Top SaaS Stocks by Rule of 40 Score
Public SaaS companies ranked by their current Rule of 40 score. FCF and EBITDA methodologies surface different leaders: see why below, and which version matters for your valuation comp set.
Palantir Technologies (PLTR): 155% R40
93% YoY revenue growth (Q2 2026) plus 62% adjusted operating margin. Source: Palantir Q2 2026 Business Update. On the standardised buyer-side LTM-FCF methodology used in the main table below, Palantir scores 96.1 — still top 10, but lower because of the different margin definition and the LTM vs quarterly time window.
Top 30 Public SaaS Companies by Rule of 40 (FCF Basis)
Revenue growth (LTM) + FCF margin (LTM). Source: SaaSDB.app, cutoff 2026-04-25.
| # | Company | Ticker | Rev Growth | FCF Margin | R40 Score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gloo Holdings | GLOO | +307.7% | -86.3% | 221.4 | view ↗ |
| 2 | Block, Inc. | XYZ | +44.8% | +75.6% | 120.4 | view ↗ |
| 3 | Applied Digital Corp. | APLD | +171.1% | -52.5% | 118.6 | view ↗ |
| 4 | Intuit Inc. | INTU | +110.3% | +4.9% | 115.2 | view ↗ |
| 5 | Reddit, Inc. | RDDT | +64.6% | +34.2% | 98.8 | view ↗ |
| 6 | Palantir Technologies | PLTR | +64.1% | +32.0% | 96.1 | view ↗ |
| 7 | Exzeo Group, Inc. | XZO | +43.5% | +52.2% | 95.7 | view ↗ |
| 8 | First Advantage Corp | FA | +79.0% | +9.2% | 88.2 | view ↗ |
| 9 | Hinge Health, Inc. | HNGE | +53.5% | +28.5% | 82.0 | view ↗ |
| 10 | Innodata Inc | INOD | +58.0% | +18.1% | 76.2 | view ↗ |
| 11 | Varonis Systems | VRNS | +25.5% | +49.9% | 75.4 | view ↗ |
| 12 | Duolingo, Inc. | DUOL | +39.9% | +35.0% | 74.9 | view ↗ |
| 13 | Dynatrace, Inc. | DT | +34.4% | +39.0% | 73.4 | view ↗ |
| 14 | Clearwater Analytics | CWAN | +62.7% | +6.7% | 69.4 | view ↗ |
| 15 | Rubrik, Inc. | RBRK | +48.5% | +19.2% | 67.7 | view ↗ |
| 16 | CoreWeave, Inc. | CRWV | +194.4% | -128.6% | 65.8 | view ↗ |
| 17 | Figma, Inc. | FIG | +41.0% | +23.3% | 64.3 | view ↗ |
| 18 | Bentley Systems | BSY | +13.4% | +50.7% | 64.1 | view ↗ |
| 19 | Clear Secure, Inc. | YOU | +18.5% | +44.4% | 62.9 | view ↗ |
| 20 | Roblox Corp | RBLX | +36.5% | +26.4% | 62.9 | view ↗ |
| 21 | Qualys, Inc. | QLYS | +10.2% | +51.9% | 62.1 | view ↗ |
| 22 | Veeva Systems | VEEV | +16.3% | +44.2% | 60.5 | view ↗ |
| 23 | ServiceNow, Inc. | NOW | +22.7% | +36.7% | 59.4 | view ↗ |
| 24 | Progress Software | PRGS | +29.1% | +28.8% | 57.9 | view ↗ |
| 25 | Paychex, Inc. | PAYX | +21.1% | +34.8% | 55.9 | view ↗ |
| 26 | Datadog, Inc. | DDOG | +29.7% | +26.1% | 55.8 | view ↗ |
| 27 | Snowflake Inc. | SNOW | +29.2% | +23.9% | 53.1 | view ↗ |
| 28 | Autodesk, Inc. | ADSK | +17.5% | +33.4% | 51.0 | view ↗ |
| 29 | PTC Inc. | PTC | +19.2% | +31.3% | 50.5 | view ↗ |
| 30 | Pegasystems Inc. | PEGA | +11.6% | +38.6% | 50.2 | view ↗ |
Methodology notes & outlier caveats ↓
Gloo Holdings (GLOO): Score driven by extreme topline growth; negative FCF margin reflects investment phase.
Block, Inc. (XYZ): FCF margin reflects working-capital benefits; some classify Block as fintech, not pure SaaS.
Intuit Inc. (INTU): Trailing-12-month growth figure boosted by Credit Karma + Mailchimp integrations.
Palantir Technologies (PLTR): Palantir reports 155% on its own methodology (93% YoY + 62% adj op margin, Q2 2026, reported 3 Aug 2026). The 96.1 here uses LTM growth + LTM FCF (SaaSDB Apr 2026 cutoff), which is the standard buyer-side comp.
Clearwater Analytics (CWAN): Aventis ranks Clearwater #1 on EBITDA basis (73.7%). Different methodologies, same outlier story.
CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV): Hyperscaler capex pulls FCF deeply negative; score driven by raw growth.
ServiceNow, Inc. (NOW): Aventis: 58.3% on slightly different methodology. Consistent across sources.
Aventis May 2026, n=55
Same sample, looser bar
SaaSDB April 2026
4.8x vs 2.7x median
FCF vs EBITDA: why the leaderboards disagree
The Rule of 40 score depends entirely on which margin definition you use. The same company can land in completely different quartiles depending on the methodology.
FCF margin (free cash flow / revenue) captures cash generated after capital expenditure and changes in working capital. For SaaS, FCF margin is usually higher than EBITDA margin because:
- Stock-based compensation is added back (not a cash cost)
- Annual upfront billing creates a working-capital benefit (deferred revenue)
- Customer prepayments inflate cash receipts without affecting reported EBITDA
EBITDA margin uses operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation. It does not add back SBC. For modern SaaS where stock-based comp regularly runs 15-25% of revenue, EBITDA margin is materially lower than FCF margin.
Which to use? Aventis Advisors May 2026 analysis shows the FCF-basis Rule of 40 has a stronger correlation with current public-market EV/Revenue multiples, suggesting investors are willing to "look through" SBC for now. For private M&A buyer-side comps (where SBC must be funded with real dilution), EBITDA-basis R40 is closer to economic reality. Both numbers matter; use the one that matches your buyer's decision frame.
The leaderboards above are sorted independently. Notice that the FCF top 5 (Gloo, Block, Applied Digital, Intuit, Reddit) only partially overlaps with the EBITDA top 5 (Clearwater, Descartes, Adobe, Shopify, Intuit). Companies like CrowdStrike (CRWD) score 55.1 on FCF basis but ~22 on EBITDA basis because their GAAP EBITDA margin is essentially zero while FCF margin runs 33%. That gap is almost entirely stock-based compensation.
What Rule of 40 does not capture
A high Rule of 40 score is a necessary but not sufficient condition for premium valuation. Several factors not visible in the score materially shift outcomes:
- Net Revenue Retention (NRR). Two companies with the same R40 but NRR of 95% vs 130% trade at meaningfully different multiples. The 130% NRR company proves it can grow without new logo spend.
- Revenue concentration. A 50% growth rate built on five enterprise customers is structurally more fragile than the same growth diversified across hundreds of mid-market deals.
- Rule of 40 sustainability. A one-quarter spike from a large enterprise deal does not repeat. Investors discount any score not supported by 4-6 consecutive quarters of trend.
- AI disruption exposure. In 2026, sectors where AI agents can replace the SaaS workflow (support ticketing, basic CRM, generic analytics) are receiving lower multiples than the score alone would predict. Aventis flags this as the dominant valuation reset since early 2025.
- Stock-based comp burden. If SBC equals or exceeds FCF, the FCF margin is funded by shareholder dilution. Owner returns are correspondingly lower than the FCF margin suggests.