The future of business lies in SaaS, that is, software as a service. The past emphasis of the tech industry on local software has long since given way. Now, we’re seeing a rapidly growing cloud computing market. And that’s why we’ve rounded up 10 of the best SaaS companies on the market in 2022.
In 2022, most businesses rely on on-demand SaaS solutions to meet needs as diverse as marketing, accounting, and communication.
It should therefore not come as a surprise that the number of SaaS companies is skyrocketing, with numerous startups launched daily. However, veteran software companies are also transforming their products and reinventing themselves as SaaS contenders.
For investors, the SaaS market holds massive opportunities. For 2022, global end-user spending on SaaS solutions was estimated to reach $172 billion, according to Statista. And there is no peak in sight.
Our 2022 selection was based on these companies’ current size and growth trends, as well as how pervasive their products are in today’s business world.
Together, these are the companies who dominate the SaaS market and those making up the most promising newcomers in the sphere. And here they are!
* This list is not sponsored. The companies are listed in no particular order *
1 – Adobe
Topping this list is Adobe with its Creative Cloud, the go-to SaaS solution for graphic designers and video editors. It includes staples such as Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Lightroom, and basic applications like Adobe’s PDF editor.
Creative Cloud allows countless businesses – from big-brand firms to freelance graphic designers – to create layouts, edit photos, design logos, and manage PDF documents. Adobe’s cloud storage library also allows teams to collaborate remotely. Two years ago, the company has supercharged the offer by launching Adobe Sensei, an AI design solution.
Overall, there are few businesses whose marketing campaigns can do without Creative Cloud.
Adobe’s revenue from Creative Cloud has been rising steadily – from $5.34 billion in 2018 to $9.55 billion in 2021. In 2021 alone, Creative Cloud revenue grew by 23%.
2 – Microsoft
Next up, Microsoft is another software veteran that successfully navigated the transition to the SaaS sphere. It transformed its local Office suite into Microsoft 365, a ubiquitous cloud collaboration tool.
Microsoft 365 provides secure cloud data storage and a wide range of tools that are fundamental to the operations of pretty much any business. It’s fair to say that there are few people in today’s business world who hasn’t written a report in Word, put together a presentation in PowerPoint, or tried to make sense of a spreadsheet in Excel.
In addition, Microsoft expanded into the collaboration and communication market. In 2017, it launched Microsoft Teams, which became a staple among remote workers during the pandemic.
The company’s revenues from Microsoft 365 are continuously increasing. According to recent figures, revenue jumped by $7.5 billion (16%) in Q4 2021. Apart from being one of the best SaaS companies in 2023, this also makes it one of the most profitable.
3 – Google
When you say remote collaboration, you say Google Workplace (formerly G Suite).
This is Google’s challenge to Microsoft 365 and similar offers. It includes a very similar set of features. You can edit text documents in Google Docs, spreadsheets in Sheets, and presentations in Slides. Google Calendar allows you to keep track of your appointments, and Gmail manages your messages. If you need a video conferencing solution, Google Meet has you covered.
Especially during the pandemic and the general shift to remote operations, Google Workplace saw a huge surge. Now, it is the standard remote collaboration platform for countless businesses and freelancers.
In 2021, Google’s quarterly cloud revenue grew by 54%, to $4.63 billion.
4 – ProtonVPN
Mixing things up a little is ProtonVPN. Unlike the previous entries on PakWired’s 2023 list of the best SaaS companies, ProtonVPN is not a long-established company, but a startup.
Founded in 2016 and based in Switzerland, this company provides a VPN (virtual private network) service. VPNs help customers encrypt their internet traffic and keep their data safe. In the face of growing cybersecurity threats, this is becoming increasingly essential.
According to ExplodingTopics, ProtonVPN’s traffic skyrocketed over the past 5 years, increasing by over 100 times, topping out at 110 K in the US alone.
5 – Salesforce
Back in solidly established SaaS waters, Salesforce ranks on our list thanks to its status as the standard CRM tool in the business sphere. CRM stands for customer relationship management.
A CRM tool allows businesses to keep tabs on their customers – their purchases, response to advertising, and interactions with customer service. Ultimately, the insights that companies can get from CRM data can help them optimize their workflow and outreach campaigns and so grow their revenues.
One of Salesforce’s strong points is also that it offers third-party integrations with a huge number of other business platforms, from email marketing to task management. As the first major SaaS offer built from scratch, it has the benefit of long experience.
Salesforce itself can boast of an annual revenue of almost $26 billion.
6 – SEMrush
In the world of digital marketing, there are few SaaS tools better-established than SEMrush. This tool allows companies to get ahead on search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing.
SEMrush provides insights into various sources of internet traffic, as well as the performance of businesses’ own websites and those of their competitors. Marketers also use the tool to research which search phrases are trending on Google and could help drive interested customers to their sites.
In addition, SEMrush provides tools for outreach and content marketing, social media integrations, and paid advertising features.
It maintains a database of 17 billion search terms, 580 million domains, and 500 terabytes of traffic data from 190 countries, outperforming major competitors like Ahrefs and Moz.
7 – Mailchimp
Next up is one of the most-used email marketing solutions, which has also earned its spot on our list of the best SaaS companies.
Founded in 2001, it allows users to send out email marketing campaigns and to build landing pages for their products and services.
However, the range of Mailchimp’s features extends much further. It includes complex automated messaging set-ups, detailed statistics and analytics insights, and segmentation of recipients. Furthermore, Mailchimp offers integration to major CRM tools, as well as platforms like Google Analytics.
In 2021, the company was acquired by Intuit for a whopping $12 billion. Its annual revenue in 2020 was just above $800 million, outstripping competitors like SendInblue and ActiveCampaign.
8 – Zoom
Seeing Zoom on our 2023 list of the best SaaS companies should come as no surprise.
There are few other players in the SaaS markets that saw as big a boom as this video conferencing provider during the pandemic. Or that have become as essential a staple in the business world.
By March 2020, Zoom was handling 200 million daily video calls. By autumn, the common usage of the verb “to zoom” had vaulted the company into the realm of giants like Kleenex, FedEx, Google, and Photoshop.
Competitors like Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and rookies like Jitsi and Big Blue Button have tried to contend for Zoom’s top spot in the videoconferencing world, but with limited success.
Zoom’s major advantages are its reliable connection, versatile features, easy usability, and lightweight software. Partly, this is due to the company’s origins. Its founder, Eric Yuan, wanted to create a straightforward way to communicate with his girlfriend (now his wife), who was studying at a university across the country.
In early 2022, Zoom’s quarterly revenue was just over $1 billion, according to Statista.
9 – Atlassian
This is a massive SaaS player that you might not have heard of under its own name. However, some of its products’ names are bound to be familiar, such as Jira and Trello.
Jira is a complex project management platform, especially aimed at agile development teams. Trello, in contrast, is a more broad-spectrum team collaboration and project management app. Based on boards and cards, it allows teams to coordinate tasks and manage workflows.
Like other SaaS companies on this list, Atlassian saw a boost during the pandemic, when remote operations made better project management solutions necessary.
Its 2021 annual revenue tallied in at just over $2 billion, up almost 30% from the previous year.
10 – Grammarly
The final entry in this list comes from a quite different corner. Grammarly is a SaaS provider that specializes in AI-based text enhancement. It helps users generate grammatically correct content across a wide variety of business contexts, from email campaigns to industry whitepapers.
To this end, Grammarly harnesses artificial intelligence, specifically natural language processing (NLP). Based on this technology, the tool can improve readability, and generate suggestions on style and word choices.
You can either use Grammarly in its own app, or install it as an extension for platforms such as Microsoft Word and Chrome.
Considering the dominance of English as a language of businesses, and the relatively small fraction of native English speakers in the world, Grammarly’s success is hardly surprising.
Worldwide, Grammarly has over 30 million daily users.
In 2021, it raised over $200 million at a $13 billion valuation to further improve its writing AI.
Conclusion
The SaaS space is hyper-competitive and in constant flux. The companies on this list have managed to navigate it successfully and turn their products into omnipresent business staples.
Do you agree with our ranking? Or still think we’ve left an important contender out? Let us know your top picks for the best SaaS companies of 2022 in the comments!
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