SaaS is Dead? I Call BS.

They say SaaS is on its way out. That billing models like tokenization are about to blow up the foundation of how software is sold.

I call BS.

Here’s the thing: SaaS was never about billing. It was about distribution. And the idea that software delivery dies with a pricing change? That’s like saying books disappeared when Kindle came along.

Let me be blunt: in 20+ years of enterprise sales, I’ve never once seen a true month-to-month commitment for core software. SaaS lives in annual, multi-year, relationship-driven deals. It’s not a subscription. It’s a handshake — at scale.

Now, are billing models evolving? Absolutely.

I’ve been using Lovable.dev — a tokenized app dev platform — and I’ve upgraded twice in 30 days. From free, to $50, to $100. Why? Because it works. It’s intuitive. It flows… until it doesn’t.

When I hit the limit and tried to speak to someone about a custom plan, there was silence. Radio silence. The cost of delay? Now higher than the cost of tokens. Irony, right? The new friction is human, not code.

And that’s the bigger story here.

Token-based platforms aren’t killing SaaS. They’re changing who gets to build, and how. Natural language is becoming the new command line. GPT-dev tools are bending the learning curve — empowering analysts, marketers, even founders with no code experience — to go from vision to working app in days. Not quarters. No legacy bloat. No middleware spaghetti. Just clean, custom, internet-class apps.

And yes — I’ve seen this movie before. I was there when Force.com reshaped the enterprise. I’ve seen how quickly “no-code” turns into “new code.”

So, is SaaS dead?

Hardly. It’s evolving into something smarter. Faster. More flexible.

The real story isn’t in billing mechanics. It’s in capability democratization.

CIOs, CTOs — if you’re still extending monoliths to solve nimble line-of-business problems, you’re walking when your competitors are teleporting.

We’re not burying SaaS. We’re upgrading the firmware.

Build on.

Skip Roncal Cofounder, Mobeliz & GPT-dev platform evangelist.

Note: Original version updated using Mobeliz Digital Twin Studio trained on "Servicing the Metaverse (3300 words) and I #patented Instagram (5400 words), two white-papers that I authored earlier.

Mobeliz Digital Twin is currently in Alpha (stay tuned)