Nowadays, most businesses rely on SaaS services to manage their operations, improve their reach, and be more accessible online. As a result, the SaaS market is among the most successful in 2023. By the end of 2024, this market is expected to reach $232 billion.
And that’s reasonable, considering that more than 70% of businesses (both small and big) already invest in attractive SaaS business model.
At the same time, there are plenty of SaaS startups that quickly became successful by adding value to the online world. From collaboration software providers like Zoom and content optimization software such as Surfer SEO to email marketing SaaS platforms like Hunter, nothing is left out.
In this blog post, we take a look at the 19 best SaaS startups for 2023, with the main goal of exploring each startup's niche and the services/software they use to outshine their competitors.
If you are thinking of starting a new SaaS company, or trying to find the best SaaS to grow your business, this article will help you do it. Without further ado, let us move on to the most successful SaaS startups we could find online.
While there are many successful software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups on the market, the 19 we have selected have proven to be the most innovative and widespread this year. Sure, SaaS companies like Google and Microsoft are among the most well-known in the world.
But the startups' innovation and B2B utility are what we filtered out to create the following list of the top SaaS startups in 2023:
Niche: cybersecurity
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Massachusetts, U.S
The main reason Aura was founded was to help people feel safe online. And that's exactly what this SaaS application does. As Hari Ravichandran, Aura's founder and SEO, says "Back in 2014, no single product could give me all the solutions I needed."
To be precise, Aura is an innovative Saas solution for both individuals and businesses. The software promises all-around protection. This means that the Aura app comes with 3 bureau credit monitoring, credit lock, built-in antivirus, secure VPN, password manager, and much more.
This ability to easily manage your protection from one place is what has made Aura so valuable to businesses around the world. When you add in top-notch customer support and affordable pricing plans, Aura is a top SaaS startup that easily made it into our top picks.
Niche: email outreach
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Delaware, U.S
For more than 7 years, Hunter has been one of the most successful SaaS startups for good reason. Hunter's goal is to help other businesses grow by creating new online connections. That means the company offers a collection of best-in-class email marketing tools and resources.
To be specific, Hunter has developed a domain search and email finder that allows you to find business and professional email addresses in seconds. At the same time, the website offers a web-based email verifier that allows companies to validate a specific address.
In addition, Hunter helps businesses hyper-personalize and automate their email outreach campaigns and has one of the most extensive collections of cold email templates on the market. All of this makes Hunter one of the most innovative and valuable SaaS platforms in 2023.
Niche: video conferencing
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: California, U.S
Zoom needs no introduction. As one of the most popular video cloud-based conferencing softwares on the market, Zoom easily made it to our list of the top SaaS startups. Although the platform quickly became popular, the reach of remote work has helped Zoom become a must-have tool for millions of businesses around the world.
The platform was gradually optimized for both remote and in-house teams. Logically, this contributed to Zoom becoming the best solution for the so-called hybrid workforce and webinars. The number of active meeting participants grew by nearly 3,000% in 2020 and the company's innovative solutions do not end there. In fact, Zoom is arguably the best way to design virtual events in 2023.
Recently, Zoom launched new services that are also tailored to professionals and businesses, such as Zoom Whiteboard and Zoom IQ (for sales teams).
Niche: CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: California, U.S
As a SaaS startup that’s depended on a 100% remote team, Close sits where innovation meets customer relationships. In a few words, Close is a web-based CRM platform that allows sales teams to grow by building deeper relationships with customers.
Via the platform, each team member has the opportunity to check their corporate email while exploring opportunities, connecting with customers (SMS, emails, calls, videos), tracking documents, and much more. So, you can think of Close as an all-in-one platform for remote (and in-house) teams.
It can’t be denied that customer support and follow-up rates are crucial for growing a business, whether it is a startup or a big company. And this is exactly where Close comes in handy.
Niche: CMS (Content Management System)
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: California, U.S
Webflow is an innovative CMS that’s based on one simple rule: that the creation and management of a website shouldn’t depend on coding. As the Webflow website states, a business website should be nothing more than a marketing asset, and not a difficult engineering challenge.
And this is exactly what the Webflow builder is all about. The website building process in Weblow is similar to graphic design software like Photoshop. What this means is that the platform allows for designers, marketers and developers to create eye-catching websites without any hussle.
With thousands of premade templates for custom blogs, ecommerce stores, and portfolios, top-notch support and budget-friendly pricing plans, this SaaS CMS startup is here to stay.
Niche: Software development
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: San Francisco, USA
If you’re a developer or a business owner of a software-related organization, then you probably already know what Github is all about. In less than 15 years, Github proved why the market needed a web-based development platform.
With more than 100 million developers and 4 million organizations, Github quickly became much more than a software development host. Of course, the platform helps developers to build, share and support their software.
But, at the same time, has an extensive section that developers use to share their ideas and expertise and collaborate. The GitHub Education program and community forum are some of the most commonly used portals, especially for self-tough developers.
Niche: CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: New York, U.S
As with Close, Pipedrive is a top-notch SaaS startup that’s created to help entrepreneurs organize their sales funnel. This is an innovative, user-friendly application that allows remote and in-house teams to work more effectively and collaborate in real-time.
The Pipedrive platform focuses on the business’s leads and allows every team member to create a new lead entry, contact and send proposals. At the same time, the app allows users to manipulate and optimize the templates (workflow stages) to match their needs and preferences.
With a comprehensive list of sales actions and real-time reports, Pipedrive is an all-rounder service that proves to be valuable for both big and small businesses worldwide.
Niche: Virtual Workspace/ Project Management
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: California, U.S
When businesses look for an all-in-one workspace that allows their team to keep notes, manage projects, add docs and communicate, Notion is usually the first solution they come across.
The reason is simple. Notion is an innovative SaaS startup that keeps optimizing its services by the day. As an online workspace, Notion is a very flexible platform that allows remote and in-house teams to create several project management systems based on premade templates.
The Notion app is available for desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Finally, this is also one of the most affordable workspaces available on the market. So, it is no wonder why big businesses such as Loom, Buffer and Figma trust Notion to manage their projects.
Niche: Form Building
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Barcelona, Spain
There’s no denial that forms, surveys and quizzes play an important role in today’s digital marketing world. And Typeform is the best way to create professional forms of any kind, quickly and effectively.
The web-based Typeform form builder comes with integrated photo and video libraries, multiple premade form templates and a variety of top-notch editing tools. So, this SaaS startup offers an innovative way to grow your audience and generate new leads by building and sharing conversational forms.
Finally, the platform seamlessly integrates with multiple collaboration, management platforms and software companies like Google Drive, Slack, Hubspot, etc.
Niche: SEO
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: Singapore, Singapore
When it comes to backlink analysis and the development of innovative SEO tools, the Ahrefs SaaS startup is hard to beat. For more than 10 years, Ahrefs has been used by numerous colossal companies such as Facebook, Netflix and Uber.
As a comprehensive collection of SEO-related tools, Ahrefs allows businesses to analyze and optimize their website for SEO to a high degree. From competitor analysis and keyword research to tracking SERPs and URL errors, there’s nothing the ahrefs platform doesn’t include.
With more than 3,000 servers, the Ahrefs team is one of the world leaders when it comes to collecting and analyzing SEO-related data. So, if a business needs to optimize its SEO marketing strategy, this SaaS startup is the ultimate all-rounder.
Niche: Appointment Scheduling
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Georgia, U.S
Calendly is more than just another appointment scheduling hub for voice messaging. This is one of the top SaaS startups for 2023 for many reasons. First of all, the main goal of the Calendly app is to over-simplify the appointment schedule of businesses and individuals around the world.
This is why the app allows you to manage your meetings and coordinate with your team in real-time, and just by pressing a few buttons. Businesses have the chance to control how each team member is booked and standardize the process.
With its extended documentation, solutions for sales teams and individuals and more than 10 million users worldwide, Calendly easily earned its place on our list.
Niche: Advertising Services / Content Optimization
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Washington, U.S
As the name suggests, Content Harmony is a SaaS startup that was developed to help businesses automation for content marketing strategies. With the help of premade brief templates, the Content Harmony platform allows businesses to speedup their workflow and add marketing automation.
To be more precise, the Content Marketing briefs help businesses analyze the search intent, conduct keyword research, reverse-engineer competitor content, and more.
Of course, this is a process that every business follows during a content marketing campaign. But, by automating the process, businesses save both time and money. And this is why Content Harmony is one of the most successful SaaS startups for 2023.
Niche: Advertising Services / Content Optimization
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Dolnośląskie, Poland
Just like Content Harmony, Surfer is a SaaS startup that aims in helping businesses optimize their content strategies. Although this is a relatively new platform, large companies like Shopify and FedEx already use the services of Surfer.
The web-based platform of Surfer uses AI to help businesses create content outlines and optimize their content straight from their browser. Apart from that, Surfer offers multiple live SEO training, via the well-known Surfer Academy.
Through the Surfer Basic, Pro and Business plans, companies have the opportunity to optimize their existing content and generate new top-notch articles. The website offers multiple SEO tools, such as a content editor, a content planner, a SERP analyzer and an SEO audit.
Niche: Advertising Services / Content Optimization
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Texas, U.S
Clearscope is another platform that businesses use to drive organic traffic to their websites and outshine their competitors in terms of SEO. Again, this is a top-notch SaaS startup that, in less than 10 years, has managed to attract numerous businesses for all the good reasons.
The process is pretty simple: all you need to do is use the platform to optimize your content in terms of SEO. Just by adding the title of the article you’re about to create, you get an extended report that includes valuable keywords, readability, suggested topic length, and more.
Recently, the Clearscope development team created a Google Docs Add-on and a WordPress plugin that helps businesses optimize their content even faster.
Niche: Subscription analytics and insights
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: California, U.S
If a business needs a comprehensive control center that includes all the analytics and insights for revenue, MRR growth rate, active customers and more, Baremetrics is a great solution. This U.S based SaaS startup is trusted by large corporations like Todoist and Product Hunt.
With real-time metrics about a business’s new subscriptions, expansions, churns, etc, there’s nothing that the Baremetrics control center doesn’t include. Even though driving traffic to your business is crucial, hyper-analyzing this traffic is equally important in the long run.
And this is exactly why Baremetrics is included in this list. After all, taking data-driven decisions will always be safer and more effective.
Niche: Apps Suite
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Kyiv, Ukraine
Our next selection has little in common with the other SaaS startups on this list. Sure, SetApp is a web-based SaaS startup that provides certain services to businesses and individuals. But it is a very innovative startup when it comes to its area of interest.
To be precise, SetApp is a suite that lets you use certain Mac and iOS apps via a standard membership. The platform includes a selection of more than 200 apps for Apple devices and is available at an affordable price.
You can find pretty much any type of app you are looking for in the package: from productivity and security apps to writing and blogging management apps, nothing is left out. SetApp was developed by the well-known company MacPaw, which creates some of the best management and security apps for Mac devices.
Niche: Website Visitor Insights / Feedback Collection
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: St Julian's, Malta
Hotjar is another successful startup that revolves around digital marketing and customer behavior. The main goal of the Hotjar portal is to help businesses understand what their visitors feel about their products/services and analyze their behavior.
In other words, Hotjar is a comprehensive web-based platform that collects customer data and feedback while helping businesses to automate and personalize their marketing strategies.
One of the most interactive features of the Hotjar app is the heatmaps, which is nothing more than the visualization of a user’s behavior. So, Hotjar is one of those SaaS that help businesses deliver real value to customers, by understanding their needs and preferences.
Niche: HR Management Software
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: Utah, US
BambooHR has been around for more than 10 years. It gradually evolved into one of the most comprehensive human resources software ever created. As an easy-to-use management system, BambooHR is perfect for startups and medium businesses.
The platform integrates numerous HR-related features. For starters, businesses have the opportunity to gather, store and analyze their employees’ data through the app.
In other words, you can think of the BambooHR as a database that helps your business automate every single process that’s related to your HR services.
From employee records, reports and analytics to time tracking and real-time applicant tracking systems (for hirings), there’s nothing left out.
Niche: Writing, Proofreading
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: California, US
When it comes to writing and proofreading, AI is definitely the future. And Grammarly is one of the SaaS businesses that have been quick to recognise this potential. To be precise, the platform has an AI-powered app that helps its users improve their writing style and correct possible grammar and spelling mistakes.
The app is constantly being improved and also includes other suggestions, such as punctuation, conciseness, formality, and much more.
Last but not least, the Grammarly app (web-based, mobile app, add-on) is available for pretty much any desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile phone, regardless of its OS. You can check grammar in your articles, blogs, social media posts, and emails using their Google Chrome extension or browser app.
Of course, the list of the top SaaS startups for 2023 could go on forever. But the 19 startups above help companies grow and achieve great success this year and beyond.
In any case, SaaS products and businesses are becoming a must-have for most companies out there. This is the perfect time to either start your own SaaS startup or trust a SaaS company to support and strengthen your brand.
Irina is a Founder at ONSAAS, Growth Lead at Aura, and a SaaS marketing consultant. She helps companies to grow their revenue with SEO and inbound marketing. In her spare time, Irina entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.
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