Dear SaaStr: What is The Average Ratio of Support Staff to Customer Count in SaaS?
Typically support consumes about perhaps 5%-7% of your revenue at scale (excluding customer success) in most SaaS models. It could be more or less, but that’s a rough way to think about it. Another 5%-7% go to core infrastructure costs (AWS, Azure, Snowflake, etc). And that leaves you at the 75%-85% gross margins traditional SaaS companies have.
So at $100m in ARR, you might be spending $5m-$7m on your support team. As you can see, that puts a lot of pressure on costs.
But spend a lot more in the early days for sure. Happy customers beget more happy customers. Make sure the phone is picked up by ring #3. Make sure every Intercom chat is answered in 60 seconds of less. Have instant support while you can. It’s your top marketing and customer retention investment.
