SaaS Products
Subscription software businesses with recurring revenue and retained users.
What SaaS Products are
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products are applications that customers pay to access on an ongoing basis, usually through a monthly or annual subscription. Instead of selling software once, a SaaS business earns recurring revenue for as long as customers keep using it.
Because revenue repeats each month, SaaS businesses are valued on the strength and predictability of that revenue: metrics like monthly recurring revenue (MRR), churn (how many customers cancel), and growth rate matter more than one-time sales. This is what makes them attractive assets to acquire.
Common examples
Most expensive in history
Notable, publicly reported sales that shaped this asset class. These are historical market examples, not Emark transactions.
| Asset | Price | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Slack (acquired by Salesforce)One of the largest software acquisitions ever. | $27.7B | 2021 |
| Figma (Adobe agreement)Design SaaS; the deal was later abandoned in 2023. | $20B | 2022 |
| Mailchimp (acquired by Intuit)Bootstrapped email marketing SaaS. | $12B | 2021 |
The SaaS model became dominant in the 2010s as cloud infrastructure made it cheap to deliver software over the web. Salesforce popularized the idea that software could be rented rather than owned, and thousands of specialized tools followed.
As the category matured, a lively market for buying and selling SaaS businesses emerged, ranging from multi-billion-dollar strategic acquisitions down to solo-founder 'micro-SaaS' products changing hands for a few thousand dollars.
Average prices
Micro-SaaS
$10K – $500K
Solo or small-team tools, often 2–4x annual profit.
Established SaaS
$500K – $10M
Proven MRR and retention, typically 3–5x ARR.
Strategic / enterprise
$10M+
Market leaders bought for strategic value.
Small SaaS businesses commonly sell for a multiple of annual profit (roughly 2–4x), while faster-growing companies are valued on a multiple of annual recurring revenue (ARR). Low churn and steady growth push multiples higher.
Frequently asked questions
How are SaaS businesses valued?
Most are valued on recurring revenue and profit multiples. Buyers look at MRR/ARR, churn, growth rate, and how dependent the business is on the founder.
What is micro-SaaS?
A small, focused software product usually run by one person or a tiny team, serving a narrow use case. These are the most commonly traded SaaS assets by volume.
Related categories
Emark is in beta
A marketplace for saas products and more
Emark is building a place to discover, value, and transact digital assets like these. Explore the marketplace preview or join the early cohort.