- SaaS Companies
- Bootstrapped
The Top Bootstrapped SaaS Companies
These companies earned the most without funding (Click to apply)
Bootstrapping a SaaS company requires profitable growth. We went and found some of the most profitable bootstrapped SaaS companies so you could analyze how they’ve done it.
Some of the founders manage against metrics like revenue per employee. The target? $600k or higher. They won’t hire new team members until new hires add enough revenue to get back to $600k in revenue per employee. Other founders manage to a payback period of 3 months or less. Some of the most successful bootstrapped SaaS companies have instant payback periods. They upsell items like consulting, books, and event tickets to immediately recover their customer acquisition cost (CAC) so they can then re-invest it immediately. Call it a “fast money flywheel”.
- nQ Zebraworks $1.0M
- Better Agency $1.0M
- Finimize $1.0M
- MySwimPro, Inc. $1.0M
- Pulseinsights $1.0M
- QuestionPro $20.0M
- Brookson Group $19.3M
- 6d Technologies $19.3M
- OCEAN SAS $19.2M
- ProArch $19.2M
- Campus-Management $100.0M
- Hotschedules $100.0M
- EBSCO $99.8M
- ZipRecruiter $95.5M
- Infostretch $95.4M
- 01
$20M
5K
2005
—
145
United States
- 02
Brookson Group
Financial Services Software
Brookson was born with a clear purpose – there must be a better way. For over 20 years we have helped our clients deal with the complexities, uncertainties and compliance challenges that the changing world of work creates. Whether that is helping indiv
$19M
40K
1995
—
303
United Kingdom
- 03
6d Technologies
Communication Software
Developer of telecommunications solutions designed to meet operational, business and network goals. The company's integrated messaging platform, integrated bss platform, cloud-based SDP, mobile marketing, subscription manager, unified self-care solutions a
$19M
100
2002
—
745
India
- 04
OCEAN SAS
Professional Services Providers
Provider of fleet management services. The company provides geographic location technology and tracking systems, which allows companies in controlling a nomadic activity to improve their profitability through monitoring of vehicle fleets.
$19M
7K
2003
—
328
France
- 05
ProArch
Crm And Related Software
Provider of cloud business networking and software development services. The company provides IOT security, hololens development, device integration and testing, remote patient monitoring, enterprise asset management, IOT Prototyping, Cloud development, cy
$19M
200
2006
—
310
United States
- 06
Frontline Consulting Services
Enterprise Software
Developer and producer of software for business automation and workflow management. The company provides services in the fields of enterprise applications, business process integration, business intelligence (BI), product & application development and busi
$19M
2K
1996
—
254
United States
- 07
Mandic
Cloud Computing Software
Mandic provides cloud computing solutions to medium enterprises and corporations in Brazil.
$19M
4K
2001
—
331
Brazil
- 08
System C
Information Technology Software
System C Healthcare is a supplier of health and social care software. The company's products include the Medway electronic patient record, CarePlus Child Health, Liquidlogic range of social care software and associated products. It was founded in 1983 and
$19M
350K
1986
—
316
France
- 09
SoftTech Engineers Limited
Procurement Software
SoftTech Engineers Ltd is a software product company. The company develops software and intellectual property in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) domains. Its product includes AutoDCR; PWIMS; Opticon; BIMDCR; and RuleBuddy. The company
$19M
500
1996
—
380
India
1-10 of 99
NextWhat are the fastest growing companies doing?
83 of the fastest growing companies that also have the most revenue have a clear expansion revenue strategy. On average, sales reps are selling plans where starting contract value is $4,606.
Those same companies employ 1,678 sales reps that carry a quota. The most common compensation plan used by these companies is a 1:5 ratio of sales rep on target earnings (OTE) to quota. Meaning if a rep can earn $200k in base and commissions, quota target for that year is set at 5x, or $1m in new ARR closed.
If you’re going to build a high growth SaaS company, you need to figure out how to scale with quota carrying sales reps.
Which CEO’s are the most efficient capital allocators?
We can measure this a variety of ways. Which company has the most revenue per employee? What about dollars in revenue compared to dollars raised? What about time, which founder went from $0 to $10m the fastest?
Looking deeper at dollars in revenue compared to dollars raised, bootstrappers take the cake because they self fund (denominator zero). When we look at companies that have raised at least $1m, Actito is the clear winner generating $21m in revenue, growing 100% yoy, on just 1m raised ($.05 dollars raised for every $1 of revenue).
Omnisend comes in a close second with $.08 dollars raised for every dollar of revenue. Doing $19m as of December 2020. Proposify gets honorable mention with $0.46 dollars raised (3.25m) for every dollar of revenue ($7m).
The worst performers here are companies like YayPay with $3.68 dollars raised ($14m) per dollar of revenue ($3.8m). Many of the worst performers just did a round of funding and haven’t had a chance to deploy to drive growth yet. That makes this data less valuable but still illustrative.