What GTM efficiency numbers are investors actually benchmarking us against right now?

Survey data from over eight hundred private companies, with an efficient growth matrix that plots CAC payback against NRR so you can locate yourself rather than just read averages.

What's Really Going on in Software: The 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report

From Growth Unhinged by Kyle Poyar 20 min read

• Across 800 plus participants, AI-native companies grew 110 percent at 1 to 5M ARR against 40 percent for other B2B SaaS.
• At 5 to 20M ARR the gap is 90 percent median growth for AI-native against 30 percent.
• ARR per FTE jumped 42 percent for 20 to 50M companies and 50 percent above 50M.
• Early-stage gross margin compressed nearly 10 points year on year.
• 70 percent of companies have shipped AI features, and 36 percent say AI is core to the product.

Pavilion's data comes from operators rather than investors, and the headline numbers on the page (median growth, NRR compression, burn multiple) are enough to calibrate without downloading anything.

2025 B2B SaaS Benchmarks: CAC, NRR & Growth Rate Metrics

From Pavilion by Pavilion gated report, key stats on page

• Median growth has settled at 26 percent, with top performers down from 60 to 50 percent.
• Net revenue retention compressed to 101 percent while new customer acquisition costs rose 14 percent.
• Existing customers now generate 40 percent of new ARR, over 50 percent for companies above 50M.
• VC-funded companies spend 47 percent of revenue on sales and marketing against 33 percent for PE-backed ones.

Sets out exactly what a repeatable sales motion is supposed to look like by ten million dollars ARR, with the four GTM metrics investors will actually check. The right benchmark set for a company still building its ops function.

Scaling from $1 to $10 million ARR

From Bessemer Venture Partners by Janelle Teng Wade, Mary D'Onofrio and Ethan Ding 35 min read

• To be growing 100 percent plus at 10M ARR you need roughly 140 percent growth the year before, because growth endurance is about 70 percent.
• Hiring milestones by ARR: sales expert by 1M, product by 2M, marketing by 4M, finance by 8M, VP People by 10M.
• Measure CAC payback quarterly at both the unit and the whole sales org level, not just blended.
• A customer is only profitable once CLTV over CAC passes 1x, which is well before the 3x you are aiming at.

Lays out Upekkha's Value SaaS argument that SaaS built from India is structurally capital efficient, which changes what a healthy CAC payback or magic number looks like for an Indian company.

Why Indian Startup Ecosystem Needs More Catalysts Like Upekkha Than Typical Incubators And Accelerators?

From Inc42 by Team Inc42 10 min read

• Upekkha takes no equity unless the startup hits a pre-agreed revenue milestone, such as 1M dollars ARR, by the end of the program.
• UpekkhaOne is a two-year program for B2B SaaS only, aimed at product-market fit then a growth plan.
• They call themselves a catalyst rather than an accelerator: remove acceleration and momentum reverts, so they stay through the transformation.
• 15 startups went through in the first two years, with the first cohort reaching a million under 18 months.

The people who ran the survey walking through what the current medians for growth, CAC payback and retention actually are, and which cohort you should be comparing yourself with before you panic about a number.

Inside the 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report (with High Alpha)

On Alloy Partners 35 min