What is Vertical SaaS? Examples, Companies, and Why It Matters
TL;DR
Vertical SaaS is SaaS built for a specific niche. If you’re building software for wedding photographers, ecommerce pet brands, or boutique gyms — you’re building vertical SaaS.
It’s the opposite of a generalist tool like Notion, Google Sheets or Slack.
This piece unpacks what vertical SaaS is, how it's different from horizontal SaaS, and why it's a massive opportunity for founders in the next decade. Plus: a breakdown of vertical SaaS examples, public companies, and embedded payments plays.
What is Vertical SaaS?
Vertical SaaS refers to software built specifically for a single industry or niche. It’s different from "horizontal SaaS" (like Dropbox or Zoom) which serve everyone.
Examples of vertical SaaS companies:
- Toast a payment system for restaurants.
- Clio full service law firm software.
- Jane practice management for physios, therapists, clinics.
- Procore a construction management software tool.
- SimplePractice record management for health and wellness providers.
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Squire software for management of barbers stores.
These aren’t typical generic tools with broad appeal. They’re super/hyper/laser-focused solutions for one customer type. They often bake in workflows, billing, scheduling, messaging, and niche-specific features (like SOAP notes or POS systems).
The goal? Be so tailored to a vertical that churn is near zero because switching to a generalist tool means losing the stuff that makes your business run.
Vertical vs Horizontal SaaS
| Vertical SaaS | Horizontal SaaS | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | One industry or niche | Many industries |
| Features | Customised to that industry | General-purpose features |
| Example | Toast (restaurants) | Notion (notes/docs) |
| Go-to-market | Word-of-mouth inside niche | Broad marketing |
| Stickiness | High (workflow-critical) | Lower (more competition/alternatives) |
| Embedded Finance | Often core part of business model | Usually optional |
Vertical SaaS companies are typically more defensible, because:
-
They can deeply integrate into the workflows of one vertical, ie they can really clearly understand their users needs because there users are much more similar than each other.
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They have stronger word-of-mouth within a tight community. Which means lower marketing costs, and word of mouth typically builds huge trust with users.
-
They own more of the value chain (payments, hardware, support) so they can generally charge more.
Why Vertical SaaS is Exploding
There are a few reasons:
1. Rise of SMB Tech
Ten years ago, it was hard to get a small business to pay for software. Now, software is often their operating system. With Stripe, Shopify, Gusto, etc., small businesses are running better than ever — and more open to paying for tools. Also many businesses are run by e-natives that value the time savings and in many cases rely on these tools to make their digital first businesses actually work. Said another way, these kind of tools of enabled new kinds of businesses to be started.
2. Embedded Finance = Better Margins
This is where it gets spicy.
Successful embedded finance examples in vertical SaaS:
- Toast makes more revenue from payments than subscriptions
- Mindbody and Jane offer payments + scheduling
- Squire charges barbers and takes a cut of payments and rent collection
Adding payments (and later: banking, insurance, lending) lets vertical SaaS companies increase LTV by 5–10x compared to pure software subscriptions.
3. AI + Data Unlocks Niche Power
You don't need massive data anymore to build useful AI. You need clean data from one vertical. A vertical SaaS business with structured usage and billing data can build smarter AI wrappers faster than a horizontal tool juggling 100 different use cases.
4. SaaS Playbooks Are Open Source Now
With open startup models, better documentation, and shared GTM learnings, it’s never been easier to build a focused SaaS app with a clear ICP.
Vertical SaaS companies don’t need a massive TAM — they need clear pain, good pricing, and strong retention. A few thousand users in a niche can be a $100M outcome.
EchoDash Is a Vertical SaaS Tool for Online Businesses
At EchoDash, we’re building a vertical SaaS product specifically for SMBs and online businesses, especially those using WordPress.
We saw firsthand — running WP Fusion and building online tools — how painful it is to manage ops across dozens of SaaS tools. Emails from Stripe, alerts from Cloudflare, invoices, downtime from UptimeRobot… spread across inboxes, Slack, dashboards, and tabs.
EchoDash is a feed for your business ops. We turn webhook events (or emails) into a single, filterable feed and summary view. You can:
- Track Stripe payments, Notion updates, Cloudflare downtime
- Get one email digest instead of 100 scattered notifications
- See what’s happening across all your business tools, in one place
We’re focused on digital SMBs, especially:
- WordPress agencies
- Education / coaching businesses
- Ecommerce brands using WooCommerce / Shopify
- Solo SaaS founders
Because the pain is real. And the alternatives — Slack channels, duct-taped dashboards, and endless tabs — are broken.
This is the power of vertical SaaS. We don’t want to build for everyone. We want to build something incredible for our people.
Top Vertical SaaS Companies
Here are some of the most successful vertical SaaS public companies and high-growth startups:
| Company | Industry | What They Do |
|---|---|---|
| Toast | Restaurants | POS + payments + staff mgmt |
| Procore | Construction | Project mgmt for builders |
| Squire | Barbershops | Scheduling, POS, payments |
| Jane | Wellness/health | Scheduling + billing + insurance for clinics |
| ServiceTitan | Home Services | CRM, payments, workforce for plumbers, HVAC |
| Clio | Law Firms | Practice mgmt + client communication |
| Mindbody | Gyms + Wellness | Class booking + POS + payments |
| PetPocketbook | Dog walkers | CRM + booking + payments |
| Jobber | Field Services | Scheduling, dispatch, and payments |
| Housecall Pro | Home Services | Scheduling, payments, job mgmt |
| Vetcove | Vet clinics | Procurement + inventory mgmt |
| Faire | Wholesale retail | B2B marketplace for boutique brands |
Most of the above aren’t competing on tech. They’re winning by owning the relationship and workflow inside the vertical.
What is Vertical Software vs Vertical SaaS?
They’re often used interchangeably, but worth the nuance:
- Vertical Software just means any software focused on a single industry. Could be desktop or cloud.
- Vertical SaaS is cloud-native, subscription-based software tailored to a niche, often including embedded payments or finance.
What is the Vertical SaaS Market Map?
A vertical SaaS market map simply visualises the companies building in different verticals.
Here's a great example of one of these maps for Europe:
If you’re building a SaaS tool today, it’s worth looking at the market map and asking: is there a clear vertical with unmet needs?
Hint: there probably is. And there’s often a way to win by being better, cheaper, more founder-friendly, or just… more aligned with the way people actually run their business.
Final Thought: Why Now Is the Time
The tools to build vertical SaaS have never been better:
- No-code tools (like Softr, Bubble, Xano)
- Open playbooks (via Twitter, IndieHackers, YC)
- Embedded payments (Stripe Connect, Paddle, Lemon Squeezy)
- Off-the-shelf infra (AWS, Supabase, Firebase)
But more than that — business owners want software that’s built for them. They don’t want to bend their process to fit a generic tool.
They want software that speaks their language, fits their workflow, and just makes sense.
Vertical SaaS is how you win.