The problem
Anyone who has spent more than five minutes researching public SaaS valuations has run into the same frustration: every source quotes a different median multiple. Read SaaS Capital's monthly report and you'll see 6.4x EV/Revenue as the headline figure for Q1 2026. Pull up Bessemer Venture Partners' Cloud Index and the same period reads 8.0x. Open Aventis Advisors' SaaS Valuation Multiples page and the number is 3.4x.
All three claim to measure “median public SaaS EV/Revenue” for the same time period. None of them is wrong. The differences come down to three methodological choices: which companies are in the index, how those companies are weighted, and how often the figure is recalculated.
This page reconciles all three. By the end, you'll know which figure to use for your specific question, and why no single number is the “real” SaaS multiple.
Index 1 — SaaS Capital Index (6.4x)
The SaaS Capital Index launched in 2013 and is the longest-running pure-play public SaaS multiple series. It reports the median monthly EV/Revenue across approximately 100 publicly traded companies that derive the majority of revenue from recurring software subscriptions. The index is equal-weighted, meaning Salesforce ($300B market cap) counts the same as Asana ($2B market cap) when calculating the median.
The constituent set is curated to exclude companies with material non-SaaS revenue lines. Adobe, despite its Creative Cloud subscription business, is excluded because of large licensing and education revenue. Microsoft is excluded for similar reasons. The result is an index that genuinely tracks pure-play SaaS — software companies that live or die on subscription economics.
Equal-weighting matters because it makes the index resistant to the gravity of a few mega-caps. When ServiceNow and Salesforce trade at very different multiples, the index reflects the typical company in the middle, not the weighted average dragged toward the largest names.
Use SaaS Capital Index when you want a general reference for “the” public SaaS multiple. It is the most widely cited primary source in M&A advisory work, in venture due diligence, and in academic research because of its long history, broad universe, and equal-weighted methodology.
Index 2 — BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index (8.0x)
The BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index is a co-branded product of Bessemer Venture Partners and Nasdaq, launched in 2013 and reconstituted twice yearly. The index covers 60-80 cloud and SaaS companies, with constituent selection biased toward growth-stage and emerging cloud leaders. Crucially, the index is market-cap weighted — Snowflake, Datadog, and CrowdStrike account for a disproportionate share of the index calculation because they are larger.
Market-cap weighting fundamentally changes what the index reports. When the index says “median 8.0x EV/Revenue,” it does not mean “the typical cloud SaaS company trades at 8x.” It means “a market-cap-weighted basket of cloud SaaS leaders trades at an aggregate 8x.” Those are different statements.
The BVP index is also tilted toward growth. Bessemer's methodology explicitly favours companies with strong recurring revenue growth and large addressable markets. Slow-growing or mature SaaS companies that are nonetheless pure-play are sometimes excluded. This selection bias pushes the headline number higher than a broader universe would.
Helpfully for tracking purposes, the index is published daily as FRED time series NASDAQEMCLOUD, which means it can be embedded in real-time dashboards, charts, and APIs. We track it on our live cloud index page.
Use BVP Cloud Index when you are comparing your business or your investment against the dominant large-cap cloud leaders, or when you want a daily real-time pulse on cloud SaaS sentiment. It is the right benchmark for institutional investors with broad cloud exposure, less right for a $20M ARR private SaaS founder trying to calibrate exit expectations.
Index 3 — Aventis Advisors (3.4x)
Aventis Advisors is a Singapore-based M&A firm that publishes a quarterly report on SaaS valuation multiples. Their methodology differs significantly from SaaS Capital and BVP. Aventis filters its constituent universe to companies with positive operating profit, excludes pre-revenue or hyper-growth-burning constituents, and tends to emphasise the sub-$1B-revenue tier where their advisory practice operates.
The result is a deliberately conservative figure. Aventis is honest about this: their data is meant to inform mid-market M&A negotiations, not to capture the full distribution of public SaaS valuations. By excluding the high-growth, profit-negative outliers that drag SaaS Capital's top quartile to 13.8x and BVP's headline to 8.0x, Aventis produces a number that is often quoted in private deal discussions where buyers want a sober anchor.
This is also why Aventis' figure tends to be the most stable across cycles. Their methodology systematically excludes the most volatile multiples — the same multiples that make SaaS Capital and BVP swing dramatically during ZIRP-era expansions and rate-hike contractions. Aventis at 3.4x today is not far from Aventis at 4.5x in 2018 or Aventis at 6.0x at the 2021 peak. SaaS Capital and BVP, by contrast, swung from ~5x in 2018 to 18.6x in 2021 to ~6.4x today.
Use Aventis Advisors when you are modelling conservative scenarios for private mid-market SaaS — sub-$50M ARR companies preparing for an M&A process. The Aventis figure is a useful floor for what you should expect a strategic acquirer to anchor to before negotiating premiums.
Why the gap has widened since 2022
Pre-2022, the three indices typically reported within 10-15% of each other. The gap has widened to the current 6.4x / 8.0x / 3.4x spread (a 2.4x ratio between BVP and Aventis) for two reasons.
First, AI-native bifurcation. Cloud and AI-adjacent companies — Snowflake, Datadog, Palantir, Salesforce (with its Einstein AI integration), and similar — have benefited from a sustained AI-spend tailwind that has not extended to traditional vertical and horizontal SaaS. Market-cap-weighted indices like BVP over-index on these AI-tailwind beneficiaries, pulling the headline up. Equal-weighted indices like SaaS Capital reflect the median, which is more representative of the broad SaaS market.
Second, profitability bifurcation. Post-2022, public SaaS bifurcated into a profitable-and-Rule-of-40-positive cohort that retained premium multiples, and a still-burning growth-stage cohort that compressed sharply. Aventis' methodology systematically excludes the latter, so their figure stayed anchored to the profitable cohort. SaaS Capital and BVP include both, capturing the full distribution but also the volatility.
How to use these numbers in your decision
If you are a SaaS founder modelling your potential exit valuation, use the figure that best matches your company's position:
- Pre-revenue or sub-$5M ARR pre-Series-A: none of these public indices apply. Use private SaaS data — Carta, AngelList, or our stage-by-stage fundraising multiples page.
- $5M-$50M ARR private SaaS preparing for sale: Aventis is your conservative anchor; SaaS Capital's 6.4x is the upper bound for non-strategic deals; BVP's 8.0x rarely applies because it reflects large-cap public premium.
- $50M-$500M ARR private SaaS: SaaS Capital is the right reference. Adjust ±20% for growth rate (above/below 30% YoY) and ±10% for NRR (above/below 110%).
- Public SaaS or pre-IPO: BVP for benchmarking against cloud leaders; SaaS Capital for the broader public SaaS universe.
What none of these indices captures
All three public indices are reference distributions. They do not capture deal-specific factors that move actual transaction multiples by 2-3x:
- Strategic vs financial buyer — strategic acquirers pay 20-40% above public comps for businesses that fit their portfolio; financial (PE) buyers anchor below public comps.
- Auction dynamics — a competitive process with three or more credible bidders typically clears at 1.5-2x the reserve price.
- Customer concentration — top-10 customers above 30% of ARR triggers 1-2x multiple discount.
- Growth quality — 50% growth from one large customer is worth less than 50% growth from broad logo expansion.
- Founder equity rollover — sellers willing to roll 30-50% of proceeds into the new entity often achieve 0.5-1.5x higher headline multiple.
Use the public indices as the starting point. Apply deal-specific adjustments using the eight factors that drive multiples framework.
The honest summary
There is no single “real” public SaaS multiple. Each of the three indices is correct for its methodology and its use case. The job of any reference site — including this one — is not to pick a winner but to explain the differences clearly and help you choose the figure that fits your decision.
We track all three. Our /api/multiples.json endpoint exposes the latest figures from each, with attribution and as-of dates, so that LLM agents and downstream tools can quote them accurately.
When you read another source quoting “the” SaaS multiple, ask three questions: which constituents, which weighting, and what is the recalculation cadence? The answer will tell you whether to use that figure or pick a different one.
Index Methodology Terms
- Equal-weighted
- An index where each constituent contributes the same amount to the median or mean calculation, regardless of size. Resistant to mega-cap gravity. SaaS Capital Index is equal-weighted.
- Market-cap weighted
- An index where each constituent's contribution is proportional to its market capitalisation. Larger companies dominate the calculation. BVP Nasdaq Cloud Index is market-cap weighted.
- Constituent universe
- The set of companies included in an index. Different universes (pure-play SaaS vs cloud-broad vs profitability-filtered) produce materially different headline numbers even when measuring the same metric.
- Update cadence
- How often the index is recalculated. SaaS Capital is monthly. BVP is daily (FRED series NASDAQEMCLOUD). Aventis is quarterly. Mismatched cadence means three sources can show different numbers on the same day even if all are accurate.
- Reconstitution
- When an index removes some companies and adds others. BVP reconstitutes twice yearly. SaaS Capital and Aventis adjust constituents continuously. Reconstitution can cause step-changes in the headline number unrelated to underlying market movement.
