The Best of OPEXEngine 2025
If you're looking for some holiday reading, look no further. We’ve curated a list of our most-read, most-shared insights from 2025. These pieces capture what SaaS operators and investors discussed most this year and what we collectively learned about growth, efficiency, and value creation in a market that rewarded leaders who stayed focused and decisive. You might even find a few ideas worth carrying into January.
1. White Paper: How Early SaaS Growth Model Choices Shape Organizational DNA
Our research with Aura Intelligence examines how early resourcing decisions influence cost structure, productivity and organizational norms. It provides a structured view of how early growth models shape long-term operating profiles.
2. Webinar: Inside Tech Private Equity
Jennifer Smith (Partner, Bain & Company) and Katherine Zhang (CEO, OPEXEngine) shared what top performing SaaS companies are doing differently and how investor expectations are evolving. The slides offer a helpful reference for planning and fundraising conversations.
Download the slides ▶ or Listen to the podcast ▶
3. White Paper: Key SaaS Metrics and Benchmarks
A concise guide to the financial and customer metrics that matter most. The paper outlines a consistent way to evaluate recurring revenue, retention, unit economics, cost ratios and profitability.
4. Article: OPEXEngine Featured in Bain’s Global Private Equity Report
Margin expansion became a defining theme in software investing. Bain’s 2025 Global Private Equity Report showed that while many buyouts projected strong margin improvement, few achieved their targets. With capital constrained, investors needed deeper visibility into operating efficiency.
OPEXEngine’s benchmarks provided key fact bases for evaluating margin potential. In one example, a deal team used OPEXEngine’s data to identify a 30% productivity gap relative to top quartile peers, informing a more grounded value creation plan.
5. Brief: 2025 SaaS Sector Operating Trends
This year’s benchmark report highlighted a story of resilience. Growth softened, but at a slower pace. EBITDA margins improved by about 5 ppt. Sales and marketing spend declined, while R&D remained a priority. Our brief provides a clear view of sector performance and the themes that shaped operating choices.
Podcasts You Played on Repeat
We podcasted, and you listened! In fact, our total listener base grew 47% this year, thanks to your engagement. Here are the episodes that were streamed the most.
6. Annual Planning in SaaS: Using Benchmarks to Drive Better Decision-Making
A conversation with Relativity's Senior Director of FP&A about how benchmarks can simplify planning and support more aligned decision making.
16:30
7. R&D ROI with Jellyfish
How to measure engineering effectiveness with rigor and connect R&D investment to outcomes.
20:57
8. Maximizing GTM Success with RevOps in 2025
What distinguishes high performing GTM systems and where teams are still refining their approach.
15:47
Product Updates: What’s New at OPEXEngine
In 2025, we expanded the OPEXEngine platform to better support how SaaS operators and investors use our benchmarks to plan, evaluate performance, and make decisions.
For SaaS operators, we introduced 360 Operational Benchmarking Insights Reports, which are custom-built to each company’s strategy and peer set, along with the Annual Planning Dashboard, which helps teams view actuals, targets, and projections alongside relevant benchmarks during planning cycles.
For investors, we launched the Investor Dashboard, providing portfolio-level visibility across key SaaS financial and operational metrics with company-level detail and benchmark context in a single view.
Looking Ahead to 2026: Participate in Our Benchmarking Survey
Our annual benchmarking survey will open in January with an updated structure and expanded metric coverage. The 2026 survey introduces new GTM and AI metrics that reflect how SaaS operating models are evolving. We have also streamlined the format to make participation faster and easier, guided by feedback from our customers.
We’ll share additional details as we kick off the 2026 benchmarking cycle. Contact our team to participate or to learn more.
