retention compounds. A bootstrapped company with strong NRR can out-grow a poorly retained equity-backed one; funding status sets the starting line, not the finish.
How much does growth slow down as a SaaS company scales?
Scale is the biggest growth killer of all. Bessemer Venture Partners tracked its own cloud portfolio, more than 200 investments made between 2010 and the first half of 2021, updated in 2024, and found median growth of 165% for companies between $1M and $10M in ARR, falling to 115% at $10M to $25M, 95% at $25M to $50M, 60% at $50M to $100M, and 57% above $100M.
Figure 3: Median growth rate by ARR band, Bessemer’s cloud portfolio, 2010-2021 data updated 2024. Source: Bessemer Venture Partners, “Scaling to $100 Million.”
Warning
This deceleration curve comes from Bessemer’s own venture-backed portfolio, a group of funded, mostly high-performing cloud companies, not a random sample of the broader SaaS market. Treat the shape of the curve as the reliable finding and the specific percentages as a ceiling for well-funded outliers rather than a target for a typical company. Bessemer’s researchers call the underlying pattern “Growth Endurance”: a company retains roughly 70% of its prior year’s growth rate on average, year after year.
Growth this fast strains the paperwork that keeps a business compliant along the way. Usage-based pricing tiers, new markets, and new payment methods all need updated terms, and a terms and conditions generator is the fastest way to keep that document current without pulling engineering time away from the product driving the growth.
Why do some surveys show growth accelerating while others show it slowing?
Three respected benchmarks measured 2025 and reached different headlines because they surveyed different populations. SaaS Capital’s 1,000+ company sample skews toward smaller, often bootstrapped B2B SaaS businesses and shows growth decelerating for a fourth straight year. KeyBanc’s 16th annual private SaaS survey, published November 13, 2025, skews toward larger, growth-stage and venture-backed companies and found ARR growth accelerating to 20% in 2025, up from 15% in 2024, the first acceleration in three years. Bessemer’s Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report, tracking the 100 largest private cloud companies, found average growth climbing to 75% in 2025, up from 70% in 2024 and a record low of 55% in 2023.
Figure 4: Five years of diverging growth signals across three benchmark populations. Sources: SaaS Capital, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Bessemer Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report.
None of the three benchmarks are wrong. They are measuring different tiers of the same market, and a company at the bottom of one tier can be accelerating while the tier above it decelerates.
Growth rate and trial conversion tend to move together too. Our SaaS free trial statistics for 2026 breakdown covers the conversion-rate side of the same funnel that eventually shows up in these ARR growth numbers.
What is the Rule of 40, and are SaaS companies hitting it?
The Rule of 40 adds a company’s revenue growth rate to its profit margin and asks whether the sum clears 40. It exists to stop a company from chasing growth at any cost, or profitability at the expense of any growth at all.
Figure 5: The Rule of 40 pass/fail test. Source: Rule of 40 formula, as applied in SaaS Capital’s “Growth, Profitability, and the Rule of 40 for Private SaaS Companies” (2025).
SaaS Capital’s August 2025 Rule of 40 analysis of its private SaaS survey population found aggregate scores declined from 2023 to 2025 across almost all ARR sizes, regardless of funding source. Bootstrapped companies still outperform equity-backed companies on the metric overall, though the gap between the two narrowed over the two-year period. Growth rate remains meaningfully higher than EBITDA margin for the median company at every revenue scale in the survey, which means most companies that do clear 40 get there mostly through growth, not profit.
A falling median Rule of 40 score alongside a falling median growth rate is the same story told twice: growth is doing less of the heavy lifting than it used to, and profit margins have not expanded enough to make up the difference.
How do the major SaaS growth benchmarks compare?
| Survey | Population | 2025 growth | vs. prior year |
|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS Capital (14th annual) | 1,000+ private B2B SaaS, skews smaller/bootstrapped | 22% median | Down from 25% |
| KeyBanc (16th annual) | Private SaaS, growth-stage/venture-backed weighted | 20% ARR growth | Up from 15% |
| Bessemer Cloud 100 | Top 100 private cloud companies | 75% average | Up from 70% |
Source: SaaS Capital, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Bessemer Venture Partners, all 2025 editions.
Line up the three rows and a pattern appears: growth accelerated everywhere except at the broadest, smallest-company end of the market. That segment is the most exposed to budget scrutiny and slower enterprise sales cycles, and it is where SaaS Capital’s 1,000+ respondents mostly sit. For the broader market-size context behind these growth numbers, see our SaaS market statistics for 2026 covering total company counts and market value.
The Bottom Line
The headline number is 22%, the median growth rate SaaS Capital measured across more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies in 2025, down from 25% the year before. That number only describes the broad middle of the market, though. Larger, better-funded, and growth-stage companies are mostly accelerating again, while smaller and bootstrapped companies keep decelerating, and Rule of 40 scores are falling in step with growth almost everywhere. If a benchmark report lands on your desk this year, check which population it surveyed before comparing your own numbers to it. A 22% grower in the SaaS Capital sample and a 22% grower in the KeyBanc sample are not the same company.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the median SaaS growth rate in 2026? 22%, based on 2025 survey data from SaaS Capital’s 14th annual growth-rate benchmark, which covers more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies. That is down from 25% in 2024 and 35% in 2022.
Do bootstrapped or venture-backed SaaS companies grow faster? Equity-backed companies grew at a median 25% in 2025, unchanged from 2024, while bootstrapped companies slowed to 20%, down from 23% (SaaS Capital, 2025).
What is the Rule of 40 for SaaS companies? A company’s revenue growth rate plus its profit margin should sum to 40 or more. SaaS Capital’s August 2025 analysis found aggregate Rule of 40 scores declined across almost all ARR sizes between 2023 and 2025, regardless of funding source.
How much does SaaS growth rate slow down as a company scales? A lot. Bessemer Venture Partners’ own cloud portfolio data shows median growth of 165% at $1M to $10M ARR falling to 57% above $100M ARR, with companies retaining roughly 70% of the prior year’s growth rate on average each year.
Sources and References
- SaaS Capital. (2025). “2026 Private B2B SaaS Company Growth Rate Benchmarks.” 14th annual survey, 1,000+ private B2B SaaS companies.
- SaaS Capital. (2025). “Growth, Profitability, and the Rule of 40 for Private SaaS Companies.” Published August 21, 2025.
- KeyBanc Capital Markets. (2025). “Private SaaS Company Survey Reveals AI-Driven Transformation and Sustained Operational Excellence.” 16th annual survey, published November 13, 2025.
- Bessemer Venture Partners. (2025). “The Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report 2025.” Top 100 private cloud companies.
- Bessemer Venture Partners. “Scaling to $100 Million.” Cloud portfolio data 2010 to H1 2021, updated 2024.
Note: All figures verified as of October 2026. Growth-rate benchmarks shift with the broader funding and interest-rate environment, so headline figures here are refreshed at least twice a year.
