Software as a Service is a delivery model where applications are hosted centrally by a vendor and accessed by customers over the internet, typically through a web browser or mobile app. SaaS displaced the earlier on-premise software model through the 2000s-2010s and is the dominant enterprise software delivery paradigm as of 2026.
SaaS's commercial structure — recurring subscription revenue, multi-tenant infrastructure, continuous feature updates — has produced some of the most successful enterprise software businesses in history. Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, Atlassian, and dozens of other vendors have built durable multi-billion-dollar businesses on the SaaS model.
The autonomous coworker transition has introduced real pressure on traditional SaaS economics. Per-seat pricing assumes human users; autonomous agents are not per-seat users. The "SaaSpocalypse" of early 2026 — in which trillions of dollars of SaaS market cap evaporated on fears that AI agents would replace the per-seat model — reflected this tension. The subsequent rebound suggests SaaS is adapting rather than disappearing, but the per-seat pricing model is under sustained strategic pressure.