SaaS Sales Sentiments from ~70 publics

We closely monitor public SaaS companies and read through ~70 Q3 earnings call transcripts to get a feel for their view of the state of the sales environment for SaaS. Below are direct quotes from the companies and at the end is a summary.

Samsara (IOT) — “Despite the uncertain macroeconomic environment, our solutions continue to resonate because they deliver clear and fast ROI for our customers.”

Klaviyo (KVYO) — “We’re seeing some softness in new customer acquisition. We’re seeing some softness in expansion, but we are not seeing that macroenvironment or the impact become either materially better or materially worse. It has been steady…..”We are seeing strong growth across all channels…..”The macro environment remains consistent with previous quarters, showing some softness in new customer acquisition and expansion, particularly in the SMB segment.”

Waystar (WAY) — “Our business model is working successfully, and our teams are high-performing. We’ve seen our pipeline grow, especially in the hospital and health system market”….”We anticipate robust demand as hospitals expect utilization to pick up.”

Onestream (OS) — “While the macro-economic and geo-political state of affairs continue to grab headlines, at OneStream, we saw a consistent market environment relative to last quarter.”

Sentinel One (S) — “Our third quarter performance exceeded our top and bottom line expectations, delivering industry-leading growth and margin improvement….“Building on our third quarter outperformance, we are again raising our top and bottom line expectations for the fiscal year ‘24.”

Blend Labs (BLND) — “Despite mortgage rates remaining high around 7% on the prevailing 30-year mortgage, we’re seeing a positive sentiment shift in the industry”….”our consumer banking business also continues to grow meaningfully, surpassing our previously shared growth target of 35% and reaching over 50% growth this quarter compared to the same time last year.”….“Our Q4 pipeline is also strong.”

MongoDB (MDB) — “We continue to see strength in the enterprise segment with an increasing number of large deals, and our new product offerings are driving momentum across industries.”….”The demand for our cloud database solutions remains robust, but we are observing longer sales cycles for larger transactions, particularly in regions with tighter macroeconomic conditions.”

Dropbox (DBX) — “As we’ve seen in previous quarters, the enterprise segment continues to be our strongest area, and we are seeing consistent growth in our larger customers.”….”In the SMB space, we’ve seen some pressure on new customer acquisition, but existing customers are expanding their usage, driven by stronger product adoption.”

Zuora (ZUO) — “The enterprise demand remains strong, but we’re experiencing elongated sales cycles in certain verticals due to macroeconomic uncertainty.”….”Our subscription management solutions continue to gain traction, but the SMB segment is showing signs of softness as budget constraints become more evident in the current environment.”

Docusign (DOCU) — “The demand for digital signature and contract lifecycle management solutions continues to grow, especially in large enterprise deals, though we are seeing some moderation in deal sizes and longer sales cycles.”….”We are seeing slower decision-making in certain industries that are more sensitive to economic fluctuations, but our customer retention remains strong.”

SmartSheet (SMAR) — “Our enterprise business continues to perform well, with large deal sizes and expansions in top customers, though we are seeing macro-related pressure on our higher-velocity transactions and SMB customer segments.”…..”Despite these challenges, we remain optimistic about our ability to close significant deals, particularly in the enterprise sector, where demand for our work management solutions remains strong.”

Zscaler (ZS) — “The environment remains highly competitive, and we’ve seen longer sales cycles as customers continue to evaluate their cybersecurity strategies.”….”Despite macroeconomic uncertainty, the need for zero trust and secure access to cloud resources remains strong, driving demand for our solutions.”

Crowdstrike (CRWD) — “We’re seeing an increasing focus on security transformation from large enterprises, which are committing to long-term strategic security investments.”….”While we see macro headwinds, the rising sophistication of cyber threats continues to drive demand for advanced endpoint protection, positioning us well.”

Pager Duty (PD) — “The enterprise sales cycle has slightly lengthened, with companies focusing more on ROI and quantifying the value of our platform.”….”We continue to see strong demand for incident response and operational visibility tools, especially among large enterprises undergoing digital transformation.”

ZoomVideo (ZM) — “The market has shifted towards more cost-conscious decision-making, and customers are seeking more flexible solutions, leading to increased interest in our core platform.”…”We are experiencing a mixed environment, with some sectors showing stronger growth while others face more budget scrutiny as economic uncertainty persists.”

Fastly (FSLY) — “We’ve observed an uptick in demand for edge computing solutions as more companies look to improve application performance at scale.”…..”However, we’re also seeing pressure on customer budgets, especially in the more price-sensitive sectors, which has led to some deal pushouts and longer decision-making cycles.”

UiPath (PATH) — “But I would caution and say, you know, customers, as I said earlier on, are very thoughtful in how they want to spend, where they want to spend, and where — how they’re going to fund it, which benefits us and benefits us in a way that we actually approach customers. I don’t see a significant change in that spending.”

Alkami (ALKT) — “What I would say is the demand for digital banking has remained consistent from a low interest rate environment, to a high interest rate environment, to the recent interest rate changes”

DoubleVerify (DV) — “Additionally, the industry has seen brand spending soften ahead of the election as political dollars crowd out ad spend and there is uncertainty around how quickly traditional ad spending rebounds after the elections”…“We’ve driven strong revenue growth despite facing several headwinds this year. To recap, six large customers scaled back on ad spend that had our most premium products attached to it.”

ZipRecruiter (ZIP) — “Economic challenges and a labor market downturn are expected to continue affecting hiring rates, and a projected 21% YoY decline in Q4 2024 revenue.”

Procore (PCOR) — “Taking a step back, the business is going through two distinct transitions. The first is a challenging and mixed construction demand environment, which began in 2023. The second is a go-to-market operating model shift, which began in the third quarter. Both of these represent near-term headwinds to revenue growth, but we believe these impacts are temporary.”

Sprinklr (CXM) — “Given the macro environment, we are experiencing a higher level of down sales, as large customers right-size their software spend. As such, we are mindful that this cycle of renewals may be one of the more challenging quarters to get through and is factored into the guidance numbers.”

Backblaze (BLZE) — “”We are seeing some early churn and delayed deal closures, particularly within the SMB segment, indicating a cautious spending environment.”

Expensify (EXFY) — “Macroeconomic conditions, especially fluctuations in travel expenses, continue to impact overall spending patterns and new customer acquisitions.”

Weave (WEAV) — “We are seeing steady demand from small and medium-sized businesses, but competition has intensified, especially in key verticals”….. “Despite a challenging market, revenue grew as we focused on enhancing the customer experience and expanding our feature set.”

Braze (BRZE) — “We saw growth across all regions, driven by both new customer wins and expansion within our existing customer base”….. “Revenue from international markets accounted for 44% of our total, reflecting our growing global footprint despite economic headwinds.”

Hashicorp (HCP) — “Deal volumes remain high, and customer interest in self-managed offerings has increased, particularly in the financial services sector.”….”We believe the market is stabilizing, and our pipeline looks promising as enterprises continue their cloud migrations.”

Certara (CERT) — “We have also experienced a lengthened decision-making process among many of our larger customers and have seen more discreet engagements compared with years past. This backdrop has made us more cautious about predicting second-half growth.”

ON24 (ONTF) — “Despite the headwinds of ongoing macro uncertainty and softness in marketing budgets, our third quarter results underscored stabilization in our business performance and our ability to consistently achieve our profitability targets.”…..“However, recognizing that marketing budgets are still under pressure, we believe at this stage, it is prudent to apply conservatism to our core ARR outlook.”

Dynatrace (DT) — “The observability market opportunity is growing, the demand environment remains healthy, and our pipeline continues to grow at a faster pace than our reported ARR growth rate.”…. “We are seeing increased demand in large strategic deals where customers are looking to make broader observability architecture decisions, driven by the growing complexity of managing fragmented tools.”

Health Catalyst (HCAT) — “We are encouraged to see health system operating margins steadily improving and stabilizing. This improving end market contributes to our robust pipeline and our continued confidence in our expectation that our top-line growth will accelerate back to double digits in 2025.”

Datadog (DDOG) — “Overall, the business environment for Datadog has remained stable and similar to what we have seen throughout 2024.”….”Our customers overall are growing their cloud usage, while some are continuing to be cost conscious.”

Cloudflare (NET) — “In Q3, the IT spending environment remained consistent with prior quarters with customers closely scrutinizing every deal, emphasizing cost efficiency, and seeking meaningful ROI.”….. “From everything we’ve seen in the crystal ball, North America is — has leveled off to slightly improved.”

Sprout Social (SPT) — “Our pipeline shows strength in size, health and trajectory, despite the market conditions.”

Zoominfo (Z) — “We are seeing really strong demand in the upmarket, particularly in the midmarket and enterprise segment. In midmarket, we’re seeing strong demand for Copilot, and in enterprise and strategic segments, we’re seeing a lot of demand for DaaS and OperationsOS.”….”The SMB segment, particularly the lowest end of SMB, continues to be challenged, particularly from a net retention perspective.”

Jfrog (FROG) — “We are seeing some of our largest customers planning cloud migrations, but these are taking longer to execute due to today’s challenging macroeconomic conditions, requiring us to maintain a conservative approach to pipeline forecasts.”…. “We continue to experience strong demand for our platform in strategic deals, driven by cloud growth and security, though the sell cycle for large deals remains extended due to the size and scope of the projects.”… “Customers are increasingly prioritizing consolidation of their software supply chain tools into a single platform, aligning with JFrog’s end-to-end offerings in DevOps, DevSecOps, and MLOps.”

Asana (ASAN) — “Deal cycles continue to be longer and budgets continue to be a significant factor.”…. “We are seeing signs of stabilization, especially for new business which includes expansion.”

CONCLUSION

The big themes are below.

-Many companies report “longer sales cycles”, particularly for large deals (e.g., MongoDB, Zscaler, JFrog, and Asana). They’re seeing tighter budgets, cautious spending, and prolonged decision-making processes.

-The SMB segment is under pressure, with signs of softness in new customer acquisition and budget constraints (e.g., Klaviyo, Zuora, Dropbox). Some companies note early churn and difficulties retaining SMB customers (e.g., Backblaze, Zoominfo).

-The enterprise segment often shows strong growth, with steady or increasing demand for solutions that deliver clear ROI (e.g., Crowdstrike, SentinelOne, Dynatrace). Companies with large or strategic customers (e.g., Smartsheet, MongoDB, Dynatrace) highlight consistent or growing pipelines, even in challenging conditions.

-Customers across industries are increasingly focused on ROI and cost-effectiveness, prioritizing solutions that deliver measurable value (e.g., PagerDuty, Cloudflare, Fastly).

-Demand for cloud migration solutions remains strong, despite extended timelines for implementation (e.g., JFrog, Crowdstrike, Datadog). Companies offering solutions aligned with critical trends like digital transformation and data security see resilience.

-Healthcare and financial services show promising pipelines (e.g., Waystar, Hashicorp), while construction and advertising face demand constraints (e.g., Procore, DoubleVerify).

-While some companies report stabilizing conditions (e.g., Asana, Datadog), others remain cautious, noting unpredictability in renewal cycles and overall demand (e.g., Sprinklr, Certara).

The software sales environment is defined by cautious optimism, with enterprise and strategic deals providing a stable foundation while SMB and price-sensitive sectors face headwinds. Companies focusing on value-driven solutions and ROI-driven platforms are best positioned.

Thank you for your readership. See more blogs and SaaS data at blossomstreetventures.com. Email the author at sammy@blossomstreetventures.com.