Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. What software companies put on the pages after the homepage (help centers, academies, webinar and customer pages), in our own read of the 145 largest SEC-reporting software publishers; how often their 10-K reports mention free trials, self-serve sign-up, product-led growth and webinars, in our count of EDGAR; how software buyers research a purchase, from G2, Gartner and Google; what LinkedIn and YouTube report about B2B and how-to video; how much video SaaS and B2B companies make and how their webinars perform, by the vendors' own data; how they onboard and support customers; who works in the U.S. software industry, from the Census Bureau and BLS; and where the popular SaaS video numbers came from.
Only 2.9% of the help-center front pages we read at the 145 largest software publishers had a video player; 16.2% named video tutorials. (Our read)See details
Among 97 of those companies, 51.5% showed video on the homepage but only 3.1% on the help page. (Our read)See details
66.7% of the training and academy pages we read offered video courses. (Our read)See details
Customer-story pages carried video most often after the homepage: 31.5% had a video player. (Our read)See details
Free trials appeared in 16.3% of software publishers' 10-Ks filed in 2025, up from 4.3% in 2015. (Our EDGAR count)See details
Product-led growth went from 0.9% of software 10-Ks in 2019 to 7.0% in 2025. (Our EDGAR count)See details
More than 80% of B2B software buyers in G2's June 2026 survey had taken a software recommendation from an AI chatbot in the past two years. (G2)See details
The widely quoted 70% of B2B buyers who watch video comes from a Google survey run in 2014 that Google has not repeated. (Google)See details
Technology companies' webinars on ON24 turned 51% of registrants into attendees in 2024. (ON24)See details
79% of the SaaS companies in Userpilot's 2024 benchmark were product-led; they kept 48.4% of users after a month. (Userpilot)See details
U.S. software publishers employed 170 audio and video technicians and 4,620 training and development specialists in May 2025. (BLS)See details
Dropbox's famous explainer figure is a 30.0% to 33.2% sign-up comparison on one page; the $48 million was a video studio's arithmetic. (Common Craft, Switch Video)See details
Where do the biggest software companies put video after the homepage?
On customer stories and training, rarely in the help center. On October 31, 2026 we read the help, training, webinar and customer-story pages of the 145 largest software publishers that file 10-K reports with the SEC (SIC code 7372, at least $100 million in revenue), the same companies whose homepages we read for our product demo video statistics. Only 2.9% of the 105 help, support or documentation pages we could read had a video player on the page, and 16.2% named video tutorials in their text or links. Help pages point to video elsewhere instead: 44.8% linked to a YouTube channel.
The gap with the homepage is wide. Among the 97 companies whose homepage and help page we could both read, 51.5% showed video on the homepage and only 3.1% had a video player on the help page.
Training is where the teaching video lives. Half of the companies whose homepage we could read (50.0%) linked to a training or academy page from it, and 66.7% of the 60 such pages offered video courses, though only 15.0% played video on the landing page itself. Webinars are linked from 71.2% of readable homepages; 73.6% of the 91 webinar or events pages listed on-demand recordings, while 7.7% played a video on the page. Customer-story pages, linked from 69.7% of homepages, carried video most often of the four: 31.5% had a video player (including a few muted background loops), and 5.6% embedded a YouTube video. Of the 40 companies whose four pages we could all read, 42.5% had a video player on at least one of them.
Page at the 145 largest software publishers, Oct 31, 2026
Help pages were the hardest to read: 19 sat behind a sign-in or refused our browser, and those are left out. A video that appears only after a click on a specific article is not counted; we read the help center's front page. The page-by-page results are in saas-pages.csv.
How do software companies describe selling and supporting their products in their annual reports?
More of them now describe a free trial or a self-serve sign-up. We counted the 10-K reports filed by software publishers (SEC industry code 7372) that use each phrase, with EDGAR's full-text search. A free trial was mentioned in 4.3% of 10-Ks filed in 2015 and 16.3% of those filed in 2025. Self-serve buying or sign-up rose from 1.3% to 9.7%, and product-led growth from 0.9% in 2019 to 7.0% in 2025. Freemium barely moved: 3.9% in 2015, 4.4% in 2025.
Webinars are an older habit: 18.5% of software 10-Ks mentioned them in 2015 and 22.5% in 2025. Virtual events jumped from 0.9% in 2019 to 13.0% in 2021 and fell back to 5.7% by 2025. Customer success, the post-sale function that owns onboarding, went from 9.1% to 39.6%, though some of those mentions are general wording rather than a team.
A mention is not a measure of practice: a filing can name webinars once in a list of marketing programs. Phrases about video itself ("YouTube", "video content", "training videos") turned out to be mostly about products, competitors or executives' biographies in our spot checks, so we do not publish them as marketing measures. Full counts by year are in edgar-counts.csv.
The filings themselves show how differently companies reach customers. HubSpot's Solutions Partners and the customers they referred were about 25% of HubSpot's customers at the end of 2025 but about 49% of its 2025 revenue (HubSpot 10-K). Atlassian got over 50% of fiscal 2026 revenue through channel partners' sales efforts (Atlassian 10-K). Salesforce spent $14,345 million on sales and marketing in fiscal 2026, 35% of revenue (Salesforce 10-K), and runs its own streaming service, Salesforce+, for live events and original programming (Salesforce 10-K). At Klaviyo, 77.9% of ARR came from customers who also use Shopify, but only about 7.4% of 2025's new ARR came from customers who arrived through the Shopify app store (Klaviyo 10-K).
Free tiers convert a small share of users. About 9% of Duolingo's monthly active users paid at the end of 2025 (Duolingo 10-K). Wix had 304.2 million registered users (Wix 20-F) and about 6.1 million premium subscriptions (Wix 20-F). GitLab counted 10,682 customers paying over $5,000 a year against more than 50 million registered users (GitLab 10-K). Zoom said 74.9% of its self-serve monthly recurring revenue at January 31, 2026 came from customers subscribed for at least 16 months (Zoom 10-K).
Some run free academies as marketing. Semrush Academy had over 1.4 million enrolled students and had issued 600,000 certifications by December 31, 2025 (Semrush 10-K). In 10-Ks filed in 2026, Salesforce describes a community of tens of millions of Trailblazers supported by its free Trailhead learning (Salesforce 10-K), and Asana a community of over 900,000 users (Asana 10-K).
How do software buyers research a purchase in 2026?
Mostly on their own, then with a salesperson to check what they found. In G2's June 2026 survey of 1,038 B2B software buyers, evaluation was the longest stage of the purchase for 40% of buyers, ahead of research (G2). Review sites (38%) and AI chatbots (37%) were the sources that most often shaped the shortlist (G2), and more than 80% of buyers had taken a software recommendation from an AI chatbot in the previous two years (G2). G2 sells software reviews and buyer-intent data, so it has an interest in review sites mattering.
Salespeople have not dropped out. In Gartner's survey of 645 B2B buyers (August-September 2025), 69% said they prefer to check AI-generated insights with a sales rep (Gartner), and 51% expected to meet misleading information from generative AI, against 49% from a sales rep (Gartner). In G2's 2024 survey, only 3% of software buyers said they never want to talk with sales (G2), and the research stage was the most common answer for when a salesperson's call is useful (34%) (G2).
The deal itself is slowed by people who never watch a demo. Once a shortlist was set, an IT security review was the biggest single delay for 39% of buyers in G2's 2026 survey (G2). 49% said their CFO had reversed a deal the buying team had approved in the previous 12 months (G2), and finance's seat on buying committees rose from 31% to 46% in one year of G2's surveys (G2). In the 2024 edition, 57% of buyers expected a return on the software within three months (G2).
The most quoted figure on B2B buyers and video is more than ten years old. Google's B2B Path to Purchase study with Millward Brown Digital, run in 2014 and published in 2015, found that 70% of B2B buyers and researchers watched videos during their path to purchase (Think with Google), that nearly half watched 30 minutes or more of B2B video while researching (Think with Google), and that videos about product features were the type watched most, ahead of how-tos and professional reviews (Think with Google). The same study found 71% of B2B researchers began with a generic search (Think with Google) and 42% used a mobile device during the purchase (Think with Google). Google has not repeated the study; treat it as a 2014 baseline, not a current share.
What buyers do
Survey
Figure
Source
Took a software recommendation from an AI chatbot (past two years)
What do LinkedIn and YouTube report about B2B and how-to video?
LinkedIn video has grown faster than the rest of LinkedIn, by Microsoft's own earnings remarks. Microsoft said total video viewership on LinkedIn rose 36% year over year in the quarter to September 30, 2024 (Microsoft), and that weekly full-screen video views rose 6x from the previous quarter (Microsoft). In the quarter to December 31, 2024, video creation on LinkedIn grew at 2x the rate of other post formats (Microsoft); time spent watching video was up 36% in the quarter to March 31, 2025 (Microsoft); and video uploads rose more than 20% in the fiscal year to June 30, 2025 (Microsoft). Paid video ads on LinkedIn grew 30% in the quarter to December 31, 2025 (Microsoft). In the quarter to September 30, 2026, LinkedIn had more than 1.4 billion members and time spent on Feed content was up more than 15% (Microsoft). These are growth rates; Microsoft does not publish LinkedIn's video volumes.
B2B marketers say video shortens sales cycles, in a survey LinkedIn paid for. In LinkedIn's 2026 Global B2B Marketing Outlook (YouGov, 1,299 B2B marketers, January-February 2026), 81% of B2B CMOs said video speeds up sales cycles compared with other formats (LinkedIn) and 79% said it speeds up lead conversion (LinkedIn). That is a belief, not a measured sales cycle. LinkedIn's own platform data for July 2024 to January 2025 credits its BrandLink ads, which run beside publisher and creator video, with a 130% higher video completion rate than standard LinkedIn video ads (LinkedIn).
YouTube is where people go to learn how to use things. YouTube said there were more than 5.5 billion views of learning and how-to content in the United States in June 2025 (YouTube). Its count covers all subjects, not software alone.
How much video do software and B2B companies make?
More every year, by the counts of the companies that host it. Vidyard, which sells video messaging and hosting software to sales teams, says its high-tech customers made 149% more videos in 2024 than in 2023 (Vidyard), and that all its customers together made 943,305 videos in 2024, 88% more than in 2023 (Vidyard). The growth was at the long end: videos over 20 minutes rose 420% while videos under three minutes rose about 30% (Vidyard). Mid-market companies (600 to 5,000 employees) made the most videos per company, an average of 267 (Vidyard). These are counts of Vidyard's own customers, who chose a video tool, not of all software companies.
Wistia, which sells video hosting and webinar software, found in its analysis of the videos it hosted in 2025 that software and technology companies' videos did best at 3 to 30 minutes long, and that the industry had the highest play counts of any it tracks (Wistia). In Wistia's survey of more than 900 companies for its 2026 State of Video report, 57% of teams said they spend more time making videos than promoting them (Wistia), and 48% planned to raise their video promotion budgets in 2026 (Wistia), while 46% planned to keep production budgets flat (Wistia). Among teams that cut video into social clips, 67% post them on LinkedIn, ahead of Instagram at 49% (Wistia).
Marketers rank short video first for return, in HubSpot's survey of more than 1,500 marketers for its State of Marketing 2026 report: 48.6% put short-form video among their top three formats for ROI (HubSpot), and 44% of B2B brands said they use short-form video, for product demos, customer testimonials and quick tips (HubSpot). HubSpot sells marketing software.
Wyzowl, which makes explainer videos, asks video marketers what video did for them. In its 2026 survey (fielded late 2025), 93% said video increased understanding of their product or service (Wyzowl), 85% said it helped generate leads (Wyzowl), and 57% said it reduced support queries, down from 66% in the 2024 edition (Wyzowl). These are self-reports from people who already make video.
How do software companies' webinars perform?
About half of the people who register for a technology webinar show up live, by the webinar platforms' own data, and the rest are an on-demand audience. On ON24's platform, technology companies' webinars converted 51% of registrants into attendees in 2024 (ON24), averaged 174 attendees per webinar (ON24) and held attendees for 50 minutes (ON24). Across all industries on ON24 in 2025, 43% of attendees watched on demand (some watched live as well) (ON24), and demo bookings from webinars rose 73% on 2024 (ON24). ON24 sells webinar software and does not say how many webinars it counted.
The other platforms report lower live turnout. Goldcast, which sells B2B webinar software, counted 26,190 webinars from 522 B2B organizations on its platform in 2025 (Goldcast). 91% of on-demand viewers watched nearly the whole recording (Goldcast), and 80% of B2B webinars were published on demand in 2024, up from 53% in 2023 (Goldcast). Technology companies' webinars on Goldcast ran 79 minutes on average in 2024 (Goldcast). Goldcast's 2025 report gives a 33% average attendance rate, but its own averages of 238 registrants and 51 attendees work out to about 21% (Goldcast). On Banzai's Demio platform, internet software and services companies' webinars had a 28% attendance rate in 2023 (Banzai). On Wistia, about 40% of registrants attended live in 2025 (Wistia).
Demos are a staple format. In Wistia's 2025 survey, 56% of marketers who run webinars used product demos, second only to thought leadership (Wistia), and 72% said they host webinars to engage customers and prospects (Wistia). 24% of marketers ran no webinars at all (Wistia).
The platforms define attendance differently, which is part of why their rates differ; none is a market average.
How do software companies onboard and support customers with video?
Most SaaS products now expect users to start on their own. In Userpilot's 2024 benchmark of 547 SaaS companies on its onboarding platform, 79% used product-led growth and 21% sales-led (Userpilot). Product-led companies kept 48.4% of users after one month against 39.1% for sales-led ones (Userpilot), but activated fewer of them: 41.6% for sales-led against 34.6% (Userpilot). Among companies with activation above 50%, 80% used videos, GIFs or animation in onboarding (Userpilot). Userpilot does not give the share for less successful companies, so the figure does not show that video causes activation. The average onboarding checklist was completed 19.2% of the time (Userpilot).
Customer education is mostly video. In 2020, 66% of courses on Skilljar's customer-training platform had at least one video, the most common lesson format (Skilljar). In Skilljar's 2022 survey, video was the No. 1 area where training teams planned to raise investment (Skilljar), and in its 2021 survey 84% named onboarding, adoption or faster time to value as the reason they train customers (Skilljar). Skilljar sells customer-education software and does not publish its survey sample sizes.
Viewers want short videos to learn about a product and long ones to learn a skill. In TechSmith's 2024 Video Viewer Study, 50% preferred videos of 30 seconds or less to learn about a general topic such as a product, while 67% would watch over an hour to learn a skill for work (TechSmith). The most wanted length for instructional video was 10-19 minutes (TechSmith), 66% watched an instructional video at least weekly (TechSmith), and 42% ranked professional graphics (text, overlays, lower thirds) among the three most important qualities of a video (TechSmith). TechSmith sells screen-recording and video-editing software and does not publish the study's sample size.
Self-service only works if people are pointed to it. Gartner found in a survey of 5,801 customers (January-February 2025) that 60% of service agents do not promote self-service options (Gartner), and that when agents do, the number of customers likely to use self-service next time roughly 2x (Gartner). Service leaders put their average self-service resolution rate at 41% in Gartner research published in March 2024 (Gartner), and 25% do not fund updates to self-service after launch (Gartner). Resolution reported by leaders is not the same measure as resolution reported by customers, which Gartner has put far lower; see our product demo video statistics.
The biggest software companies run free academies at scale. AWS says more than 31 million learners have used its free cloud training (July 2024) (Amazon). HubSpot expected its Academy to pass half a million actively certified users in May 2023 (HubSpot), and Microsoft Learn had more than 4 million registered learners in July 2020, under two years after launch (Microsoft). As of 2026, Salesforce's Trailhead prepares learners for more than 60 Salesforce certifications (Salesforce).
How big is the U.S. software industry, and who makes its marketing and training?
U.S. software publishers employed 636,525 people on average in 2024, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' count of private payrolls (NAICS 513210) (BLS QCEW), up from 457,645 in 2019 (BLS QCEW). Employment fell 1.8% from 2023 to 2024, the first annual drop in the series since 2019 (BLS QCEW). The industry paid $154,230,115,477 in wages (about $154.2 billion) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). The NAICS code includes video game publishers.
The 2022 Economic Census counted 16,824 software publishing firms with employees (U.S. Census Bureau) and 1,033,305 employees (U.S. Census Bureau). The industry is concentrated at the top and crowded at the bottom: the four largest firms took 24.3% of receipts and the 50 largest 55.3% (U.S. Census Bureau), while 9,238 of 18,425 establishments had fewer than five employees in 2023 (U.S. Census Bureau). Software publishers' revenue grew 8.0% from 2023 to 2024 while their employment grew 3.2% (U.S. Census Bureau).
Few people in software publishing make video for a living. BLS estimates for May 2025 put 170 audio and video technicians in the industry (BLS OEWS), against 2,140 graphic designers (BLS OEWS), 16,970 web and digital interface designers (BLS OEWS) and 4,620 training and development specialists (BLS OEWS). Support and sales are far larger: 29,860 computer user support specialists (BLS OEWS), 16,710 customer service representatives (BLS OEWS) and 45,020 sales representatives of services (BLS OEWS). BLS did not publish a count of film and video editors in the industry. Software publishers employ 7.5% of all U.S. special effects artists and animators (BLS Employment Projections).
BLS expects training to grow fastest of these jobs. It projects training and development specialists at software publishers to grow 21.0% from 2025 to 2035 (BLS Employment Projections), against 3.7% for customer service representatives (BLS Employment Projections).
What the popular SaaS video numbers really say
Eight claims recur on SaaS marketing blogs and explainer-studio pages. We traced each to the organization that produced it. Most started as one company's test, reported by a vendor that sold the video, and lost their scope as they were repeated.
"Users are 85% more likely to buy after watching a product video"
This began as one UK golf retailer's remark and a video vendor's press release, not a study of software buyers. In October 2009 SLI Systems, a site-search vendor, relayed Online Golf's Lee Brown saying on a podcast that visitors who watch a video on its site are 85% more likely to buy (SLI Systems). On March 30, 2010 Internet Retailer carried a press release from Treepodia, a product-video vendor, claiming an average 85% conversion increase for visitors offered video (Internet Retailer); it named no sites or sample size, and its one example test compared 1.04% for visitors not offered video with 4.06% for visitors who chose to watch (Internet Retailer). By January 2015 Invodo listed it as "85% more likely to buy", credited only to "Internet Retailer, 2010" (Invodo), and in September 2025 Consensus, which sells demo-automation software, applied it to product demo videos (Consensus). Use instead: nothing general; it is a self-selected comparison at online retailers, and viewers who choose to watch were already more interested.
"Explainer videos raise conversion 20%" and "landing-page video lifts conversion 80%"
Both are single tests published by companies that sold the videos. The 80% is EyeView's: on November 10, 2009 it blogged that the very first test on one TutorVista landing page lifted conversion by over 80 percent (EyeView). Its 2010 white paper called over 80% a result "in some cases" (EyeView), and the one baseline test it describes in full found almost 32 percent (EyeView). Unbounce relayed the 80% by August 2010 (Unbounce); in August 2021 its own analysis of about 35,000 customer landing pages per period found video had a minimal or negative effect on landing-page performance (Unbounce). Wyzowl, which sells explainer videos, still wrote "up to 80%" in 2025 (Wyzowl). The 20% is one split test for Rypple, a performance-management SaaS later renamed Work.com, run by Switch Video, the studio that made its explainer: a 20% better conversion rate (Switch Video), reported by Switch Video's founder on Unbounce on October 16, 2012 (Unbounce). Use instead: test your own page; the only large sample here, Unbounce's, found no general lift.
"A minute of video is worth 1.8 million words"
Nobody measured it. It is "a picture is worth a thousand words" multiplied by 30 frames a second and 60 seconds, as a London video studio spelled out in November 2015 (Bold Content). Forrester's free summary of James McQuivey's June 2008 report "How Video Will Take Over The World" describes a viewing forecast built from 2007 consumer survey data and contains no such figure (Forrester). The earliest dated version we found is Insivia's 2013 list, which gives no source (Insivia); an April 2014 press release then called it a Forrester finding (Modulates.com press release), and training and intranet vendors still repeat it that way (Multimedia Plus). Use instead: nothing; it is a proverb, not a statistic.
"Dropbox's explainer video earned $48 million"
Dropbox published one video result, and it was about a waiting list. Founder Drew Houston's April 2010 slides say that after the beta launch video reached Digg in March 2008, the beta waiting list went from 5,000 to 75,000 (Dropbox, Drew Houston). The "10%" is a Dropbox employee's note, published in November 2010 by Common Craft, the studio that made the homepage video: on the referral sign-up page, conversion went from 30.0% to 33.2% when the video was viewed (Common Craft), which Common Craft called more than a 10% increase (Common Craft). In January 2013 Switch Video, another explainer studio, multiplied 10% by 100 million users and an assumed $4.80 per customer to get $48,000,000 a year (Switch Video). Explainer studios repeat it as fact in 2026 (Magic Motion Studio). Use instead: the waiting-list jump and the 30.0% to 33.2% comparison of viewers and non-viewers, both from Dropbox.
"Crazy Egg's explainer video raised conversion 64% and earns $21,000 a month"
Two different sources were merged. The $21,000 a month is co-founder Neil Patel's own estimate, in an August 2012 blog post (Quick Sprout). The 64% is one home-page split test by Conversion Rate Experts, the agency that redesigned the page (Conversion Rate Experts). Demo Duck, which animated the video, combined them into one claim (Demo Duck), and a June 2025 post adds base rates of 13% and 21% that we found in no source (Brand Viral). Use instead: one company's single test plus its founder's estimate, labelled as such.
"70% of B2B buyers watch videos throughout their path to purchase"
This is real but dates from 2014. Google wrote in March 2015 that 70% of B2B buyers and researchers watch videos during their path to purchase (Think with Google, Internet Archive), from a 2014 survey of about 3,000 B2B researchers with Millward Brown Digital plus clickstream data (Think with Google, Internet Archive). It counts watching any video while researching. By November 2016 it was printed as 72% (Chief Marketer), and a February 2026 list of "B2B video marketing statistics for 2026" gives it without a date (Revenue Memo). Use instead: the 70% with "Google, 2014 survey"; no newer edition exists.
"96% of people have watched an explainer video"
It is Wyzowl's survey question, and the trend is flat, not rising. Wyzowl, which sells explainer videos, reported 96 percent in its 2026 survey of 266 respondents (marketers and consumers) fielded in late 2025 (Wyzowl). Its 2025 edition said 98% and called it an all-time high (Wyzowl), but the 2016 edition also said 98% (Wyzowl) and the 2017 edition 91% (Wyzowl). Wyzowl's current trend chart gives different values for those years (2016: 93%) (Wyzowl). Use instead: "most respondents", with the year and the sample of about 200-300 people; the year-to-year changes are within what a sample that size can move.
"Onboarding videos cut churn 31%"
This comes from a vendor's analysis of its own customers. VibrantSnap, which sells a demo and tutorial video maker, wrote in January 2026 that it analysed data from 847 SaaS companies on its platform (VibrantSnap, Internet Archive): 23.4% 30-day churn without onboarding videos and 16.1% with them (VibrantSnap, Internet Archive). It did not control for anything else about those companies, and its live page no longer carries the figures. Guidde, which sells video documentation software, repeats the 31% as "a 2026 study" without naming VibrantSnap (Guidde). The other onboarding figure in circulation, 86 percent who say they would stay loyal to a business that invests in onboarding content, is a 2020 Wyzowl survey of 216 people about intentions, not churn (Wyzowl). Use instead: your own retention cohorts; no independent study of video onboarding and churn turned up.
We started from the questions people search for about saas video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 181 figures from 41 publishers.
On October 31, 2026, each of the sourced figures on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS, QCEW and Employment Projections data; Census Bureau Economic Census, County Business Patterns and Annual Integrated Economic Survey tables; the 10-K and 20-F filings of 22 software companies on SEC EDGAR; Microsoft's earnings remarks; LinkedIn's, YouTube's and Google's own pages; the vendors' own reports and benchmark pages (G2, Gartner press releases, Wistia, Vidyard, ON24, Goldcast, Banzai, HubSpot, Wyzowl, Userpilot, Skilljar, TechSmith, Zendesk); and the original pages behind each popular claim, several through Internet Archive captures where the live page has moved or renders only with JavaScript. Our own figures come from EDGAR full-text search, counted on October 31, 2026, and from a headless-browser read of the help, training, webinar and customer pages of the 145 largest software publishers on the same day. We left out reports behind sign-up forms (HubSpot's and Goldcast's full reports, Salesforce's State of Service), Gartner press releases that gartner.com refused and the Internet Archive did not hold, and 10-K phrases about video itself, which our spot checks found mostly describe products.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Vendor data is labelled as vendor data. Most figures on how SaaS companies use video come from companies that sell video, webinar, onboarding or review software, counting their own customers or surveying small self-selected samples. We name the vendor and what it sells each time.
A 10-K mention is not a practice. Our EDGAR counts show which phrases software publishers use in annual reports. A company can run webinars without naming them, or name them once in a list. The SIC 7372 group also includes shell companies and small filers, and some large SaaS companies (Zoom, Workday) carry other codes.
Our page read sees what a browser sees on one visit. Video that loads only after a click, behind a login, or on a page our link rules did not find is missed, and bot-walled pages are excluded.
The buyer-video baseline is from 2014. Google's B2B path-to-purchase study has not been repeated, so its 70% is a 2014 figure.
Government data does not see video. BLS and the Census Bureau count software publishers' jobs, wages and revenue; none of their series measures video use, and NAICS 513210 includes video game publishers.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/saas-video-statistics#DRV-004. To cite the page as a whole:
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APA
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MLA
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Chicago
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BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_saas_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{SaaS Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/saas-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-10-31}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is January 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Oct 31, 2026: First published with 181 figures from 41 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Frequently asked questions
Do SaaS companies use video in their help centers?
Rarely on the help center's front page. Of 105 help, support or documentation pages we read at the 145 largest SEC-reporting software publishers on October 31, 2026, 2.9% had a video player and 16.2% named video tutorials, while 44.8% linked to a YouTube channel.
Which pages on a software company's site carry video?
After the homepage, customer-story pages: 31.5% of those we read had a video player, against 15.0% of training pages, 7.7% of webinar pages and 2.9% of help pages. Training pages still teach by video: 66.7% offered video courses.
How many SaaS companies offer a free trial?
We can count only what annual reports say: 16.3% of 10-Ks filed in 2025 by software publishers (SIC 7372) mentioned a free trial, up from 4.3% in 2015. Product-led growth appeared in 7.0% in 2025.
Do B2B buyers watch video before buying software?
The most cited figure, 70% of B2B buyers watching video along the path to purchase, is from Google's 2014 survey with Millward Brown Digital. In LinkedIn's 2026 survey of B2B marketers, 81% of CMOs said video speeds up sales cycles, which is a belief, not a measurement.
What is a good webinar attendance rate for a software company?
It depends on the platform's definition. Technology companies' webinars on ON24 converted 51% of registrants in 2024; on Wistia about 40% attended live in 2025; on Demio, internet software companies' webinars drew 28% in 2023.
Do explainer videos increase conversions?
There is no general figure. The common 20% and 80% claims are single tests published by the studios or vendors that sold the videos, and Unbounce's 2021 analysis of about 35,000 landing pages per period found video had a minimal or negative effect.
Where does 'a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words' come from?
The 1.8 million is arithmetic, not a measurement: a thousand words per picture times 30 frames a second times 60 seconds. It is credited to a 2008 Forrester report, but that report's summary describes a forecast built on 2007 survey data and contains no such figure.
