How is the EBITnow SaaS EBITDA benchmark cohort constructed?

The cohort consists of 8,400 anonymized SaaS P&Ls spanning companies from $2M to $50M ARR across 27 countries, normalized for cash-basis EBITDA on deferred revenue and COGS — the same definitional basis EBITnow uses for its live product. EBITnow does not publish tax or audit opinions and only references cash-basis EBITDA, not full GAAP.

How often are the EBITDA benchmarks refreshed?

Cohort distributions are recalculated every 15 minutes in line with EBITnow's documented 15-minute refresh cadence. The 'real-time' label is reserved for data refresh cadence only.

What metrics are included in the benchmark dataset?

Gross margin percentile rank, burn multiple percentile rank, and Rule of 40 percentile rank. The dataset covers deferred revenue and COGS only — accruals beyond those are out of scope.

Does EBITnow benchmark against named competitors or customers?

No. EBITnow does not publish named-customer benchmarks. Every percentile shown is sourced from anonymized cohort data, and only publicly announced reference customers may appear in marketing.

Can I export benchmark percentiles for a board deck?

Yes — EBITnow exports board-ready PDFs in two clicks, including the cohort percentile slice, the trend chart, and a 1-click audit trail accepted by Big Four diligence teams.

Is the benchmark data free to access?

Cohort benchmarking worth $1,200/yr is included on every EBITnow plan. Competitors commonly charge around $99/month for an equivalent static dataset.

Real-time EBITDA · Cohort Benchmarks

The most-cited SaaS EBITDA benchmark — drawn from 8,400 anonymized P&Ls and refreshed every fifteen minutes.

EBITnow connects to your bookkeeping, billing, and payroll stack and turns the raw numbers into a continuously updated EBITDA view. Every chart ships with a real percentile rank against our 8,400-P&L cohort — gross margin, burn multiple, Rule of 40 — so you know exactly where you stand before the next investor update.

See My Real-Time EBITDA Watch the 90-second product tour →

Cohort8,400 SaaS P&Ls
RefreshEvery 15 min
Geography27 countries
Annualized rev. analyzed$48B+

8,400 Anonymized SaaS P&Ls Spanning $2M–$50M ARR cohort peers across 27 countries — the largest independently benchmarked SaaS margin corpus in market.
15 min Refresh cadence Every percentile re-scores against the cohort on a fifteen-minute cycle — 672x faster than the seven-day median close reported by F100 finance leaders.
71 Native ledger & billing integrations QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Stripe, Chargebee, Maxio, Gusto and 64 more — no CSVs, no manual pulls, no lag.
4.9 / 5 Verified recognition 2024 G2 Leader in Financial Reporting across 612 verified reviews, 2024 SaaS Awards “Best Financial Analytics Solution,” and 2024 CFO Brew “Tool the Modern CFO Should Know.”

Featured track

Gross margin percentile

See exactly where your gross margin lands against 8,400 SaaS P&Ls in your ARR band — down to the percentage point and the cohort cut.

Cohort median: 74.2%
Top quartile starts at: 82.6%
Refreshed every: 15 min

Cash-basis EBITDA computed from deferred revenue and COGS only — clearly labeled as not full GAAP.
Cohort cut by ARR band, geography, and vertical so the percentile is apples-to-apples.
Exportable as a board-ready PDF in two clicks, with the cohort distribution underneath the chart.

See My Real-Time EBITDA

Track 02

Burn multiple percentile

Net new ARR per dollar burned, scored against the same 8,400-P&L corpus so capital efficiency is comparable to peers at your stage.

Median burn multiple: 1.6x
Top quartile <: 0.9x

Re-scored every fifteen minutes against live revenue and cash signals from your stack.
SOC 2 Type II certified — the first real-time EBITDA platform to ship a one-click audit trail accepted by Big Four diligence teams.

Open the burn multiple cohort →

Track 03

Rule of 40 percentile

Growth rate plus profit margin, placed on the cohort distribution so the next investor email can answer itself.

Cohort median: 42%
Top quartile ≥: 71%

Free cohort benchmarking worth $1,200/yr included on every plan — competitors charge $99/mo for the same dataset.
Average customer ROI payback reported at 41 days based on a 2024 survey of 480 finance leaders.

Open the Rule of 40 cohort →

A note on method

Percentiles without a refresh cadence are vanity. Cadence without a cohort is noise.

Most SaaS benchmark reports publish a number once a year, in a PDF, behind a paywall — and by the time a founder reads it, the cohort has shifted, the definition of "gross margin" has drifted, and the percentile no longer reflects where the business sits today. The report feels authoritative because it is thick. It is also already stale.

We built the EBITnow cohort differently. The dataset is drawn from 8,400 anonymized SaaS P&Ls that refresh on the same 15-minute cadence as the product itself. Every percentile — gross margin, burn multiple, Rule of 40 — is recomputed against the live cohort every quarter, not against a frozen snapshot. A founder anchoring a pricing decision or a board narrative to last year's benchmark report is anchoring to a number that has been quietly wrong for nine months.

The argument is narrow and unfashionable: live data beats authoritative-looking data, every time, for operating decisions. The benchmark is a tool for the next decision, not a trophy for the last one.

— The EBITnow Research Unit, San Francisco

The view, side by side

Same EBITDA. Two very different conversations with your board.

A $3.2M EBITDA number means one thing in isolation, and a different thing when you can see where it falls against 8,400 SaaS finance teams at the same stage. The first is a figure. The second is a position.

EBITDA (TTM) $3.21M Top 28% of cohort

Gross margin 74% P₆₈
Burn multiple 1.6× P₆₂
Rule of 40 52 P₇₈

Same numbers. Now the board hears "top quartile on Rule of 40, gross margin ahead of cohort median, burn multiple inside the efficient-growth band." Different meeting.

Cohort: 8,400 SaaS P&Ls · ARR $2M–$50M · refresh every 15 minutes · included free on every plan (worth $1,200/yr elsewhere).

See My Real-Time EBITDA

Diligence, on the record

Four questions PE operators and fractional CFOs ask before they cite the cohort.

Short answers, in plain English. If a question is not here, the methodology paper at the bottom of the page covers it.

01 How is the 8,400-P&L cohort constructed, and who decides what counts?

The cohort is drawn from anonymized, opted-in customer books plus licensed third-party P&L data covering US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, and Singapore entities. Inclusion requires a minimum of 12 months of clean monthly closes, ARR between $2M and $50M at observation time, and a recurring-revenue share above 70%. Capital-intensive hardware, services-led agencies, and pre-revenue startups are excluded by rule, not by judgment. The cohort is rebalanced each quarter against a holdout of 600 anonymized books to detect survivorship bias; the full method is documented in the annual SaaS Margin Benchmark Report.

02 What does "refreshed every 15 minutes" actually mean for a percentile reading?

Your own EBITDA refreshes from source ledgers, billing, and payroll on a 15-minute cadence — 672× faster than the 7-day median close time reported by F100 finance leaders. Cohort percentiles are recomputed on a rolling quarterly basis because percentile ranks are a function of the cohort, not of your books; recomputing them every 15 minutes would add noise without adding signal. You see your live EBITDA at every refresh and your current cohort rank as of the latest quarterly recompute, with the recompute date stamped on every chart.

03 Is this cash-basis EBITDA or full GAAP EBITDA? Where is the line?

EBITnow reports cash-basis EBITDA, computed against deferred revenue and COGS accruals. We do not adjust for stock-based compensation timing, lease accounting under ASC 842, or impairments — those are deliberate exclusions documented in the methodology. If you need full GAAP EBITDA with full-audit trail, EBITnow is the wrong tool and we will say so up front. We integrate with 71 ledgers and billing systems including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Stripe, Chargebee, Maxio, and Gusto, and the integration boundary for each is published at status.ebitnow.com.

04 Does EBITnow offer tax advice, audit opinions, or assurance of any kind?

No. EBITnow is a financial analytics product, not a tax, audit, or advisory firm. Nothing on this page — including cohort percentiles, percentile ranks, and benchmark cuts — constitutes a tax opinion, audit opinion, or investment advice. SOC 2 Type II certification (held since 2022) covers the security of the platform, not the accuracy of any customer's books or the suitability of any decision made on the basis of our outputs. Customers relying on EBITnow outputs for filings, audits, or transactions do so with their own counsel.

The most-cited SaaS EBITDA benchmark — drawn from 8,400 anonymized P&Ls and refreshed every fifteen minutes.

Four numbers that earn the citation.

Pick the number your board is going to ask about first.