SaaS Capital's own survey ties growth to retention, not ACV

The record

SaaS Capital, a lender to subscription software companies, publishes an annual growth-rate benchmark drawn from its own outreach to private B2B SaaS operators. The 2026 Private B2B SaaS Company Growth Rate Benchmarks brief states it is the firm's '15th annual survey, featuring insights from more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies.' The brief reports a median growth rate of 22% for 2025 across all respondents, down from a population median of 25% in 2024, with bootstrapped companies reporting 20% median growth and equity-backed companies 25%. It also reports that companies with the highest net revenue retention band grew at a median 173% above the overall population median, while average contract value showed no clear correlation with growth rate across the years SaaS Capital has run the survey.

What the documents establish

The brief and a companion summary post both name SaaS Capital as the source and repeat the same figures, but neither document, as retrieved, spells out how respondent companies were recruited or whether the more-than-1,000 figure represents a stable panel or a changing mix of volunteers each year. What both documents do establish is the direction and structure of the correlation: growth is described as 'positively and exponentially correlated' with net revenue retention, a relationship SaaS Capital calls 'a rare example of increasing returns' rather than a fixed multiplier, while contract value size is explicitly said not to track growth in this population.

The operating read

Editorially, the retention-to-growth relationship is the more defensible takeaway here because SaaS Capital states it consistently across years and describes the shape of the relationship rather than a single number to hit. The 22% median growth figure is a snapshot of whichever private companies responded to SaaS Capital's outreach in this survey cycle, useful for a founder as one data point among several, not as a precise industry growth rate, since the firm's own client base of SaaS borrowers likely shapes who receives and returns the survey.

What to check before you decide

Before using a SaaS Capital figure in a growth conversation, check the following.

• Is the year the figure describes clearly stated, since the brief itself compares 2025 against a 2024 population median?
• Does your company's ownership structure, bootstrapped or equity-backed, match the segment the figure describes?
• Is the retention-growth relationship being treated as a guaranteed return rather than the directional pattern SaaS Capital describes?

The survey is a lender's own read of its addressable market, valuable for the consistency of its year-over-year framing, and most useful when the specific year and segment are named rather than rounded into a single 'SaaS companies grow X percent' line.