Buy a SaaS Business & Take Over a Software Company
On Deal One you’ll find SaaS businesses, software products and cloud-based platforms for sale from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, updated daily – including insolvencies. Software-as-a-Service is one of the most sought-after acquisition targets in tech: predictable revenue through subscription models, scalable infrastructure and high margins make SaaS businesses particularly attractive to strategic buyers and financial investors.
With Deal One’s AI alert, you’re automatically notified as soon as a new SaaS business or software product matches your search criteria – by ARR, customer count, industry or region. Register for free, set up your search profile, done.
Valuation & Asking Price: What Does a SaaS Business Cost?
SaaS businesses are usually valued as a multiple of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) – not total revenue. The key valuation factors:
- ARR multiple: 3–7x ARR for healthy SaaS businesses with positive retention; up to 12x for fast-growing products with strong NRR
- Churn rate: A monthly churn rate below 2% is considered very good; above 5% is a warning sign
- Net Revenue Retention (NRR): NRR above 100% means existing customers are paying more on average than the previous year – a top indicator
- CAC / LTV ratio: Customer Acquisition Cost should be at most a third of Customer Lifetime Value
- Customer base: High concentration on a few large clients increases risk and reduces the price
Due Diligence Checklist: Taking Over a SaaS Business
Before buying a SaaS business, these points need to be critically checked:
- Code & technology: level of technical debt, documentation quality, scalability of the infrastructure (cloud vs. on-premise)
- IP rights: who owns the source code? Are all licences (open source, third-party APIs) cleanly documented?
- Contract structure: monthly vs. annual subscriptions, notice periods, automatic renewals
- GDPR & compliance: data protection concept, data processing agreements with customers, server locations
- Team dependence: is the product dependent on the founder or a few developers? Assess offboarding risks
- Churn analysis: request monthly cancellation rates for the last 24 months, broken down by segment
- Support workload: ticket volume and resolution times as a proxy for product maturity and customer satisfaction
Frequently Asked Questions: Buying a SaaS Business
How is a SaaS business valued?
The standard method for SaaS valuations is the ARR multiple. A SaaS business with €500,000 ARR and a 5x multiple has a business value of €2.5 million. The multiple increases with growth rate, NRR and customer diversification. For profitable, slower-growing SaaS products (so-called “lifestyle SaaS”), EBITDA multiples of 4–8x tend to be used instead.
What’s the difference between SaaS and a classic software company?
SaaS businesses deliver software over the internet as a subscription – the customer doesn’t buy a licence but pays monthly or annually. Classic software companies often sell one-off licences or project-based development. Thanks to its subscription model, SaaS has more predictable revenue but relies more heavily on retention.
Are there also insolvent SaaS businesses on Deal One?
Yes – especially after the 2022/2023 funding winter, numerous VC-backed SaaS startups went into insolvency. Deal One captures these cases every day. An insolvency asset deal can be an attractive way to take over a finished product with a customer base on favourable terms.
Which sectors are particularly interesting for SaaS acquisitions?
Particularly sought after are B2B SaaS solutions for trades and SMEs (e.g. accounting, inventory management, CRM), healthcare IT, HR software and industry-specific ERP systems. These niches often have low competitive density, high switching costs and loyal customer bases.
