Jump to read

Chris Ortega - Founder, CEO, & Fractional CFO, Fresh FP&A

Christian Læsø - Chief Financial Officer, Mapspeople

Erica Sandelin Ekelund - Chief Executive Officer, Voyado

Anders Liu-Lindberg - Partner & Chief Commercial Officer, Business Partnering Institute

Jonas Nyygard - Director of Growth, Subscrybe

Ellen Köhler, CFO, Verdane Elevate & Simone Rüschenberg, Founder, Finance Leaders League & CFO, Taktile

Ben Murray - Founder of The SaaS CFO, The SaaS Academy & Co-Founder of Extend

Viktor Wrede - Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Scrive

Anna Nadeina - Head of Growth, saas.group

Joran Hofman - Founder, Reditus

Actionable strategies for SaaS businesses in 2025

As we take a moment to reflect on 2024, one thing is clear—it has been a year of transformation and innovation for the SaaS industry.

Looking forward to 2025, SaaS companies are entering an era where balancing optimism with caution is key, and where AI and machine learning are a matter of “when?” and not “if?”. Alongside evolving customer expectations and demands, have reshaped how businesses operate and deliver value. Hyper-personalized services and customer support driven by AI will soon be the norm instead of news.

Finance teams, in particular, face growing pressure to establish a solid data foundation—essential not only for AI-driven decision-making but also for ensuring profitability in a competitive market. With generative AI, co-pilot tools, and automation reshaping finance roles, mundane tasks are fading into the background, leaving room for strategic growth opportunities yet to be touched by the magic finger of AI.

Additionally, as subscription models become more sophisticated, Subscription Management solutions have become essential to financial tech stacks, ensuring efficiency, scalability, and control.

This is only a glimpse of what lies ahead for us in 2025.

To equip you with an overview of the most pressing trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the SaaS sector, and finance functions, we’ve gathered insights from a group of 11 industry leaders.

On top of this, we’ve put together an exclusive report, “SaaS Market Outlook 2025: The CFO Perspective.” Be sure to download it here to uncover expert strategies, actionable insights, and key trends that will drive success in the coming year.

Here is a TLDR list—“too long; didn’t read,” of the key trends shared by our experts:

• Efficiency and automation are reshaping finance and operations.
• A rise in flexible subscription models, with an emphasis on user choice.
• AI and co-pilots are transforming finance by automating routine tasks and enhancing data-driven decision-making.
• Tightened global regulations elevate the need for data security and compliance.
• Cash flow automation and integrated tech stacks will dominate financial strategies.
• Optimizing cloud services and reducing associated costs are key CFOs' priorities.
• Critical SaaS Metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Net Revenue Retention (NRR), and Churn Rate are essential for sustainable growth.
  
  

Let's dive right into the core of this article for a longer and more detailed outlook on 2025 trends.

Chris Ortega - Founder, CEO, & Fractional CFO, Fresh FP&A

Seasoned Finance Professional with over two decades of experience, serving as both CEO and fractional CFO at Fresh FP&A, helping SMBs achieve financial clarity, strategic growth, and improved predictability.

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn. 

Key Metrics for SaaS Finance Teams

Finance teams should focus on the following key metrics in 2025:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This metric measures the cost of acquiring a new customer. It is important to keep CAC low in order to maximize profitability.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): This metric measures the total revenue that a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime. It is important to increase CLTV in order to maximize profitability.
• Churn Rate: This metric measures the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions. It is important to keep churn low to retain customers and maximize profitability.

AI's Influence on the Finance Function

I see AI playing a major role in the finance function in 2025. AI will automate many tasks that are currently performed by humans, such as:

• Financial analysis: AI can analyze large amounts of financial data to identify trends and insights that would be difficult for humans to spot.
• Forecasting: AI can develop more accurate financial forecasts.

Critical Trends for Subscriptions and How Finance Teams Should Prepare

Finance teams and CFOs need to consider the following trends regarding subscriptions in 2025:

• Subscription fatigue: Consumers are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the number of subscriptions they have. This could lead to increased churn rates.
• AI-powered Subscription Management: AI can be used to manage subscriptions more effectively, such as by identifying customers who are at risk of churning.
• Subscription bundles: Companies are increasingly offering subscription bundles in order to attract and retain customers.

Finance leaders can best prepare for these trends by:

1. Monitoring customer churn rates closely
2. Investing in AI-powered Subscription Management tools
3. Developing strategies to mitigate subscription fatigue
   
   

Christian Læsø - Chief Financial Officer, Mapspeople

CFO, Board member, Advisor, and investor specializing in growth and cash flow management. Over 20 years of leadership experience focused on commercial and financial development across multiple business areas.

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn

Biggest Challenges and Priorities for SaaS CFOs

On a macro level, I think the biggest challenge is going to be to navigate the economic uncertainties that we are facing in the world. Balancing growth in this environment needs both hands on the steering wheel. On top of this, we see a continuously increasing request for a route to profitability that we are factoring into our plans.

Key Metrics - Utilization Rate & CAC Payback:

Being a PasS (Platform as a Service) rather than a SaaS we will be monitoring the utilization rate of our many partners to make sure we have happy and growing partners. This is for us an “early warning NRR metric” that works well. On the growth side, the “CAC payback” metric is also important to track, due to the uncertainties in the market.

The Impact of AI on CFOs and Finance Teams

We believe there are still a lot of low-hanging” automation optimizations” to be harvested from AI within the Finance tasks, but in general, AI will play a big impact in data-driven decision-making and analysis.

Erica Sandelin Ekelund - Chief Executive Officer, Voyado

CEO (and former CFO) of Voyado. Strong background in finance, strategy, and business development.

Connect with Erica on LinkedIn. 

Key Trends Shaping the SaaS Industry

In 2025, the focus will continue to shift from rapid growth to sustainable, profitable growth. SaaS companies will need to prioritize customer retention, long-term value, and operational efficiency rather than just acquisition numbers. Demonstrating consistent, sustainable success will be key to staying competitive.

Critical KPIs and Metrics

In 2025, the Rule of XX will be key, balancing both growth and profitability. Sales efficiency—measuring the return on every dollar spent on marketing and sales—will be crucial. Net retention will remain a top priority, as keeping customers is just as important as acquiring new ones. A focus on happy, loyal customers will drive long-term success.

How AI Will Influence Finance

AI will shift the finance function toward more value-added activities supporting the business, automating repetitive tasks like data entry and analysis. This will free up finance teams to focus on strategic decision-making, forecasting, and driving business insights.

Anders Liu-Lindberg - Partner & Chief Commercial Officer, Business Partnering Institute

Leading advisor to senior Finance and FP&A leaders on creating impact through business partnering.

Connect with Anders on LinkedIn. 

Data Accuracy & AI Integration:

In 2025, ensuring data accuracy will be critical for finance teams, as artificial intelligence relies on good data to deliver useful and accurate outputs. Therefore, it’s essential for finance teams to take data challenges seriously and establish a solid data foundation to support strategic contributions to organizational goals.

How New Technologies Will Reshape Finance Roles

Co-pilots will be integrated into most systems and tools for finance professionals by 2025, offering an opportunity to save time on routine tasks and, more importantly, free up time for more value-adding work. If you're not leveraging generative AI solutions by 2025, you'll risk being left behind.

The Influence of AI on Finance

We should be careful about overestimating the impact. However, I have seen from various tech vendors that they’re building AI into their solutions, making it very easy to adopt. This change will be transformative to the way we work and bring about some much-needed change in the finance function in 2025!

Importance of Soft Skills

For FP&A and other finance professionals, it’s all about the softer skills like influencing, communication, and relationship-building. Without these, no technology can help you create an impact.

Jonas Nygaard - Director of Growth, Subscrybe

Growth hacking expert with 15+ years of experience in subscription and membership organizations, specializing in customer acquisition, loyalty, and retention strategies for subscription-based businesses.

Connect with Jonas on LinkedIn. 

Trends Driving Subscription Growth

In 2025, we’ll see a shift toward personalization at scale, where companies leverage data-driven insights to tailor user experiences, enhancing the value of subscriptions for each individual. This strategy has the potential to deepen engagement, boost retention, and ultimately drive growth by meeting customer needs more precisely.

Another emerging trend is subscription bundling, where businesses combine products or services from different categories into a unified offering. This approach not only expands the customer base but also enhances perceived value for users, fostering long-term commitment and increasing the "share of wallet."

Finally, sustainability will become a strong growth driver as consumers increasingly seek eco-friendly options. Subscription companies that can integrate circular economy principles—like recycling, reusing, or offering pre-owned products—will likely attract environmentally conscious consumers, adding another dimension to growth.

Subscription Management Strategies

Subscription Management strategies in 2025 will be heavily influenced by automation and advanced analytics. Automated tools will become essential for managing the complexities of scaling subscriber bases, from billing and payment to customer service interactions.

Another pivotal trend is the use of predictive analytics and churn data, where companies harness AI to anticipate customer behavior. For instance, AI models can identify churn risks by analyzing usage patterns, enabling businesses to proactively engage at-risk customers with targeted retention strategies.

To stay competitive, companies must invest in scalable, flexible tech stacks that support personalization at scale. Additionally, implementing continuous feedback loops to gather customer insights will be crucial for refining offerings and keeping the customer experience at the core of their strategy.

Considerations for CFOs and Finance Teams

For finance teams, understanding and optimizing customer lifetime value (CLV) will become increasingly critical. In 2025, CFOs should prioritize metrics that emphasize long-term value over immediate revenue, with CLV playing a central role. Aligning financial strategies with CLV enables better resource allocation to high-growth customer segments.

Another key trend is the rise of Usage-Based Pricing models, gaining traction in various sectors. This approach requires dynamic financial forecasting and impacts cash flow projections. CFOs must develop adaptable frameworks to manage revenue variability effectively.

Ellen Köhler, CFO, Verdane Elevate & Simone Rüschenberg, Founder Finance Leaders League & CFO, Taktile - Co-Founders of CFO Playbook

Seasoned finance leaders with over 18 years of experience each, providing actionable insights and practical guidance for CFOs and finance teams through the CFO Playbook.

Connect with Ellen & Simone on LinkedIn.

Challenges and Priorities for SaaS CFOs

From a financial leadership perspective, the number one priority for SaaS CFOs in 2025 will be optimizing the balance between growth investments and maintaining healthy unit economics, as the market grows more competitive and sophisticated. Looking ahead, CFOs will face multiple interconnected challenges: managing the transition from traditional fixed subscription models to more flexible, Usage-Based Pricing models that maintain predictable revenue streams, while navigating increased uncertainty stemming from geopolitics, economic development, and AI.

While AI has the potential to boost operational efficiency, the strategic focus must expand beyond operations - a critical priority should be proactively evaluating how AI could disrupt a company’s business model and supporting the CEO and leadership team in identifying opportunities for AI-driven business model innovation.

The increasing investment demands in cybersecurity and AI will create significant pressure on capital allocation decisions, especially for smaller SaaS players trying to stay competitive. The successful SaaS CFO of 2025 will be one who can navigate these challenges while maintaining financial discipline, developing nuanced metrics and KPIs to effectively measure ROI across various investments, and ensuring sustainable growth in an increasingly complex landscape.

Key KPIs to Track

In 2025, traditional SaaS metrics will need to be augmented with new KPIs reflecting a holistic view of both financial health and future readiness. This enables CFOs and Finance teams to make data-informed decisions about resource allocation between maintaining current operations and investing in future capabilities. While core metrics like Net Retention, CAC Payback Period, and Gross Margin remain fundamental, they must be complemented by usage-based metrics that track customer engagement in more granular ways.

Given the increasing focus on AI and cybersecurity investments, new efficiency metrics tracking AI-driven automation ROI and security compliance will become critical. Customer success metrics (NPS, CES) will need to be correlated with AI-driven personalization efforts. While more challenging to measure due to its qualitative nature, tracking customer value is becoming increasingly crucial even when NPS is high and product adoption is strong, solutions that aren't business-critical risk being cut in future budget cycles.

AI's Impact on CFOs and Finance Teams

AI will significantly transform financial operations and strategic decision-making for CFOs in 2025, with an impact spanning both operational and strategic domains. We believe this transformation will happen faster than most anticipate.

AI will automate routine financial tasks like month-end close, reporting, and AP/AR, freeing finance teams to shift their focus from data processing to strategic work. Beyond removing repetitive tasks, more advanced AI models will supercharge finance teams in forecasting, scenario planning, and predictive analytics which is also crucial as SaaS companies transition to hybrid pricing models that combine subscription and usage-based elements. AI agents will support the finance team as autonomous digital workers, handling repetitive tasks from monthly closing to report generation, while learning continuously from their interactions.

Realizing these benefits of AI in finance teams requires building the right team - CFOs must focus on attracting and developing finance professionals who combine financial expertise with data literacy and strategic thinking capabilities. It is crucial for finance leaders to take a proactive approach to educating and developing their teams, ensuring team members are actively involved in shaping the AI transformation.

Ben Murray, Founder of The SaaS CFO, The SaaS Academy & Co-Founder of Extend

Fractional SaaS CFO and finance educator, helping SaaS founders and finance teams achieve financial transparency and improvement through a proven SaaS finance framework.

Connect with Ben on LinkedIn.

Evolving SaaS Business Models: Navigating Complex Revenue Streams

As SaaS companies head into 2025, business models are becoming increasingly complex. What once relied on subscription revenue and basic onboarding now includes diverse streams such as Usage-Based Pricing, transaction fees, and AI-driven models. SaaS CFOs need to stay ahead of pricing trends and manage these revenue streams effectively to remain competitive in the evolving landscape.

The varied growth strategies SaaS companies adopt—such as Product-Led Growth (PLG), Sales-Led Growth (SLG), and partner-led approaches—are reshaping how financial data is structured. Each growth model requires unique metrics, and failing to distinguish between them can jeopardize financial accuracy. In 2025, CFOs will need a deep understanding of their go-to-market motions to set up appropriate financial infrastructure, ensuring that metrics like CAC payback and net retention remain clear and actionable.

Metrics and Financial Practices

Balancing growth and efficiency will remain a key focus for SaaS CFOs. Sustainable growth in SaaS demands a balance between efficiency and fundamental growth metrics. Bookings, net retention, gross margin, and CAC Payback will be critical for tracking sustainable growth and customer success. Clean accounting and logic-driven forecasting processes will be essential to navigate the increasing complexity of variable and seasonal revenue streams. A strong financial foundation will enable companies to scale efficiently and adapt to market changes.

AI’s Role in SaaS Finance

In 2025, AI will play a larger role in SaaS finance by automating tasks like month-end close and reporting, allowing teams to focus on forecasting and strategic decisions. AI’s potential for hyper-personalization and predictive analytics will also help companies retain customers and drive efficiency. As AI adoption accelerates, CFOs must act as data stewards, ensuring that AI-driven insights are effectively leveraged to improve decision-making and streamline operations.

Viktor Wrede - Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Scrive

Co-founder and CSO (and former CEO) of Scrive, now leading strategic initiatives to expand Scrive's value and market presence across Europe.

Connect with Viktor on LinkedIn.

Maturity and Shifts in the SaaS Industry

In general, differentiation for SaaS vendors is becoming more challenging. On one hand, I anticipate a stronger emphasis on vertical SaaS solutions tailored to specific industries, whilst on the other hand, we are seeing that the buyers of services want to consolidate to fewer suppliers.

Additionally, I believe we are slowly shifting toward Usage-Based Pricing models, especially with the increased automation through AI, as increased efficiency through AI will be neatly integrated into all SaaS.

We are also seeing that regulatory and data sovereignty considerations, especially in Europe, will play a crucial role in shaping SaaS offerings. Companies will need to adapt their platforms to ensure compliance with stricter privacy and security standards while still enabling seamless global operations.

Emerging Technologies Impacting SaaS

AI will by far be the technology that will have the most substantial impact in 2025, as it creates such a large impact on the way we work and the possibilities it offers to increase operational efficiency. From our perspective and our field, we are seeing the growth and increased usage of digital identities across Europe which will help speed up digitalization across all sectors, especially for consumer-facing businesses.

Main Changes AI Will Bring

The big question is if everyone needs to integrate/build their own AI capabilities or if we could purely use centralized agents to improve efficiencies, probably a mix of both. But I hope the main change is reduced complexity and increased efficiency throughout all SaaS products.

Anna Nadeina – Head of Growth, saas.group

Head of Growth at saas.group and host of the saas.unbound podcast, specializing in sustainable growth and empowering SaaS companies to reach their next level.

Connect with Anna on LinkedIn. 

Key Growth Strategies

Even though PLG has been the go-to strategy for a lot of SaaS companies for a while, in 2025 there’s even more potential to focus on it.

With the power of AI, tailoring onboarding experiences and navigating customer success should give businesses a chance to stand out and achieve their goals faster. A personalized approach is really what a lot of teams have been craving, and now experiences can truly be crafted for each user at scale.

Main Changes AI Will Bring

AI is crawling its way into absolutely every part of business. AI-assisted development, content creation and optimization, automation of any repetitive tasks, you name it, there’s a way to AI-power all of it.

As already mentioned, I guess that first of all AI will help with hyper-personalization to tailor SaaS experiences for each use case, and then make itself indispensable in predictive analysis to help companies retain their best customers and prevent churn.

Preparing for 2025: Tech Stacks and Team Dynamics

Slapping an “AI-powered” badge on your SaaS may be easy, but it’s making it work that comes with some consequences. First of all, understanding what exactly “AI-powered” truly means for the company is crucial. So super clear communication between all the teams including dev, marketing, product, and sales is something founders should invest in.

Second, with AI comes customer concerns about privacy and compliance. With regulations like GDPR and CCPA evolving, ensuring your customers feel secure is as important as ever.

Overall, 2025 is definitely the time for SaaS founders to embrace AI—boosting personalization and predicting customer needs. Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility (and the need for good team communication and privacy measures).

Joran Hofman – Founder, Reditus

Founder of Reditus and host of the "Grow Your B2B SaaS" podcast, specializing in building scalable affiliate marketing channels to help B2B SaaS companies grow.

Connect with Joran on LinkedIn.

Critical Steps for Founders to Ensure Smooth Growth

If you are looking to have a smooth growth trajectory, don't skip the foundational steps of building a business. We now have all kinds of tools where you can automate everything, in the entire customer journey. It would help you to become more effective, but it could also help you to lose sight of what is important; customer feedback & value.

Keep having real customer calls, feedback loops, and other ways to analyze the customer value. If your customers don't get any value out of your tool, they will churn, and your growth with stagnate (don't try to fill up a leaking bucket). Make sure you know exactly; to whom you sell, what you sell, and what outcome you deliver. Often founders don't know, they think too much into features or try to sell to everyone. By focusing on the foundation first, you will be able to achieve a smoother growth trajectory as it will help you in all aspects of the business.

• You know who to target with marketing
• You know who your sales departments need to speak to
• You know which clients get it to achieve value out of your product.

You can implement all the fancy tools and tracking mechanisms, but in this case, a simple (but well-implemented) CRM can already go a long way. I would recommend using one of the bigger ones out there, as they would provide you with many integrations, hence more tracking and possibilities for automation. Once the foundations are in place, it is also a lot easier to implement the tools to automate your processes.

Bootstrapping vs. External Funding: Making the Right Choice

From speaking to a lot of founders in the Grow Your B2B SaaS podcast it is clear that it is a personal choice, and there is no right or wrong here. Bootstrapping won't always be possible due to many different reasons (often financially), this might already push you towards VC money early on. The reason why people went for the bootstrapping route is the freedom, not having to rapport with someone else, and keeping all the equity amongst the founders/team.

Be aware though, that these are the bootstrapped founders 'who made it' and are able to live comfortably from their SaaS business. They all had their challenging periods and when you look at the success rates of a Startup, you could burn all your own money while trying to bootstrap. The question here is; how much are you willing to risk yourself?

In terms of tools, there are a lot of free tools to monitor your growth (bootstrapped or funded). I would recommend using the free tools from the non-dilutive financing tools like (Founder Path, or Re-cap). They use their tools to analyze your business for their funding part, it often gives great insights for free. Further, you can use tools like Profitwell or ChartMogul to get insights into your revenue data.

Main Changes AI Will Bring

Everyone is going to try to add it one way or another to their platform, so having "AI generated" won't be a unique selling point anymore. Users will expect your tool to automate the repetitive or time-consuming tasks with AI, if you don't, they might start looking for alternatives.

A big change I foresee is that people will start searching more on AI tools like ChatGPT, we are already seeing some referral traffic coming in for Reditus ourselves. It is by far the volume we are getting from Google, but this will increase in 2025 for sure as Google won't always give you the full answer and is stuffed with ads. AI search will become a lot more popular as you receive the results you want, and you can ask deeper questions after.

It won't mean though you shouldn't write any content anymore, as where would the LLMs find their information? By keeping writing/providing high-value content you will be able to be mentioned more often by tools like ChatGPT. See the example below.

Actionable strategies for SaaS businesses in 2025

To ensure that 2025 is a transformative year for your SaaS business, here are some strategies you can start implementing today:

• Strengthen Data Foundation: Ensure data accuracy to maximize the effectiveness of AI initiatives.
• Leverage Generative AI for automating repetitive tasks: Use AI to streamline repetitive workflows and enhance team efficiency.
• Personalize Onboarding with Hyper-Personalization at Scale Use AI to create tailored onboarding and customer success experiences.
• Focus on Product-Led Growth: Double down on PLG strategies for personalized, scalable user experiences.
• Switch to Usage-Based Pricing: Implement flexible, Usage-Based Pricing models to align value with customer needs.
• Gather Real Customer Feedback consistently: Maintain direct customer feedback loops to understand user value and reduce churn.
• Automate Cash Flow Management: Use automated tools for cash flow management, Subscription Billing, and non-dilutive financing.
• Invest in Scalable Tech: Implement scalable tech stacks and integrated Subscription Management solutions.
• Use Predictive Analytics for Churn: Incorporate AI-powered predictive analytics to identify and engage at-risk customers.
• Automate Finance with AI: Leverage AI to automate financial tasks, allowing focus on strategic decision-making.
• Align Teams on AI Integration: Ensure cross-team alignment on AI initiatives for successful integration.
• Prioritize Data Security: Proactively invest in data security and compliance to stay ahead of evolving regulations.
• Optimize Marketing with AI: Utilize AI to support content creation, customer engagement, and digital identity management.
• Leverage AI Search Trends: Create high-quality content to boost visibility in AI-driven search tools.
  
  

Did this article inspire you to think a little bit more about your business goals for 2025?

If yes, for more in-depth insights, don't forget to download our extensive report: “SaaS Market Outlook 2025: The CFO Perspective". Gain expert insights and strategies and learn to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.