Is Netflix a SaaS? 25 Examples of SaaS Companies that Are Rocking It

First of all, to answer the question in the title: Yes, Netflix is a SaaS company that sells software to watch licensed videos on demand. It follows a subscription-based model whereby the user chooses a subscription plan and pays a fixed sum of money to Netflix monthly or annually.

SaaS is not a new concept.

It’s actually been a business model since the 1960s. Back then, computers were enormous (remember the computer room – yes, room – in the movie Hidden Figures?):

Computers were also very expensive, making it unrealistic for any company other than a large enterprise to purchase one, never mind several. That’s pretty much how the SaaS industry started – although back then they called it a “time-sharing system”.

But the first SaaS company, Concur, started selling software licenses directly to enterprises in 1998 (they were acquired by SAP in 2014 and renamed SAP Concur).

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What Is SaaS?

SaaS, which stands for software as a service, is a software that you can access via your Internet browser without the need to download it onto your computer, laptop or smartphone.

SaaS usually comes as a subscription-based service where the user pays a fixed amount monthly or annually for using the software. All the user’s data are kept in the SaaS provider’s data center.

Also called cloud computing, SaaS is actually one of three main categories of cloud computing. The other two are infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). Email services that you commonly use like Gmail and Yahoo are probably the best examples of SaaS companies.

SaaS is a hot-selling business model because it provides greater flexibility to the customer and every SaaS company works on specific verticals to differentiate their product from others. It won’t take long for the SaaS model to be adopted by almost every company looking to expand its reach globally.

Top SaaS Stats, Trends and Forecasts

Here are a handful of SaaS stats to give you a greater picture of this business model:

• A survey by Finances Online suggests that about 86% of companies will be running entirely on SaaS by 2026:

• Enterprise SaaS revenue crossed the $100 billion-mark in 2026 and is growing at an average rate of 30% per annum:

• The usage-based pricing model (aka “pay as you go”) is on the rise and is quickly becoming the most preferred pricing offer for SaaS companies.
• 93% of C-suite executives are adopting or planning to adopt cloud SaaS.
• 70% of CIOs are attracted to cloud-based SaaS for its agility and scalability.
• 38% of companies adopt cloud-based systems to enhance disaster recovery.