SaaS Has Been Dead for Ten Years, and Stripe Still Charges on the 1st of Every Month

Greg Isenberg posted a tweet: SaaS is dead. He says he provides SaaS consulting to the world's largest companies and wants to explain in 11 minutes where SaaS is going and how it will evolve. The liveliest part under the tweet is the bills.

Amy replies: 'dead but my stripe says otherwise.' Kyle says SaaS dies once a week, has been dead for two years, and still charges on the 1st. Pedro says he has been writing software for more than ten years, every year someone declares SaaS dead, and invoices are still being settled. Jason pays for about forty SaaS products every year. Several replies read like the same audit opinion: death notices have been issued many times, but cash flow has not stopped.

Greg's video is not saying SaaS companies will be shut down tomorrow. He breaks down the default formula of the past 15 years: pay engineers to build tools, charge by seat. AI makes tools easier to build, and the formula has loosened. He proposes smart SaaS: tools are free, collect data, create network effects, and make money by upselling AI agents and human services. The video description gives a calorie-tracking example and three pricing methods. The enterprise market still pays by seat; he does not deny that. In the 11 minutes, he also discusses the difference between SMB and Enterprise.

Full YouTube video

The comments add another side. Keith says many people are building their own personal software, companies are building internal tools, and some only use an API key or MCP connection to hook Claude into internal systems, without using the SaaS UI at all. edje mentions single-person startups using AI to write code and automate the company, with prices lower than big vendors, solving real pain points, but reputation and network are still key. Danni raises a technical question: OpenAI and Anthropic are also SaaS, right? You subscribe to software in the cloud. Austin is more direct: the last time a tool let me down, I canceled and built it myself; it was easy. What does SaaS still have left to sell: data, support, or habit? Beth says SaaS is not dead; it's just that lazy pricing finally has no excuse.

One judgment: the subscription model itself has not been challenged; what has been challenged is the pricing assumption from an era of tool scarcity. After tools become free, the money will not disappear; it will move to workflows, data, accountability, and human services. If a developer's moat is only CRUD and charging per head, pressure will come. Ordinary users will see more free tools, and they also need to see clearly whether what is being charged behind free is data, support, or migration costs. Greg's title is like a hook, and the bills in the comments are like an audit. Both sides are right: SaaS is not dead; what is dead is the default path of treating it as a money printer.