The death of SaaS has been greatly exaggerated

Recent discourse in the tech industry argues that AI agents that replace human workers and use APIs to access traditional SaaS tools will force SaaS off the per-seat model. It’s one feature of the so-called SaaSpocalypse, which suggests that SaaS companies must reorient around outcome- or usage-based pricing or risk death. Ramp data shows that traditional SaaS vendors have not moved to a new pricing model.

A 200-plus vendor panel built using Ramp Rate, including contracts for Salesforce, Atlassian, HubSpot, Adobe, Docusign, Zoom, Oracle and more, shows seat-based contracts at 65-75% of spend, flat platform subscriptions at 20-30%, and consumption-based spend stuck at 4-6%. The lines have barely moved in 12 months.

For the traditional SaaS vendors that have made early consumption-based offerings, the vast majority of spend remains seat-based. Consumption-based revenue has barely increased.

According to Ramp data, 99% of Adobe bills are seat-based. The company sells Firefly AI credits and other services, like Acrobat Sign API calls, which combined are a rounding error compared to Creative Cloud licenses.

Similarly, spend on HubSpot is almost entirely seat-based, despite the rollout of credits for its Breeze AI capabilities in spring 2025. Our data is consistent with HubSpot’s financial reports, where the company reported that less than 2% of revenue came from “professional services and other,” which includes revenue from usage-based products like Breeze.

Narratives surrounding the death of SaaS are — at best — coming too early. They’re more a reflection of where product leaders see the industry going rather than a decision being driven by buyer behavior. That could change. So far, it has not.