Vote in the 2026 Startup Benchmarks Survey

Ask ten different startup founders what ‘normal’ looks like right now and you'll likely get ten different answers (and probably another three unprompted opinions about agents). AI has reset how startups build, spend, hire, and raise, and the standard playbooks from don’t necessarily cut it any more. Headcount benchmarks, growth tactics, pricing models, fundraising timelines… all of it keeps moving at a pace most of us have not seen previously.

That’s why we're glad a real survey of real people still exists, and that we get to play our part helping build that dataset.

The 2026 Startup Benchmarks Survey closes this Friday, August 28th, and this year's edition comes with a few changes worth noting. First, the name: what we shared last year as the ‘SaaS Benchmarks Report’ is now the Startup Benchmarks Report, reflecting the fact that the current crop of businesses has long since outgrown pure software and subscription models. Second, our friends at High Alpha have joined forces with Visible — the platform many founders we know already use to run their fundraising process and keep investors in the loop after they close — alongside support from Customers Bank. And finally, the milestone: this is year ten of this survey. That’s a decade of benchmark data making this - according to the organizers - the longest-running, largest self-reported startup dataset out there, with around 800+ founders contributing to it every year.

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Click here to have your say in the 2026 Startup Benchmarks Survey

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The survey is also shorter than last year, taking just 15 minutes, and has been trimmed to boost completions and help ensure the final report delivers insights and value for more people. As always, responses stay strictly confidential and are only ever reported in aggregate. Plus everyone who completes the survey gets early access to the results before they go public.

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Why your response matters (especially you, Midwest peeps)

We'll be honest about our self-interest here: we like data, and this dataset has been very good to us.

Last year enough of you Midwest founders filled it in that Mollie Kuramoto, High Alpha's former Marketing Director and also a former Start Midwest contributor, could slice the results specifically for our region and provide two meaty articles on the topic in doing so.

First came where the Midwest is winning and where it lags: with the data indicating that our top-quartile companies matched the best in the country at 100% growth, while the median Midwest startup trailed the national pack on both growth and Rule of 40 (Growth Rate % + EBITDA Margin %). The conclusion we came to was that the variation was due to our region's tendency to treat AI as a supporting feature, rather than the core of the product, while AI-core companies were growing faster in every single ARR cohort in the data.

Then came a fundraising deep-dive based on the same data: Midwest founders raise just as well, but it costs them more to get there. In that piece, she highlighted the fact that Midwest founders closed rounds at a slightly higher rate than the rest of the US, but the data showed the grind underneath: longer timelines, far more investor meetings, and the metrics gaps that explain both.

None of that analysis can exist without you - dear Midwest founder - showing up in the sample. 

The more of us who respond, the sharper the regional cuts we can publish when the 2026 results land — and the better every founder in the region can calibrate against reality instead of against national averages or yet another LinkedIn hot take. Even ours. IYKYK.

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What to look out for in the 2026 data

A few threads from recent editions that we’re personally interested in tracking when results arrive this November:

Efficiency, again. The ARR-per-FTE climb among early-stage companies has been the defining trend of the AI era — a cohort scaling faster and leaner than any generation before them. Does the curve keep bending, and does it finally reach the larger ARR bands?

AI in the product, not just the workflow. Last year 85% of Midwest startups were pushing internal AI adoption hard, but three-quarters still treated AI as a supporting feature. Given the growth premium on AI-core products, we'll be watching whether the region has been placing bolder bets this year.

The fundraising grind. Midwest founders were told to budget 6–9 months for a raise as the base case last year, based on the data. With the funding market continually shifting, does that timeline compress — and do the NRR and CAC payback gaps narrow?

But before all that, the dataset needs you to jump into it. Go for it:

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Click here to have your say in the 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Survey

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