The SaaS world isn’t slowing down. It’s just getting harder to track.

Every week, dozens of new software tools quietly launch. Some solve real problems. Others are near-identical clones with a twist of AI.

At SaaS Browser, we track over 500,000 tools. That includes a fresh batch of 1,000 fastest-growing SaaS companies added monthly.

In this report, we’re blending our own data with funding trends across the industry to answer one simple question:

Where is the SaaS market actually going in 2025?

If you’re building, investing, or just curious about the direction SaaS is headed in 2025, this report will help you see what’s rising, what’s a bit too crowded, and what’s possibly next for you.

#1 SaaS Growth by the Numbers

The SaaS market is huge.

At SaaS Browser, we’re currently tracking over 500,000 SaaS tools — spanning everything from AI-powered video editors to compliance dashboards. These are actual products, indexed with real sites, categories, and market signals.

Every month, we add >10,000 new tools to the database. That alone tells us something important: new SaaS companies are still being created at a high pace.

Categories with the most new entries

Looking at the most recent 10,000 additions, we noticed several SaaS categories popping up far more often than others:

These aren’t all new, but these categories in particular are still attracting new entrants. Whether that’s due to demand, low barriers to entry, or bandwagon effects is harder to say without deeper behavior or revenue data.

That said, categories like "AI-powered No-Code App Builders" now count 6,170 tools. That’s a strong sign, you guessed it, that “build without developers” is a very hot trend.

Company age & free trials

We also see a meaningful pattern in company maturity.

A significant portion of last month’s 10,000 tools were founded post-2020. Many during or just after the pandemic. That timing likely pushed more startups into remote-first tools, AI-based productivity apps, and niche automation platforms.

Another interesting data point: just under 60% of newly discovered SaaS tools offer a free trial or freemium plan, based on publicly available information. That suggests that product-led growth is a dominant go-to-market play, especially for early-stage teams.

#2 The Rise of AI-Native SaaS

In 2025, we’re seeing more startups built around AI.

These are AI-native SaaS products designed to leverage ML, Open AI, or autonomous agents as core infrastructure.

VC confidence is high and growing

According to Crunchbase, AI startups secured more than $100 billion in global funding in 2024, roughly one-third of all venture capital that year. 

For instance, Databricks, a company using AI to process large data quickly, has raised $10B marking the largest venture capital raise of 2024. And in 2025, according to Reuters, Perplexity eyes $14 billion in valuation in a fresh funding round.

These valuations show investor appetite for AI isn’t cooling, no matter how big the fish. Everything, including investments, is evolving toward tools with embedded intelligence.

Revenue is arriving faster than before

Not only are AI-native SaaS startups raising large rounds — they’re monetizing quickly. As reported by the Financial Times, data from Stripe shows that top AI startups are reaching $1 million in annualized revenue in just 11 months — compared to about 15 months for the average SaaS startup back in 2018.

That speed says something. AI is converting.

Beyond assistants: the age of AI agents

The next wave of AI-native SaaS may not look like a chatbot at all. According to a recent piece in the Economic Times, startups like Adopt AI are now building “agentic AI” platforms. These tools let teams deploy autonomous agents to complete tasks across apps without human oversight.

It’s a small but growing movement, and one that could shift the very shape of SaaS: from tools you use to teammates you delegate to.

What we’re seeing in our own data

Inside the SaaS Browser, our own (and world’s biggest) discovery dataset reflects this shift. Categories like:

…are among the most crowded and fastest-growing. New entrants continue to show up in more niche SaaS categories: AI-powered legal research, AI resume screeners, AI video editors — all carving out specialized use cases.

We won’t pretend to know which ones will stick. But there’s no question AI has turned hot. If 2024 was the year of “add AI,” then 2025 is the year of “start with AI and build from there.”

#3 Vertical SaaS Is Back

In 2025, we’re seeing more startups zero in on very specific industries: legal, healthcare, construction, logistics, even fish farming.

They’re not just tacking on integrations or templates. People who’ve spent years in their respective fields are building full-stack tools designed for the quirks of that space. Of course, more often than not, AI is baked in.

AI is making niche software more viable

Historically, vertical SaaS was tricky. Unless your target industry was massive, the Total Addressable Market (TAM) often looked too small to justify VC interest. Now, that’s changing.

Generative AI is opening the door to smaller, underserved industries that now can be reached profitably. AI compresses the time and resources needed to build something deeply customized.

We’re talking tools like:

  • Legal tech platforms that draft and review contracts
  • Construction platforms that automate bid estimation and compliance
  • Restaurant management systems with built-in forecasting and staffing AI
  • Verticalized CRM tools for real estate, healthcare clinics, and logistics teams

What SaaS Browser’s data shows

From our own SaaS Browser dataset of 10,000 newly tracked SaaS companies, nearly half operate in clearly verticalized markets. These range from:

  • Legal Tech – e.g. platforms like Clio, which recently raised $900 million (source)
  • Restaurant & Food Service SaaS – Restaurant365 secured $175 million to expand its all-in-one operations platform (source)
  • Healthcare SaaS – multiple new tools focused on scheduling, diagnostics, and insurance management
  • Logistics & Fleet Tech – specialized platforms for vehicle tracking, route planning, and driver compliance

These tools don’t need to dominate a global market. They just need to solve real, expensive problems in one specific domain. That’s exactly what more and more small-budget teams are doing.

Vertical SaaS isn’t “new”, but it’s newly viable

With AI, low-code infrastructure, and mature APIs, founders can build tailored products with less time and overhead. That changes the calculus.

Instead of building a “CRM for everyone,” more founders are now building a CRM for architects, or software for medical schools, or HR and payroll solutions.

It’s more focused. Less flashy. And that’s not a bad thing.

#4 Where the Money’s Going (And Where It’s Not)

Founders may follow trends. But venture capital tends to follow conviction. Right now, that conviction is clustering around a few key verticals.

According to Forbes, in July 2024 alone, healthcare and biotech startups raised over $6 billion, making them the most funded sector by a wide margin. Cybersecurity is right up there too, with companies like Wiz pulling in $1 billion for cloud security. 

Meanwhile, fintech is struggling compared to 2024. According to GFTN, coverage decreased to $11.4B, or 40%, from Q1 2024 .

Our own data reflects some of that (but not all)

When we look at the 1,000 fastest growing tools, we see some overlap with where investors are placing bets, especially in:

  • Healthcare & Diagnostics SaaS
  • Cybersecurity & Compliance Tools

But there are also surprising gaps.

For example, we still see a steady stream of new entrants in categories that aren't pulling big checks — like email marketing, productivity tracking, and low-code site builders.

This could reflect founders trying to bootstrap or pursue indie routes. It could also signal a lag between what’s being built and what the market wants to fund.

It’s also worth noting that some high-growth categories — like AI-powered content generation — are getting crowded fast. While they’re not necessarily underfunded, investor caution is starting to show as the novelty wears off.

What this tells us (and what it doesn’t)

Investor attention doesn’t always mean a category is healthy. Also, lack of investment doesn’t mean it’s dead.

But tracking capital flow does give us directional signals about where buyers, teams, and markets see the most urgency and opportunity.

#5 How SaaS Is Being Built

You can’t understand where SaaS is going without understanding how it’s getting made.

Let’s just say that human capital is not as attractive as AI in 2025. The leverage has changed. The story is about how quickly teams are shipping, how lean they are, and what tools they’re stacking together.

The rise of AI, low-code platforms, and modular infrastructure is changing things. Here’s what we’re seeing.

The default stack: faster, smaller, AI-assisted

Early-stage SaaS teams are shipping faster than ever. It’s because the stack itself has changed.

Most new SaaS products we track are cloud-native by default, built using a combination of:

  • Frontend frameworks like React, Vue, or Next.js
  • Backend stacks like Node.js, Python (FastAPI, Django), and G
  • Microservices and APIs, often connected via GraphQL
  • Postgres or NoSQL (MongoDB, Firebase) for storage
  • Stripe for payments, Auth0 for login, SendGrid for comms

Increasingly, LLMs and agents are baked in from the start. Not just as chatbots, but as core parts of workflows, automations, and backend logic.

What used to take a team of 10 now takes 2 people, one of whom might be a designer. According to Bessemer Venture Partners, developer productivity tools powered by AI (like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or Replit AI) helped compress engineering cycles significantly in 2024 — with $3.9 billion invested in this segment alone last year.

Sources: GitHub Octoverse 2024; Stackoverflow Developer Survey; BVP State of Cloud 2024

Serverless, low-code, and composability

We’re also seeing a growing trend toward serverless infrastructure. Platforms like Vercel, Netlify, and AWS Lambda let founders skip DevOps entirely and focus on product logic. This makes it easier to scale without hiring backend engineers right away.

And then there’s low-code and no-code. Platforms like Retool, Bubble, and Appsmith are now being used to build MVPs, internal dashboards, and even full-blown SaaS products.

In our own dataset, categories like:

...are growing steadily. This suggests that composable, plug-and-play architectures are helping founders focus on unique value.

#6 SaaS Saturation & Discovery: A Broken Funnel

With over 500,000 tools in our database, it’s clear that supply isn’t the problem — visibility is.

Many new SaaS products look and sound alike, especially in crowded categories. Even within our newest batch, we’ve spotted dozens that differ only slightly. A new UI here, a GPT plugin there.

But if you’re trying to find the right tools or be found as a tool, the experience is surprisingly difficult. SEO surfaces whoever’s written the most. Marketplaces are incomplete. Review sites are noisy. And filters often break down once you're comparing tools.

That’s exactly why we built SaaS Browser. We wanted to offer a searchable view into what’s out there, what’s trending, and what’s quietly rising. Not just to help SaaS founders stand out, but to help SaaS buyers and researchers make better decisions.

4 SaaS Bets for the Future

Having seen all the data, we hope some patterns are strong enough to bet on. Based on our internal discovery data, investment trends, and how teams are building today, here are five themes that look promising.

1. AI-powered compliance will go mainstream

Regulation is scaling faster than most companies can keep up with — GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, NIS2, and whatever’s next. That’s why we’re seeing a steady rise in AI-native compliance tools. They don’t only help track compliance requirements but interpret, suggest, and even write policies.

What’s more, most of these regulations, like NIS2 in Europe, are about to be adopted by local legislations in near future.

In our dataset, GDPR & Data Privacy Compliance Tools account for 4,213 tools. Not flashy, we know. As companies in healthcare, fintech, and logistics face growing regulatory pressure, demand for smart, domain-specific compliance SaaS is only going to go up.

2. Developer-first APIs are still fertile ground

Stripe, Twilio, and Plaid proved the value of API-first SaaS. That playbook is now moving into new spaces. From embedded tax logic to voice synthesis, new API platforms are launching with clearer docs, better dev UX, and AI-powered testing baked in.

In our data, API & Backend-as-a-Service Platforms remain one of the most active categories, with over 10,000 tools tracked. The market isn’t saturated. It’s modular and there’s room for more specialized, performant options.

3. Old-school industries are finally ready for SaaS

Vertical SaaS isn’t new, but it’s finding its stride in places that used to be unreachable. From farming to fleet operations, we’re seeing startups quietly build tools that address very specific, legacy-heavy workflows.

Platforms targeting construction, restaurant ops, and healthcare continue to surface weekly. Many are using AI to solve bottlenecks that used to require paperwork or outdated on-prem software.

4. Agent-based workflows are coming

This is the most experimental of the five — but also the one with the biggest upside. The idea is simple. Instead of clicking buttons, users set outcomes, and AI agents handle the in-between.

Think of it as SaaS moving from interface to intention.

5 Underrated SaaS Categories to Watch

Sometimes the real opportunities are where the crowd hasn’t caught on yet. Based on our SaaS Browser dataset of 500K+ tools, here are five categories that aren’t saturated but show promise.

1. AI-powered legal research platforms (881 tools)

Legaltech is notoriously complex, but AI is starting to break open new frontiers. Think law search, contract analysis, and compliance insights.

With large language models able to parse dense legal language, the barrier to entry for startups is lowering — but the market still isn’t flooded.

Check AI-powered Legal Research Platforms on SaaS Browser

2. Quality Management Systems (QMS) (3,551 tools)

Yes, this one’s above the 2,000 threshold, but it's worth highlighting.

QMS platforms are mission-critical in manufacturing, healthcare, and biotech, yet remain under-discussed in most SaaS commentary. With global supply chains still strained and regulations tightening, this space could see renewed attention from AI-enhanced workflow tools.

Check Quality Management Systems on SaaS Browser

3. Simulation & modeling tools (1,649 tools)

From urban planning to robotics, simulation is a space where SaaS hasn't hit full stride yet. Cloud-native tools for simulating environments, systems, or behavior are growing quietly. AI is likely to accelerate that growth by reducing the need for physics-heavy modeling from scratch.

Check Simulation & modeling tools on SaaS Browser

4. Podcast hosting & distribution platforms (637 tools)

Podcasting hasn’t gone away — in fact, everyone’s doing it. And everyone, well, they need help.

Dynamic ad insertion, multi-platform analytics, and AI-driven voice editing… Innovation opportunities are endless, and the market is ripe. With B2B podcasting on the rise and enterprise adoption picking up, there’s still room to monetize.

Check Podcast hosting & distribution platforms on SaaS Browser

One Last Thought

The SaaS space in 2025 is vast, fast-moving, and more fragmented than ever. AI isn’t just transforming products — it’s rewriting how they’re built, funded, and discovered.

Under the noise, real patterns are emerging: vertical focus is back, infrastructure is leaner, and discoverability is the next big challenge.

We built a SaaS Browser to help make sense of it all. If you’re building, investing, or researching — dig in. The future’s already shipping.