--- title: "B2B SaaS companies: examples by segment and what they have in common" description: "Six public B2B SaaS companies in three segments, horizontal, vertical and infrastructure, with revenue from their own filings and what it shows about each model." canonical: "https://saascron.com/b2b-saas-companies/" language: "en-US" author: "Ricardo Machado" author_url: "https://saascron.com/author/ricardo-machado/" published: "2026-10-19T07:00:00-04:00" updated: "2026-10-19T07:00:00-04:00" category: "SaaS Business" tags: ["B2B SaaS", "Public companies", "Business model", "SaaS fundamentals"] --- # B2B SaaS companies: examples by segment and what they have in common > Six public B2B SaaS companies in three segments, horizontal, vertical and infrastructure, with revenue from their own filings and what it shows about each model. You are sizing up the B2B SaaS market, for a job search, an investment idea or your own product, and the lists you find mix startups, rumors and private valuations. You want a short list you can check yourself. A B2B SaaS company sells software it hosts and runs to other businesses, usually by subscription or by usage. The most useful way to group these companies is by who buys: every industry, one industry, or engineering teams. This guide sorts six public companies into those three segments, with revenue from their own filings, and shows what the numbers say about how each one makes money. It uses public companies because their figures are audited and dated; a private company's revenue claim cannot be checked the same way. For the basics, see [What is SaaS?](https://saascron.com/what-is-saas/). For the test of what makes a company SaaS in the first place, see [What is a SaaS company?](https://saascron.com/saas-company/). ## The three segments in plain terms Think of the suppliers to a restaurant. One sells pens, payroll services and office chairs to every business on the street. One sells only to restaurants: ovens, menu boards and the till. One sells the electricity and water that everyone else plugs into. B2B SaaS splits the same way: - **Horizontal SaaS** sells the same software to every industry: sales, HR, finance. - **Vertical SaaS** sells to one industry, often with that industry's payments, rules or workflows built in. For the economics of the two, see [Vertical SaaS vs horizontal SaaS](https://saascron.com/vertical-saas-vs-horizontal-saas/). - **Infrastructure SaaS** sells to engineering and data teams the tools they build and run their own software on, such as monitoring and data platforms. It is often priced by usage. ## Six public examples Figures are from each company's latest full fiscal year in its results release or annual report, in millions of dollars, checked October 17, 2026. The "recurring line" is the revenue line each company reports that best matches recurring software revenue; the names differ. | Segment | Company | Fiscal year ended | Total revenue | Recurring line, as reported | Share of total | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Horizontal | Salesforce | January 31, 2026 | $41,525 | Subscription and support, $39,388 | 94.9% | | Horizontal | Workday | January 31, 2026 | $9,552 | Subscription services, $8,833 | 92.5% | | Vertical | Veeva Systems | January 31, 2026 | $3,195.3 | Subscription, $2,684.2 | 84.0% | | Vertical | Toast | December 31, 2025 | $6,153 | Subscription services, $936 | 15.2% | | Infrastructure | Snowflake | January 31, 2026 | $4,683.9 | Product revenue (usage), $4,472.3 | 95.5% | | Infrastructure | Datadog | December 31, 2025 | $3,427.2 | Not split in the results release | n/a | How four of them describe themselves in their own releases: - **Veeva:** a provider of "industry cloud solutions for the global life sciences industry". - **Toast:** a platform "purpose-built for the entire restaurant community". - **Datadog:** "the AI-powered observability and security platform for cloud applications". - **Snowflake:** "the AI Data Cloud company". **Example:** the share column is recurring revenue divided by total revenue. - Salesforce: 39,388 / 41,525 = 0.949, or 94.9%. - Workday: 8,833 / 9,552 = 0.925, or 92.5%. - Veeva: 2,684.2 / 3,195.3 = 0.840, or 84.0%. - Toast: 936 / 6,153 = 0.152, or 15.2%. - Snowflake: 4,472.3 / 4,683.9 = 0.955, or 95.5%. ## What they have in common, and where they differ **Most of the money recurs.** Four of the five companies with a split earn 84% or more of revenue from subscriptions or, in Snowflake's case, product usage. The remainder sits in each company's other revenue lines. **A vertical company can earn mostly from financial services.** Toast is the outlier. In 2025 it reported financial technology solutions revenue of $5,037 million. That is 5,037 / 6,153 = 81.9% of the total, against 15.2% from subscriptions. The remaining $6,153 - $5,037 - $936 = $180 million comes from its other revenue lines. Software is the way in; financial technology, reported as its own line, is most of the revenue. **Infrastructure is often priced by use.** Snowflake says its product revenue is "primarily derived from the consumption of compute, storage, and data transfer resources", and the company reports a net revenue retention rate of 125% as of January 31, 2026. Datadog counts customers by annual recurring revenue (ARR): 603 customers with ARR of $1 million or more and about 4,310 with $100,000 or more, as of December 31, 2025. **Scale varies widely inside one segment.** Salesforce's revenue is 41,525 / 9,552 = 4.3 times Workday's, and both are horizontal. Segment says who buys, not how big a company gets. **Fiscal years do not line up.** Four of the six close on January 31 and two on December 31, so the periods overlap by only eleven months. Compare growth within one company, not across companies on one date. ## Checklist: reading a B2B SaaS company's numbers - Find the fiscal year end and write it next to every figure. - Find revenue by type in the results release or annual report. - Divide the recurring line by total revenue. - Check whether the recurring line is a subscription or usage that can shrink. - Look for a retention metric and read how the company defines it. - Note any large non-software line, such as financial technology or hardware. ## Common mistakes 1. **Ranking companies from "fastest growing" lists.** Such lists often mix audited figures with private estimates. Why it happens: they are the first search results. Instead: use audited revenue from a filing or results release, with the fiscal year named. 2. **Assuming every B2B SaaS company earns mostly subscriptions.** Toast earns 15.2% of revenue from subscriptions and 81.9% from financial technology. Why it happens: "SaaS" sounds like subscriptions only. Instead: read the revenue lines before you call a business model. 3. **Treating usage revenue like a fixed subscription.** Revenue that follows consumption can fall when customers use less, even if nobody cancels. Why it happens: both are called recurring. Instead: check whether the company prices by seat, by contract or by use. 4. **Comparing figures across different fiscal years.** A year ending in January and a year ending in December overlap by only eleven months. Why it happens: news stories put the "latest" numbers side by side. Instead: name the period next to every figure, as the table does. ## Sources - Salesforce, Inc., [fourth quarter fiscal 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1108524/000110852426000056/crm-q4fy26xexhibit991.htm), February 25, 2026. - Workday, Inc., [Form 10-K for fiscal 2026](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1327811/000132781126000014/wday-20260131.htm). - Veeva Systems Inc., [fourth quarter and fiscal 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1393052/000139305226000007/veev-20260131q426xex991.htm), March 4, 2026. - Toast, Inc., [fourth quarter and full year 2025 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650164/000165016426000050/tost-20251231xexhibit991.htm), February 12, 2026. - Snowflake Inc., [fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2026 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1640147/000162828026011631/fy2026q4earnings.htm), February 25, 2026. - Datadog, Inc., [fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1561550/000162828026006645/ex-991x20251231x8k.htm), February 10, 2026. ## In three sentences B2B SaaS companies fall into three segments by buyer: horizontal tools for every industry, vertical software for one industry, and infrastructure for engineering teams. Salesforce, Workday, Veeva and Snowflake earn 84.0% to 95.5% of revenue from their main software line, while Toast, a vertical company, earns 81.9% from financial technology and 15.2% from subscriptions. Read each company's revenue lines, fiscal year and retention definition before you compare it with another one. --- Canonical: