What is a good SaaS magic number in 2026?

The magic number divides new annualised recurring revenue by the sales and marketing spend that produced it, so it answers whether the next dollar of go-to-market spend returns more than a dollar. A median of 1.37 across the 342 companies in the 2026 Aleph and Benchmarkit dataset sits comfortably above the 0.75 threshold that is conventionally read as the point at which spending harder is defensible.

It is the cleanest single measure to put in a go-to-market blueprint because it is forward-looking. CAC payback at 16 months and LTV to CAC at 3.2 to 1 describe customers already acquired, while a magic number of 1.37 describes what the next increment of spend is likely to return, which is the question an investor is actually asking when they read a channel plan.