How to tell if an agency really knows SaaS?

I’m trying to shortlist a few marketing agencies for a SaaS product, but I’m struggling to tell who actually understands the SaaS model and who just uses “SaaS” in their positioning.

What would you look for before booking calls? Relevant clients, case studies, knowledge of SaaS metrics, experience with a specific growth channel? I’m especially interested in ways to filter out agencies that look great on paper but don’t have much relevant experience.

I’d start by checking whether their actual work matches what you need. SaaS agencies can specialize in very different areas like SEO, paid acquisition, CRO, content, demand generation, lifecycle marketing, or analytics, so being “SaaS-focused” alone doesn’t tell you much.

For the initial research, this SaaS agencies directory is helpful because you can compare agencies by specialization instead of searching blindly. Once you have a shortlist, I’d dig into their case studies and look for context: what problem the client had, what the agency actually did, and whether the results are relevant to your goals.

I’d also pay attention to the questions they ask during the first call. In my experience, good agencies spend quite a bit of time trying to understand the product, target customer, sales cycle, current acquisition channels, and what has or hasn’t worked before.

If they jump straight into a standard package without understanding any of that, I’d probably keep looking.