Tidemark Vertical SaaS Benchmark Report

Vertical SaaS has long been viewed as more defensible than horizontal SaaS, but how much of that belief is supported by real benchmark data? In this episode, Dave “CAC” Kellogg and Ray “Growth” Rike break down the Tidemark 2025 Vertical & SMB SaaS Benchmark Report, a 60-slide analysis based on data from more than 200 SaaS companies across a wide range of industries.

They explore:

• What Tidemark means by “control points” and how product entry points relate to retention, ARPA, and defensibility

• Whether multi-product expansion actually delivers higher growth and net revenue retention in Vertical SaaS

• Why fintech, especially payments, has become the most common expansion path and what attach rates reveal about stickiness

• How far Vertical SaaS companies are going beyond core products to extend into suppliers, employees, and end customers

• What the data says about AI adoption, packaging, and pricing, and whether AI products are truly driving higher growth

This episode digs into where the report delivers strong quantitative insights, where the narrative outpaces the data, and what Vertical SaaS operators should take away when thinking about control points, expansion strategy, and AI monetization.