Hey guys, think this story might be interesting to others who are considering the same switch from SaaS (pure software) to SaS (service on top)
I just pressed send on a scary email to all our users.
We are an SEO and GEO tool founded in 2018. $1.4M ARR. We have seen declining conversions from trial to paid since Summer 2025. Like -50%
So we decided to change big time our offering and position in the market.
The good old disruption story
No, we did not get disrupted yet, but instead of waiting for ChatGPT and Claude to pull the trigger, I rather disrupt ourselves first
So we have joined the Service-as-Software (SaS) club.
We are still a software company at the core.
But now we also help customers 1:1 to use our software and get the growth going by handling our AI automation + strategy for clients.
We ran a small pilot in September to see if we could get 3 clients for this new "Done for you" SEO product.
We quickly got 10 and huge interest 😮 Right now selling 1 per day at 10x the price of a self-service subscription ($699/mo)
Meanwhile self-service tool signups are stagnating.
The people we go after - small businesses who wants to grow their SEO - seems less interested in handling their SEO alone now. Maybe because there is so much confusion and FOMO thrown around. Not sure.
But they are VERY interested in getting help with automation and strategy.
I don't see it necessarily as a permanent thing, my grand vision is to build the best SEO agent in the world for small businesses, and these service deals are what is going to force us to make that happen. Win/win as I see it.
Anyone else out there making the same switch?