r/SaaS
People building SaaS, not people buying it
- Size
- Large
- Buying intent
- Low
- Promotion
- Open
Promotion is broadly permitted, and the predictable consequence is a feed of founders marketing to other founders. Signups originating here are usually peer curiosity rather than demand, and they churn accordingly.
It does have a real use. This is a good place to test how you describe your product, get direct feedback on pricing, and find out whether your positioning survives contact with people who are not you. Just count the resulting signups as research rather than revenue.
What we have measured
Lidar reads this community every day. These figures come from the 116 posts we collected here over the last 30 days, read a median of 2 hours after they were posted.
- Posts asking a question
- 30%
- Median replies when we read them
- 1
- Median upvotes when we read them
- 1
The question share is the one to weigh. A community where half the posts ask something is a community that wants answers, and a community where almost none do is one where people are broadcasting rather than asking. The engagement figures are deliberately measured at the moment we collect a post rather than at its final score, because that is the state a thread is in when replying to it is still worth doing.
What people actually post
The launch post
Someone announcing what they built. The dominant format and the reason intent is low.
The revenue milestone
Progress updates, sometimes with useful detail about what actually worked.
The feedback request
Genuinely useful in both directions. The best reason to be here.
What people get wrong about it
Signups from here get counted as validation. They are peer curiosity and they churn at a rate that makes the mistake obvious within a month.
Can you promote in r/SaaS?
Open, which sounds appealing and is the source of the problem. When everyone may promote, promotion stops carrying information and nobody reads it.
What gets you removed
Nothing much, which is the problem. Open promotion means promotion carries no information and nobody reads it.
A good first contribution
Give somebody genuinely critical feedback on their pricing page. It is the most valuable thing you can offer here and the thing most replies avoid doing.
Products that fit here
- Positioning and pricing feedback
- Finding people to talk to about building
- Testing landing page copy
- Not much else
What does not work
Treating signups from here as market validation. Other founders will sign up for anything and pay for very little.
Timing
Irrelevant.
How it compares to the neighbours
The communities closest to r/SaaS, and how they differ on the three things that decide whether one is worth your time.
| Community | Size | Intent | Promotion |
|---|---|---|---|
| r/SaaS | Large | Low | Open |
| r/startups | Very large | Low | Closed |
| r/Entrepreneur | Very large | Low | Conditional |
| r/EntrepreneurRideAlong | Mid-size | Medium | Open |
Where this fits in a wider plan
r/SaaS appears in our list of the best subreddits for B2B SaaS, which sets it against the other communities worth watching in that market. If you are starting from nothing, the six-week plan in finding your first 100 users covers how to build standing before you mention a product at all.
Watch r/SaaS without reading it.
Lidar reads it every day, scores each post against what your product does, and sends you the ones worth answering. Along with the rest of business and operations.