Prices are going up across the board. Tools that were once affordable for indie founders or early-stage teams are suddenly priced for enterprise budgets. The "freemium" model is giving way to aggressive trials, usage-based pricing, and paywalls around core features. It's as if the barrier to entry is increasing not only for customers, but also for builders.
Meanwhile, competition is fiercer than ever. AI is speeding up development, but it's also flooding markets overnight. Hundreds of clones, minor modifications, and "launch-first-iterate-later" products overwhelm the same niches. Discovery has been broken. Differentiation is more difficult than it's ever been.
And perhaps worst of all, trust is being lost. Users are tired of bait-and-switch, surprise deprecations, and data lock-ins. There's a feeling that too many SaaS businesses are more concerned with growth-at-all-costs than product quality, user experience, and long-term value.
Are we hurtling towards a SaaS winter? Or is this merely a bad patch in a changing ecosystem?
I'd love to know how you're feeling—particularly other indie founders and bootstrapped teams. Are you hopeful, or are you questioning your role in SaaS entirely?
Would you like to customize it for a particular audience—such as startup founders, developers, or investors
We've been in the SaaS game for a few years now—building, shipping, and growing small products—and I just can't help but feel that the landscape is changing in a troubling way.
Prices are going up across the board. Tools that were once affordable for indie founders or early-stage teams are suddenly priced for enterprise budgets. The "freemium" model is giving way to aggressive trials, usage-based pricing, and paywalls around core features. It's as if the barrier to entry is increasing not only for customers, but also for builders.
Meanwhile, competition is fiercer than ever. AI is speeding up development, but it's also flooding markets overnight. Hundreds of clones, minor modifications, and "launch-first-iterate-later" products overwhelm the same niches. Discovery has been broken. Differentiation is more difficult than it's ever been.
And perhaps worst of all, trust is being lost. Users are tired of bait-and-switch, surprise deprecations, and data lock-ins. There's a feeling that too many SaaS businesses are more concerned with growth-at-all-costs than product quality, user experience, and long-term value.
Are we hurtling towards a SaaS winter? Or is this merely a bad patch in a changing ecosystem?
I'd love to know how you're feeling—particularly other indie founders and bootstrapped teams. Are you hopeful, or are you questioning your role in SaaS entirely?
Would you like to customize it for a particular audience—such as startup founders, developers, or investors