---
title: "Purchasing Patterns in Software : Positivity Punctuating Q3"
description: "Explore Q3 2023 SaaS purchasing trends: 43% higher contract values, 44-day sales cycles, and why data analytics leads software demand. Key insights for founders."
categories: ["sales","data analysis"]
keywords: ["SaaS purchasing trends","software sales cycles","Vendr report","data analytics","contract values","DataDog ACV","business intelligence software","cross-selling strategies","Tomasz Tunguz"]
ai_summary: "Explore Q3 2023 SaaS purchasing trends, including increased contract values and lengthened sales cycles impacting software demand."
date: 2023-11-10
lastmod: 2026-07-21
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/vendr-q3-report/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

[Vendr's quarterly report on SaaS purchasing trends](https://www.vendr.com/insights/saas-trends-report-q3-2023
) summarize the sentiment of the software market. Q2 was tough but Q3 is looking up.

The average sales cycle has lengthened from 32 to 44 days for net new software, a 37% increase. 

Slower cycles & fewer new purchases : 19% of software purchases are net new in 2023 ; just 17% in Q3. Still about 1-in-5, but down from 30% last year.

In a challenging market where new customers are a challenge, how does a company grow? Increase price & cross-sell. 
![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/e1oeddob6h0tfyfghb5y.png)

Average contract values rose 43% q/q - nearly the average over this time period.

What's selling? BI, data integration, data science + analytics top the podium. 

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/jskbrztpcmshpl8oyjjj.png)

One last notable data point : DataDog's ACVs are twice as high as any other vendor in the report at $220k. Salesforce, Cloudflare, & Netsuite are next with ACVs in the $100k-$120k range. 

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/sf4ekvossxfzijbep7sy.png)

That $220k number is 3x DataDog's current ACV & it's driven by a remarkable push up-market & cross-sell effort detailed in their [earnings report earlier this week](https://investors.datadoghq.com/static-files/986ca4cd-9507-4c9d-b56f-4bae59d3dd47).

Doubling down on existing customers & growing those accounts have been the dominant way to drive growth during this challenging year.