IT Glossary
What is SaaS?
Software as a Service: an application used from the browser on subscription — the vendor hosts, updates and operates it for every customer.
The model that rewrote the software industry fits in one sentence: you no longer buy the program — you subscribe to it. SaaS means the application is hosted and operated by the vendor and used by you from a browser: no installations, no servers, no upgrades to schedule — always the latest version, paid monthly or yearly per user or per plan. Your company almost certainly uses several already: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, an invoicing tool, HubSpot, Canva — SaaS is the norm, not the exception, and the advantages that made it win are real: running within minutes, low entry costs, security and updates handled by the vendor's specialists, access from anywhere. What deserves a sober look are three clauses best read before you depend on the product, not after: your data (how you export it, in what format, what happens to it when the subscription ends — the answer belongs in the contract, not in the goodwill of support), the price over time (subscriptions grow with users and with the years — the five-year cumulative cost is the figure to compare against alternatives), and availability (the SLA, the outage history, and your plan for the day the service is down). There is also the other side of the coin: SaaS as a business model — recurring revenue, one product delivered to thousands of customers — is why so many companies dream of turning their internal software into a subscription product; the road there is its own chapter, but the economics remain among the most attractive in software.
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Why it matters for your business
Immediate start, minimal entry cost
An account created today works today — no installation projects, servers or large licenses paid upfront.
Operations outsourced to specialists
Updates, security, backups, uptime — infrastructure worries come bundled in the subscription, at a level hard to replicate in-house.
Scales with the company
Add or remove users and modules as reality changes — the cost follows the organization, not the other way around.
Frequently asked questions
What should I check in a SaaS contract before depending on it?
Three chapters: data export (usable format, available any time, plus the fate of your data after termination), price over time (how increases work, the five-year cumulative cost at your projected user growth) and continuity (SLA, availability history, the notice you get before major changes or a product shutdown). Ten minutes of reading worth as much as a forced migration.
SaaS or software installed on our own servers — is that still a real debate?
For standard applications (email, invoicing, CRM, collaboration) the market has ruled: SaaS, with few rational exceptions. The discussion stays alive for systems with special demands — highly sensitive data, deep customization, integration with on-site equipment, offline operation — where on-premise or hybrid setups still have arguments. The healthy criterion: total cost and total risk over five years, not the reflex of “owning it”.
We want to turn our internal software into a SaaS sold to others — what does that involve?
More than hosting it: multi-tenancy (many isolated customers on shared infrastructure), self-service onboarding, recurring billing, commercial-grade security and uptime, support — plus the commercial side: proof that others will pay for the problem your software solves. The standard route: a pilot with 3-5 external clients on a minimally adapted version, then platform investment based on evidence — not the reverse.
Let’s talk about your project
Message us on WhatsApp or send an email — you talk directly to a developer.
office@northdan.com · +40 752 070 247