Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is becoming a progressively feasible option for organizations to pursue functionality, accessibility, and versatility in an ever-changing business environment. It’s allowed organizations to get advanced capabilities, without needing to make heavy investments or run applications on their computer devices and data centers.
Related read: SaaS in 2021 – top 7 trends to watch out for
Predictions from Gartner mention that the worth of the service-based cloud application industry will add up to $143.7billion by 2022 — an incredible growth level that will shape the SaaS in 2021 and beyond. And that brings us to another new trend…
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What is micro-SaaS?
SaaS, a software distribution model, offers countless features and cost-effectiveness for enterprises, making it an extremely dependable choice for various business models and industries. It has gathered wide popularity among businesses because of its user accessibility, security, simplicity, and extensive connectivity. Consequently, SaaS platforms restructure business models, bringing about full efficiency across the board. In the present day, many companies are focusing on carrying out multiple business intelligence strategies and looking at tools to support them in their efforts.
According to StoreMapper’s Tyler Tringas, “A SaaS business that targets a niche market, run by a very small team or even a single person, with much lower costs, a constricted focus, a trivial but dedicated user base, and devoid of external funding is referred to as micro-SaaS.”
The key characteristics of micro-SaaS
Before we delve into what micro-SaaS has in store for various small businesses to streamline and function with maximum caliber, here are some of the important points to think through what describes it as a new trend and also as a functioning business model.
- Flexible payment choices: Businesses can now skip from the trouble of going through the cost of procuring hardware and software. As an alternative, they can now make use of many pricing structures. For instance, flexible payment models that help to make payment for only the used resource is very attractive for several organizations in today’s competitive market scenario.
- Reduced cost: Cloud-based SaaS helps businesses magnify easily, but micro-SaaS runs on less manpower and requires no outside funding. Companies can choose the specific features to target, and micro-SaaS can get it done. It is five times cheaper and better performing
- Updates: SaaS providers manage the needed software updates and build new features now and then. It helps businesses to refrain from investing huge amounts of time in this segment of operation.
- Accessibility: Micro-SaaS enables businesses to have the freedom of movement in accessing applications from any digital device present at any location. It makes it very convenient, especially for mobile platforms. Moreover, it claims user-friendliness.
- Amplified collaboration: Any business’s ability can be enhanced by SaaS developments to support collaboration through various teams and departments thanks to the file-sharing facility, on top of easiness of reading and understanding through various systems. Micro-SaaS makes it even easier as not much collaboration is required.
- Security: Many SaaS models are well-recognized for their security level. So is micro-SaaS. It is an all-inclusive method than many centralized or on-premise solutions when it comes to security. Previously existing disaster rescue and recovery protocols are in a position to handle potential system catastrophes. It means that your business’s data is still intact and secure despite the event of any system failure or data breach.
As businesses carry on depending on inventive data detection tools and technologies to increase both their efficiency and productivity and as novel micro-SaaS trends keep on emerging, this new, cutting-edge industry can only continue to grow.
Market potential for micro-SaaS
Several forecasts directed on SaaS industry trends 2021 lead to a noticeable reality that the SaaS market is simply growing bigger day by day. According to Bloomberg’s forecast, business services, public cloud platforms, and SaaS applications will all grow at a 9 percent CAGR between last year and 2023. It will hold a worth of $60.36 billion. A report from Betterbuys showed that it is forecasted to touch $55 billion by the year 2026. And Gartner, whose projections showed significant growth in 2021 and beyond. With the increase in SaaS operating models, the scope for micro-SaaS models is subjected to increase considerably.
Examples of micro-SaaS
In the e-commerce market, a micro-SaaS can concentrate on Shopify’s e-commerce stores. Storemapper is the first-known and elementary micro-SaaS model example. Some of the other examples include:
HypeFury – a micro-SaaS tool to build and monetize Twitter audience by increasing engagement rate with automation features.
BannerBear – helps auto-generate visuals for social media, eCommerce banners, dynamic email images, and several other features with micro-SaaS API and integrations.
Sheety – it helps to convert spreadsheet data into powerful APIs for developing prototypes, websites, apps, and more.
RabbitRabbit – it helps to create a referral system easily to automatically build a mailing list.
All these signs point out that this year is going to be a captivatingly trendsetting year for the micro-SaaS industry.
Starting from artificial intelligence to improved mobile optimization and beyond, the micro-SaaS ecosystem will continue to flourish.
What can micro-SaaS offer?
Like any new and innovative technology on the rise, many players are starting to enter this micro-SaaS arena. Generally, micro-SaaS businesses are operated by a small team, at times even by one or two persons. Micro-SaaS products are typically complementary add-ons to current platforms or developments, built to enhance an absent feature or improve an existing SaaS product.
The increase of the micro-SaaS has made developing and building up a SaaS company apparently more accessible for other people. These micro-businesses have every so often forged ahead to shape significant customer bases and attain monthly revenue, making them very attractive prospects for those seeking to acquire them.
Final thoughts
These more ”miniature” SaaS contributions can considerably increase the value to businesses through industries in 2021. It means we can all presume a host of new micro-SaaS innovations over the next couple of years.
With several examples of up-and-coming micro-SaaS already, we have a reason to think that micro-SaaS will continue to define the SaaS industry going forward.
