Research Outline

SaaS Developers Platforms

Goals

To list the business models and revenue generated for the top SaaS developers' platforms.

Early Findings

  • The top SaaS developers platform presented here were selected on the basis of their inclusion in a list of the top 10 SaaS companies and applications of 2020 from DesignRush, and a list on the blog of Nextiva, where the top 75 SaaS companies of the decade was listed.
  • Dropbox was listed as the top developer platform by DesignRush and as one of the top platforms for project management by Nextiva. The company has over 500,000 developers and annual revenue for 2019 was $1.7 billion.
  • Hubspot is ranked second by DesignRush, and as one of the top Marketing tools by Nextiva. The annual revenue was $674.9 million, up 32% compared to 2018.
  • Mailchimp places third on the DeisgnRush list, and is also listed as a top marketing tool by Nextiva. The company is privately held, however annual revenue is estimated at $700 million for 2019.
  • Adobe is ranked fourth on the DesignRush list and is also listed as a top marketing tool by Nextiva. Annual revenue for fiscal 2019 was $11 billion.
  • Slack is listed in fifth place by DeisgnRush, and as one of the top business communications tools by Nextiva. Annual revenue for fiscal year 2020 increased year-over-year by 57% to $630.4 million.
  • Shopify is ranked sixth by DesignRush, and is named as a top website content tool by Nextiva. Annual revenue increased by 47% over the revenue for 2018 to $1.578 billion.
  • Microsoft is placed at seventh by DesignRush, and is one of the top workforce automation tools according to Nextiva. Annual revenue for fiscal 2019 was $125.843 billion
  • Google places eight on the DeisgnRush list and is also listed as a top workforce automation tool by Nextiva. Annual revenue for Alphabet, parent company for Google for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2020 was $166.030 billion, an increase of 11.96%.
  • SurveyMonkey places at number nine on the DesignRush list, and is listed as a top data analytics tool by Nextiva. Annual revenue for fiscal year 2019 was $307.4 million.
  • Zoom ranks at number ten on the DesignRush list, and is included in Nextiva's list of top business communications tools. Annual revenue for Zoom in fiscal 2019 was $331 million.
  • Cvent and Eventbrite were not mentioned in the DesignRush article, however they were mentioned as top event marketing tools by Nextiva. In an article in the Washington Business Journal, it was reported that Moody's Investor Service projects annual revenue for the privately held Cvent at $630 million to $706 million for 2020-2021. Eventbrite posted annual revenue of $327 million for fiscal 2019.

Summary

  • During the initial hour the focus was placed on determining the availability of the requested data. The list of top SaaS developers' platforms presented here was culled from a top ten list for 2020 and a list of the top 75 SaaS platforms from the past decade. Annual revenue figures for each company named was also presented.
  • We propose to continue the research to provide a profile of each company which will include the number of developers per platform, as well as information defining the business model adopted for each platform, as well as how it has been adapted to suit the needs of the company. Please note that despite being unable to find absolute figures for the number of developers for some platforms, and although the search for this figure will continue, there is a possibility that the information for some platforms is not publicly available.