The pressure on SaaS companies is coming from several directions at once: Customer acquisition costs remain high, while many categories are crowded with similar tools. Buyers are scrutinizing software budgets more aggressively, just as AI begins to change the relationship between software usage, human labor and business value.
That last point may prove to be the most important. If AI agents can automate tasks that once required multiple employees working inside a platform, then the traditional seat-based revenue model becomes less natural. A company that leans heavily into automation will get more value from a product while putting fewer people directly into the interface. In that world, charging by the number of users may no longer reflect how value is actually created.
The subscription model won’t disappear overnight, but its next phase will be defined by a wider portfolio of revenue strategies. Remember that Netflix resisted ads for years, then found total revenue per user was higher on its ad-supported tier. Some companies will move further toward usage-based pricing, charging customers according to consumption, transactions, compute or workflow volume. Others will experiment with outcome-based models that tie pricing more directly to predefined business results. Many will create premium automation layers, advanced analytics products or AI-native features that justify new packaging. Some will build marketplaces around their ecosystems. Others will embed payments, financing, logistics, insurance or other transaction-adjacent services.
For a certain class of SaaS companies, media may become part of the answer. This is especially true for B2B2C platforms that already operate recurring, authenticated consumer touchpoints. Think about booking confirmations, order updates, receipts, account dashboards, tracking pages, appointment flows, loyalty experiences and other product surfaces that consumers revisit because they are useful. These high-attention moments were not designed as media inventory, but they often combine attention, identity, intent and context in ways that make them appealing to advertisers.
That does not mean every SaaS company should become an ad network. The worst possible response to margin pressure would be to clutter useful software experiences with irrelevant ads that erode trust. SaaS companies do not have the same permission structure as publishers or social platforms. Customers and end users come to software to accomplish a task. Monetization that gets in the way of that task will feel extractive.
The better question is: “Where does the product already create value, engagement or transaction proximity that could support a new revenue model without weakening the experience?”
In some cases, the answer will have nothing to do with media. A vertical SaaS platform that facilitates payments may find its next growth layer in financial services. A workflow platform may monetize benchmarking data or predictive insights. A logistics platform may build a marketplace. AI widens the range of what products can be built using existing relationships.
The common thread is that SaaS companies need to think beyond access. The new model will be about monetizing the value that flows through software: transactions, decisions, audiences, workflows, data, outcomes and engagement.
That shift will require discipline. New revenue streams can strengthen a SaaS business, but they can also distract from the core product. Companies will need to ask hard questions about user experience and data ownership before adding any monetization layer.
These questions matter because software companies have an advantage that should not be wasted. They often sit close to real workflows and real transactions. They have authenticated relationships. Those are powerful assets if leveraged carefully.
The first era of SaaS was about moving software to the cloud. The second was about scaling recurring revenue. The next era will be about building business models that reflect how software actually creates value in an AI-shaped economy.
Ryan Cook is the VP of Advertising at Disco, a leading commerce media platform. An adtech veteran with 20+ years navigating the full funnel, Ryan has helped propel four acquisitions and has led enterprise sales teams at Teads, Digital Turbine and Criteo.
