What is SaaS (Software as a Service)?
Turkish: SaaS
SaaS delivers software by subscription through a browser or app, with hosting, updates, and operations handled by the provider.
What is SaaS?
SaaS (Software as a Service) is a delivery model where users access software over the internet instead of installing it on their own servers. The provider hosts the application and handles updates, security patches, scaling, and basic operations.
Accounting tools, CRM platforms, project management products, email marketing services, and call center systems are common SaaS examples. Users usually sign in through a browser, choose a plan, and access features based on a subscription.
How Does SaaS Work?
SaaS products usually share several building blocks:
- Subscription and plan management: Free trials, monthly or annual plans, per-seat pricing, or usage-based billing
- Identity and authorization: Organizations, roles, invitations, and SSO flows
- Multi-tenant structure: Multiple customers safely sharing the same product infrastructure
- In-product operations: Billing, notifications, support, audit logs, and monitoring
- Integration: Connections to external systems through an API, webhooks, or file flows
Business Use
SaaS lets companies adopt software without long installation projects. For the provider, product development, customer support, infrastructure cost, and subscription revenue all become parts of the same operating model.
IaaS provides raw compute, storage, and network resources, while SaaS provides an application ready to use. When evaluating SaaS, data ownership, integration capability, exit planning, support level, and regulatory requirements matter as much as price.
Related Terms
The Twelve-Factor App is a methodology for building portable SaaS services by separating code, config, dependencies, processes, and runtime concerns.
API (Application Programming Interface)An API is a contract that lets software systems request approved data or actions from one another through documented endpoints.
CDN (Content Delivery Network)A CDN caches static content on edge servers near users, reducing latency, bandwidth pressure, and load on the origin server.
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)ERP manages finance, inventory, sales, production, HR, and supply chain processes through a shared enterprise data model.
FreemiumFreemium is a SaaS model where basic use is free while advanced features, capacity, or support require a paid plan.
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)IaaS lets teams rent virtual servers, storage, and networking from the cloud while managing the operating system layer themselves.
Multi-TenancyMulti-tenancy lets one application platform serve many customers while tenant boundaries keep data, configuration, and limits separated.
PaaS (Platform as a Service)PaaS is a cloud service model offering ready-made development environments for building and deploying applications without managing infrastructure.
SaaS IntegrationSaaS integration connects CRM, accounting, e-commerce, support, and other cloud tools through APIs, webhooks, or managed file flows.
SaaS ArchitectureSaaS architecture designs multi-tenancy, subscription management, scalability, security, and observability as one product infrastructure.