Public Software Valuation Multiples — July 2026

Software multiples in July 2026 show clear segmentation across infrastructure, vertical, and horizontal categories, with significant dispersion in both revenue and EBITDA multiples reflecting varying market maturity and profitability profiles.

Public investors seem to currently value software companies based on AI application (or death risk due to AI disruption), technical complexity, market position, and specialization depth - rather than TAM size alone.

Scroll below for valuation multiples across SaaS sectors.

Horizontal SaaS public comps in July 2026 show wide valuation dispersion (a sign of AI's "creative destruction"). Design and engineering software commands premium multiples, as companies like Autodesk and Adobe successfully integrate AI features that enhance rather than cannibalize their core products. Vertical AI-native applications trade at similarly strong levels, reinforcing that the market is rewarding AI-driven value creation across the board.

By contrast, sales automation sits well below the broader SaaS average (gen AI threatens to fundamentally replace traditional CRM workflows rather than augment them). AdTech and video streaming (as usual) trade at even steeper discounts, though this reflects longer-standing structural issues rather than recent AI disruption: massive platform dependency risk for MarTech players, and unsustainable infrastructure costs that can consume the vast majority of revenues in streaming.

Regression analysis across horizontal SaaS comps shows strong correlation between NTM revenue multiple and revenue growth.

Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, or Palantir are one of the highest valued horizontal SaaS comps.

Vertical software comps slightly outperform horizontal SaaS on average - not surprising given that industry-specific software naturally creates deeper customer relationships and higher switching costs than vanilla horizontal alternatives.

In July 2026, within verticals, automotive software trades high, benefiting from the sector's ongoing digital transformation and mission-critical workflows. Travel and hospitality anchors the bottom of the group (thinner margins and more cyclical demand patterns typical of the space).

Similar to horizontal SaaS, vertical software comps also show strong correlation between NTM revenue multiple and YoY revenue growth.

S&P Global, Cadence Design Systems, Moody's, or Constellation Software are one of the highest valued vertical SaaS comps.

Infrastructure SaaS is (as usual) pulling ahead of everything else. Data infrastructure commands the highest multiples across all categories, driven by the AI data boom. Every enterprise AI initiative begins with the data layer, and companies like Snowflake and Databricks have made themselves indispensable to that buildout. DevOps trades at a similar premium, underpinned by some of the stickiest contracts in enterprise software and a market projected to roughly double over the next decade.

Cloud infrastructure, however, trades at a notable discount to its peers, despite being the foundation everything else runs on. The implication is clear: investors are starting to treat cloud compute as a commodity. Data and DevOps have that moat. Cloud, increasingly, does not.

Revenue growth drives revenue valuation multiple - infrastructure SaaS comps show strong correlation between NTM revenue multiple and revenue growth.

Cisco, IBM, Dell, Palo Alto Networks, or Crowdstrike are one of the highest valued infrastructure SaaS comps.