I audited the homepages of 7,099 B2B software companies, from well-known scale-ups to startups that launched this year, including 1,391 UK companies. The most common gap was not design or messaging. It was how hard many of them made it to find out what the product costs, or to try it without talking to sales, and UK companies made it harder than most.
Grouped into five themes. Where a chart compares countries, UK figures are in green and US figures are in grey.
Can a buyer find out what it costs?
45.8% of B2B SaaS homepages (3,248 of 7,099) offered no pricing link and no free trial or free sign-up. Only 48.1% (3,412) linked to a pricing page at all.
Only 11.0% of homepages (783 of 7,099) showed an actual price, such as a monthly or per-user figure, on the homepage itself.
What does the homepage ask a visitor to do first?
51.9% of homepages (3,685 of 7,099) made a demo or sales call their first call to action. Just 18.7% (1,326) led with a free trial or free sign-up.
72.1% of homepages (5,121 of 7,099) offered a demo or "talk to sales" route somewhere on the page, but only 31.1% (2,209) offered a free route, and 22.3% (1,581) offered both.
Can a first-time visitor tell what is being sold?
45.3% of headlines (3,216 of 7,099) said what the product actually does on their own. Adding the subheading lifted that to 86.4% (6,131), which still left 968 homepages where a first-time visitor could read both and not know what is being sold.
30.0% of B2B SaaS homepages (2,128 of 7,099) put AI or agents in the main headline, and 81.2% (5,764) mentioned AI somewhere on the homepage.
Headlines that led with AI were clearer than those that did not: 57.7% of AI headlines (1,228 of 2,128) said what the product does, compared with 40.0% of the rest (1,988 of 4,971).
The AI headlines that worked usually named the job as well, as in "AI for patent analysis" rather than "AI that works for you".
How do homepages prove they are worth a conversation?
84.8% of homepages (6,018 of 7,099) showed some form of social proof: customer logos or counts (66.6%, 4,727), testimonials (62.4%, 4,429) or review badges (12.4%, 881).
Only 52.8% of homepages (3,750 of 7,099) linked to case studies or customer stories. Among the original 100 well-known companies, 95 did. Specific stories with numbers are where younger companies fall furthest behind.
Core companies only: 1,391 in the UK and 2,599 in the US.
37.4% of US headlines (972 of 2,599) mentioned AI or agents, against 19.3% of UK headlines (269 of 1,391).
39.3% of UK homepages (546 of 1,391) linked to pricing, against 51.8% in the US (1,347 of 2,599), and 24.2% of UK homepages (337) offered a free route, against 34.0% in the US (884). More than half of UK homepages (55.0%, 765) offered neither.
Links to a pricing page
A free route
No pricing link and no free option
More than four in ten homepages offer nothing else, and more than half of UK ones. A pricing page that explains how you charge, a free trial, an interactive demo or a calculator all keep buyers moving. If you want help with this, see my digital marketing support.
Fewer than half of headlines pass this test on their own. Name the category or the job your product does in the headline itself. If you want help with this, see my brand and messaging work.
AI headlines that named a specific job were the clearest in the sample. "AI-powered" on its own tells a buyer nothing.
Almost half of the homepages had no route to a customer story. Specific stories with numbers are an easy way to stand out. If you want help with this, start with a marketing audit.
I work with B2B companies on positioning, messaging and the routes buyers take to a sale.
A side-by-side view of the UK and US, a look at public-sector suppliers, and how the results have shifted since the first 100 companies.
Core companies only: 1,391 headquartered in the UK and 2,599 in the US.
UK government G-Cloud suppliers are left out here and covered below. Gaps of under 2 percentage points (before rounding) are shown as level.
| Finding | UK (1,391) | US (2,599) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Links to a pricing page | 39.3% | 51.8% | US ahead by 12.5 points |
| No pricing link and no free option | 55.0% | 42.3% | UK higher by 12.7 points |
| Shows an actual price on the homepage | 9.4% | 13.6% | US ahead by 4.2 points |
| First call to action is free trial or sign-up | 14.7% | 20.5% | US ahead by 5.8 points |
| Demo or sales route anywhere | 72.0% | 72.9% | Level |
| Free route anywhere | 24.2% | 34.0% | US ahead by 9.8 points |
| Headline alone says what the product does | 46.3% | 43.8% | UK ahead by 2.5 points |
| Headline plus subheading says what it does | 86.2% | 87.1% | Level |
| AI or agents in the headline | 19.3% | 37.4% | US higher by 18.1 points |
| Mentions AI anywhere on the homepage | 71.9% | 89.0% | US higher by 17.1 points |
| Any social proof | 81.5% | 87.0% | US ahead by 5.5 points |
| Logos or customer counts | 62.5% | 70.5% | US ahead by 8.0 points |
| Review badges | 10.1% | 13.0% | US ahead by 2.9 points |
| Testimonials | 60.4% | 62.4% | US ahead by 2.0 points |
| Links to case studies or customer stories | 49.0% | 51.1% | US ahead by 2.1 points |
| Security or compliance signals | 28.7% | 31.1% | US ahead by 2.4 points |
The clearest differences are about pricing, free routes and AI. Smaller gaps, such as demo routes anywhere on the page, first calls to action, logos, testimonials, social proof and case studies, have moved as the sample has grown, so treat them as indications rather than findings.
378 companies on the G-Cloud 15 framework, reported as their own group.
The sample includes 378 software companies found on the UK government's G-Cloud 15 framework, the catalogue public bodies use to buy cloud software (286 of them are headquartered in the UK). Their homepages look very different from the rest, so they are reported as their own group rather than mixed into the UK figures.
Selling to the public sector runs through frameworks and tenders rather than self-serve sign-up, which may explain much of this. It is also why these companies are kept out of the UK vs US comparison.
From 100 well-known companies to 7,099.
The first version of this study, published on 31 October 2026, audited 100 well-known B2B SaaS companies, 50 in the UK and 50 in the US. The dataset now covers 7,099 companies and will keep growing.
Most of the new companies come from the public Y Combinator company directory, from Wikidata, from the public portfolios of UK, European and US investors and from UK software companies in Companies House records, so the sample now includes many younger startups as well as established scale-ups. That changes some results. For example, 95 of the original 100 linked to case studies, against 52.8% of the full sample, and review badges fell from 34 of 100 to 12.4%.
The first version reported that every US homepage linked to a pricing page, against fewer than half of UK homepages. In the larger sample the gap is real but much smaller: 51.8% of US homepages (1,347 of 2,599) and 39.3% of UK homepages (546 of 1,391) link to pricing.
The original 100 are kept unchanged as a baseline in the data, with their results available alongside the full sample, so like-for-like comparisons are still possible.
| Finding | Original 100 | All 7,099 |
|---|---|---|
| Links to a pricing page | 73% | 48.1% |
| No pricing link and no free option | 24% | 45.8% |
| Shows an actual price on the homepage | 3% | 11.0% |
| First call to action is demo or sales | 54% | 51.9% |
| First call to action is free trial or sign-up | 24% | 18.7% |
| Demo or sales route anywhere | 90% | 72.1% |
| Free route anywhere | 50% | 31.1% |
| Headline alone says what the product does | 46% | 45.3% |
| Headline plus subheading says what it does | 79% | 86.4% |
| AI or agents in the headline | 25% | 30.0% |
| Mentions AI anywhere on the homepage | 93% | 81.2% |
| Any social proof | 99% | 84.8% |
| Review badges | 34% | 12.4% |
| Links to case studies or customer stories | 95% | 52.8% |
| Security or compliance signals | 39% | 31.0% |
7,099 B2B software companies in two groups. The core group (6,721) comes from these lists:
The second group is 378 software suppliers on the UK government's G-Cloud 15 framework. Only companies listed as active or public were included. This is not a random sample of all B2B SaaS companies. It leans towards venture-backed and younger companies.
Of the 6,721 core companies, 1,391 are headquartered in the UK, 2,599 in the US, 1,362 elsewhere, and 1,369 could not be confirmed.
Headquarters come from the source list where it gives one; for the Companies House group they usually come from the registered office. Otherwise they come from the company's own website: its homepage and one Contact or About page. The signals used, strongest first, are:
For companies from UK investor portfolios, an exact and unique match between the company name and an active Companies House company also counts. Where signals point to more than one country, the headquarters is left unconfirmed. Tested on companies whose headquarters the source lists already give, this method agreed with the list 87% of the time (94% for UK calls).
Each homepage was fetched once, with UK English browser settings, respecting each site's robots.txt and with a pause between requests. The audit reads the HTML each site serves, without running scripts, so anything added later by JavaScript may be missed.
14,377 homepages were checked and 7,278 were left out:
| Reason | Homepages |
|---|---|
| Could not be fetched, returned an error or blocked automated access (including 279 that disallow it in robots.txt) | 1,188 |
| Served no headline or fewer than 150 words without JavaScript | 2,093 |
| Not in English | 806 |
| Redirected to another company, usually after an acquisition | 505 |
| Closed, acquired, a placeholder, a login page or not a web page | 45 |
| Removed after review: consumer products | 926 |
| Removed after review: agencies, consultancies and services firms | 890 |
| Removed after review: not software (hardware, biotech, physical products) | 508 |
| Removed after review: closed, placeholder or no product content | 130 |
| Removed after review: investors, media, non-profits, directories and other non-product sites | 83 |
| Removed after review: lenders, insurers and other financial firms | 70 |
| Removed after review: duplicates of another company | 23 |
| Removed after review: not in English | 11 |
What was recorded. Every homepage is checked with the same automated rules used for the original 100, so results are directly comparable. Pricing links, prices, calls to action, demo and free routes, social proof, case studies, security signals and AI mentions are detected from the page's wording and links.
Headline clarity. Every headline was reviewed one by one against the same written test used in the first version: does the main headline on its own, and then the headline and the first line below it, tell a first-time visitor what the product is or does? The review was AI-assisted: each headline is checked individually against this fixed rubric.
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| Clear value proposition (headline) | The main H1 headline on its own tells a first-time visitor what the product is or does. Every headline was reviewed one by one against the same written test. The review was AI-assisted, applying a fixed rubric to each headline individually. |
| Clear value proposition (headline + subheading) | The headline and the first line below it, read together, pass the same test. |
| Pricing link | The homepage links to a page called Pricing, Plans or similar, in the navigation, body or footer. |
| Price on homepage | A specific price (for example £20 per user per month) appears on the homepage. |
| First call to action | The first button or link after the headline: demo or sales, free trial or free sign-up, or an unspecified "Get started". |
| Demo route | Any "Book a demo", "Request a demo", "Talk to sales", "Contact sales" or similar link anywhere on the page. |
| Free route | Any "Free trial", "Start for free", "Sign up free" or similar link anywhere on the page. |
| Logos or customer counts | Phrases such as "Trusted by", "Used by", "Join 5,000+ teams" alongside a customer logo strip or count. |
| Review badges | Mentions of G2, Capterra, Gartner, Forrester, TrustRadius, Trustpilot or similar. |
| Testimonials | A customer quote on the page. |
| Case studies | A link to case studies, customer stories or a customers page. |
| Security signals | Mentions of SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR or HIPAA. |
| AI in headline | The H1 mentions AI, artificial intelligence, agents or agentic. |
The full dataset is free to use with credit: data.csv (7,099 rows, one per homepage).
Download data.csvHughes, A. (2026). B2B SaaS Homepage Study. Adam Hughes Studio. Updated 31 October 2026. https://adamhughes.studio/research/b2b-saas-homepages-2026
If you use a finding or chart, a link back to this page is all I ask.
