39 Saas Business Success Stories [2023]
Here are some real life success stories of starting a saas business:
1. Bluetick.io ($42K/year)
Mike Taber came up with the idea for Bluetick.io after experiencing the frustration of sending follow-up emails and tracking responses manually. He validated the idea by conducting customer interviews and collecting prepayments, and then hired a team of developers to build the product. After improving the website and launching, he focused on email marketing to attract and retain customers.
How much they make: $42K/year
Current team size: 0
Bluetick.io is a self-funded SaaS app that helps salespeople, customer success reps and busy founders close the loop with their customers using sequences of automated email follow ups, achieving $1,000 MRR without writing a single line of code through customer validation and prepayments.
2. Scribie ($1.2M/year)
Rajiv Poddar, the founder of Scribie, originally started with a hardware startup that failed. After repurposing an internal tool into a Skype call recording plugin, he discovered the demand for transcription services. Seeing the opportunity in the online transcription industry, he built Scribie as a crowdsourcing platform with quality control mechanisms, focusing on providing accurate and consistent transcripts. Despite being a solo founder, Rajiv's passion for solving the problem of transcription and his commitment to quality have driven Scribie to surpass $1 million in revenue in 2020.
How much they make: $1.2M/year
How much did it cost to start: $500K
Current team size: 5
Scribie crossed the $1 million revenue mark in 2020 after 12 years in business, remaining a lean, profitable service by focusing on quality over growth and acquiring customers through organic search and word-of-mouth referrals, while CEO Rajiv Poddar aspires to scale the transcription service without compromising quality.
Learn more about starting a saas business:
Where to start?
-> How much does it cost to start a saas business?
-> Pros and cons of a saas business
Need inspiration?
-> Examples of established saas business
-> Marketing ideas for a saas business
Other resources
3. Choicely ($840K/year)
Kaius Meskanen, founder of Choicely, came up with the idea for his business while playing around with SMS and voice call voting during a TV show. Realizing the need for more user-friendly engagement tools, he founded Choicely in 2015 and later pivoted to focus on building a mobile app builder that enables businesses to easily create high-quality mobile apps. With $70,000 monthly revenue and a client list that includes ITV Studios and the International Judo Federation, Choicely has experienced rapid growth and success in the media, sports, and entertainment industries.
How much they make: $840K/year
How much did it cost to start: $1M
Current team size: 15
Choicely is a no-code app builder that offers a simple, fast, and affordable platform for companies to build and maintain high-quality mobile apps, bringing in a monthly revenue of $70,000 with clients being leaders in media, sports & entertainment.
4. Micro SaaS Founder - Rick Blyth ($120K/year)
Rick Blyth, the founder of Merch Wizard and KDP Wizard, came up with the idea for his business after realizing the frustrations and inefficiencies faced by niche Amazon sellers on platforms like Merch By Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing. He used his software development skills to create chrome extensions that addressed these issues, gaining positive feedback from users and ultimately leading him to quit his corporate job and focus on growing his apps full-time. After achieving significant success with his apps, Rick decided to share his knowledge and experiences in a Micro SaaS Handbook and through his YouTube channel, aiming to inspire and help other software developers start their own profitable bootstrapped apps.
How much they make: $120K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 0
Micro-SaaS founder Rick Blyth developed Merch Wizard and KDP Wizard Chrome extensions to help niche Amazon sellers, earning $10k MRR and successfully selling them before creating a handbook and YouTube channel to help others build their own profitable bootstrapped apps.
5. PropertyData ($1.54M/year)
Michael Dent, founder of PropertyData, came up with the idea for his business when he realized the manual and error-prone process of analyzing property data for potential investments. He saw an opportunity to automate this analysis, making it faster and more accurate for property investors. Today, PropertyData generates $128,000 per month in recurring revenue.
How much they make: $1.54M/year
How much did it cost to start: $68K
Current team size: 1
Founder of PropertyData creates a subscription website for UK property investors and developers that is now making $128,000 per month in recurring revenue.
6. Treendly ($12K/year)
While working on another SaaS product, he wondered about what non-essential feature he could take out from an existing product and put into another market where the feature is essential.
He was already running one of my other software products, where he collected e-commerce data. One of the features of that product was trend-spotting for e-commerce merchants.
And so Treendly was born from a side feature of that other product.
How much they make: $12K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 0
This case study is about a jazz musician turned SaaS founder who bootstraps and simultaneously runs nine products with $8k/month revenue, of which Treendly, a platform that discovers emerging trends, accounts for $1k/month and uses self-taught data collection skills to focus on what is important.
7. Giftsenda ($468K/year)
Dmitriy Peregudov came up with the idea for his business, Giftsenda, after running his previous company, GiftBasketsOverseas.com. He noticed that many of his customers would benefit from a bulk gifting solution to automate their sending experience, which led him to create Giftsenda, a SaaS platform that offers personalized gift options with CRM integration and ROI measurement. Within 6 months of launching, Giftsenda has experienced solid growth.
How much they make: $468K/year
How much did it cost to start: $50K
Current team size: 10
8. Fomo ($1.08M/year)
Ryan Kulp, a marketer and self-taught developer, acquired a social proof tool called Notify in 2016 and rebranded it as Fomo. Through strategic product-led growth, integrations, and a focus on social proof, Fomo scaled its business by 600% and achieved over $1 million in annual revenue.
How much they make: $1.08M/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 5
Fomo, a social proof tool for eCommerce stores, scaled its original business by 600% and now generates >$1m in annual revenue through product-led growth via integrations and an extensive case study library.
9. TextMagic ($14.4M/year)
In 2001, TextMagic started as a niche side project in the UK with limited offerings. When Priit Vaikmaa joined the company in 2007, he saw the huge potential in their SMS marketing platform and focused on expanding and improving its usability. Today, TextMagic has a diverse customer base and generated revenue just short of €11 million in 2021.
How much they make: $14.4M/year
Current team size: 51
TextMagic's CEO Priit Vaikmaa discusses the development and success of the SMS marketing solutions company, which has grown its revenue to almost €11 million and employs people remotely from all over the world.
10. ScrapingAnt ($72K/year)
Oleg, a serial entrepreneur with a technical background, came up with the idea for ScrapingAnt after trying out various e-commerce projects and realizing the need for a reliable data scraping solution. He partnered with his friend Andrii, who had experience in setting up scalable infrastructures for data gathering, and together they created a simple solution based on AWS Lambdas. They launched the business on the RapidAPI marketplace and focused on content marketing and providing excellent customer support to attract and retain customers. The company has achieved profitability and continues to invest in technology and search for their "thingy" that will bring in more customers. Recently, they entered into a collaboration with software development company Codery to expand their capacity.
How much they make: $72K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
Current team size: 2
ScrapingAnt is a web scraping service with an easy-to-integrate API, making it the ideal data extraction infrastructure solution for companies and private entrepreneurs, making a profit of $7.1K in December 2021 and actively looking for technical and non-technical content creators.
11. Mutant Mail ($24K/year)
Abhishek, the founder of Mutant Mail, came up with the idea for his business after facing a server outage and receiving a DMCA complaint due to email monitoring negligence. Realizing the need for a solution to easily manage multiple domain emails, Abhishek and his team developed Mutant Mail, the only server-side solution to this problem. Within two weeks of its soft launch, they acquired 10 paid customers, and within five days of their AppSumo launch, they gained another 100 paid customers.
How much they make: $24K/year
How much did it cost to start: $500
Current team size: 2
Mutant Mail, a SaaS product from Fresent LLC, allows entrepreneurs, small businesses, marketers, and individuals to effortlessly manage all their domain emails from a single inbox, with a max usage account managing close to 245 email ids across 29 domains and acquired 10 paid customers within 2 weeks of its soft-launch and 100 more within 5 days of its AppSumo launch.
12. Eqvista ($720K/year)
a SaaS company, we rely heavily on cloud services like AWS (Amazon Web Services) for hosting our platform and managing user data securely. We also use Intercom for customer support and communication, as it allows us to have real-time conversations with our clients and respond to their inquiries promptly. Additionally, we utilize various SEO tools like SEMrush to optimize our website's visibility and improve our organic rankings on search engines. Overall, these tools have played a crucial role in helping us streamline our operations and deliver a seamless user experience to our customers.
How much they make: $720K/year
How much did it cost to start: $30K
Current team size: 15
Eqvista is a business incorporation service provider that offers sophisticated equity management software and 409A valuations to help companies, investors, and shareholders track and manage equity, with over 6,500 companies currently using their platform.
13. Keap ($100M/year)
How much they make: $100M/year
Current team size: 398
CRM and sales and marketing automation company, Keap, founded in 2001, rebranded from Infusionsoft in 2019 and has since become a $100 million dollar business with over 2,500 software integrations and a product range that includes Max Classic, Keap Lite, Pro, and Max, the majority of which are Pro.
14. Upvoty ($48K/year)
How much they make: $48K/year
Current team size: 10
Upvoty, a user feedback tool founded in 2018, provides a comprehensive platform for managing customer feedback from various channels and is focusing on SaaS companies with its product.
15. ProfitWell ($22M/year)
How much they make: $22M/year
Current team size: 85
Find out how ProfitWell, the SaaS platform specializing in marketing analytics, saas metrics and positioning, achieved over $22M in annual revenue and was recently acquired by Paddle for $200M in cash and equity, with over 30,000 companies using its products, including Canva and Autodesk.
16. Ziflow ($8M/year)
How much they make: $8M/year
Current team size: 99
17. Cledara ($2.4M/year)
How much they make: $2.4M/year
Current team size: 43
Cristina Vila and Brad van Leeuwen founded Cledara, a subscription management company that has acquired over 700 clients, a $2.4M ARR, raised $7 million, and partnered with financial giants such as PayPal, Caixa Bank, and Railsbank.
18. Jumper Media ($19.2M/year)
How much they make: $19.2M/year
Current team size: 50
Jumper Media-founder Colton Bollinger's Instagram-focused marketing strategies helped him to assist over 3000 small businesses to build brand awareness and boost audience engagement and sales, leading Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Yahoo to recognize him for his efforts.
19. Closet Tools ($456K/year)
How much they make: $456K/year
Current team size:
20. torecord.it ($15K/year)
How much they make: $15K/year
Current team size: 6
Torecord, an innovative tool to streamline customer-facing communication, founded by three entrepreneurs, has gained impressive traction with 70 people on its waitlist, 5 users on a paid plan generating around $1,250 per month in revenue.
21. Paddle ($428K/year)
How much they make: $428K/year
Current team size:
22. ONEiO ($3.6M/year)
How much they make: $3.6M/year
Current team size:
23. Userful ($5M/year)
How much they make: $5M/year
Current team size:
24. FeedCheck ($300K/year)
How much they make: $300K/year
Current team size:
How Adrian built a successful SaaS with Nestle as a customer, bringing in $15k in monthly revenue, by offering a valuable solution to analyze online customer reviews.
25. Planyard ($200K/year)
How much they make: $200K/year
How much did it cost to start: $50K
Current team size: 0
26. MicroConf ($120K/year)
How much they make: $120K/year
Current team size:
MicroConf co-founder establishes largest community for bootstrapped founders with over 24 in-person events and thriving online presence.
27. Software Ideas ($120K/year)
How much they make: $120K/year
Current team size:
From 400 readers to +$8k/month in just 4 months, learn how the founder of SoftwareIdeas grew his validated SaaS business ideas newsletter.
28. SaaS Labs - pushing boundaries of the SaaS world ($120K/year)
How much they make: $120K/year
Current team size:
How Helpwise went from a $20k budget to $100k annually building SaaS businesses.
29. Aspireship ($2M/year)
How much they make: $2M/year
Current team size: 25
Aspireship CEO, Corey Kossack, has helped thousands of job seekers secure well-paid positions in the SaaS sales industry, with the platform being discussed in top journals like The Wall Street Business Journal and Phoenix Business Journal.
30. Trust Chain ($360K/year)
How much they make: $360K/year
Current team size: 7
Trust Chain Global is a fintech platform and third-party workflow management solution that aims to bring trust, confidence, and transparency to the global commodities market through cutting-edge technologies like blockchain, continuous identity verification, digital escrow and payments, and a smart deal management system.
31. Ahead Intranet ($936K/year)
How much they make: $936K/year
Current team size: 14
Ahead Intranet is a SaaS platform that fosters employee engagement, innovation, and customer satisfaction, while costing 90% less upfront than existing intranet solutions; making $78K/month and growing a team of 14 employees.
32. Locale ($500K/year)
Aditi Sinha and her co-founder Rishabh Jain came up with the idea for Locale.ai while working in consulting jobs in a Data Analytics company. They noticed that Ops and Data teams in large companies were facing operational inefficiencies and lacked specialized software. They decided to build Locale, a SaaS-based control tower platform, to simplify operations for these teams. Today, Locale is used by top operations teams around the world and has customers in 33 countries, with an ARR of $650k.
How much they make: $500K/year
Current team size: 30
Locale.ai co-founder Aditi Sinha discusses the development and success of their SaaS based modern control tower for Ops and Data teams at physical businesses, currently serving clients in 33 countries with an ARR of $650k and plans for future growth and expansion.
33. ClearForMe ($3.9M/year)
How much they make: $3.9M/year
Current team size: 11
ClearForMe is an ingredient SaaS solution used by 300 companies, including Credo Beauty and Ulta Beauty, offering user-friendly ingredient education, filter, and search capabilities based on transparency and customization, with over 1.6 million ingredients.
34. Stravito ($12.1M/year)
How much they make: $12.1M/year
Current team size: 79
Stravito is a powerful knowledge management platform enabling consumer businesses to organize expertise and insights with centralized, accessible information.
35. System.io ($2.4M/year)
How much they make: $2.4M/year
Current team size: 48
French internet marketer, Aurelien Amacker, founded Systeme.io in 2016, which has over 6,000 users generating $11 million and was successful due to the founder's first $500,000 in sales, teaching internet marketing to a French audience online, and leveraging partnerships.
36. Yellow Jersey ($1M/year)
How much they make: $1M/year
Current team size:
Discover how Emil Egeland grew his SaaS Yellow Jersey business by accelerating the growth of startups, taking two companies from zero to one million dollars in 12 months and another from one million to six million dollars in less than two years.
37. SmartSuite ($1.2M/year)
How much they make: $1.2M/year
Current team size: 8
SmartSuite gained 400 customers and $100,000 in monthly recurring revenue in just 4 weeks after 3 years of development, offering three monthly seat pricing tiers with the largest deal closed for 150 seats.
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