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Full editorial research report
SaaS / Finance · Intermediate — assumes working familiarity with SaaS business models and basic finance · English
Ben Murray is an identifiable operator with a decade-long public record, the syllabus is published in full before purchase, the checkout works, and 26 independent Trustpilot reviews back the teaching. The 3.5/5 reflects a serious transparency problem rather than a doubt about legitimacy: the sales page, the checkout and the legal Terms of Use each state a different refund policy, the page cannot decide whether you get 3 or 12 months of the bundled software, and several abandoned landing pages still advertise cohorts that closed in 2024 and 2025.
Last checked · Evidence is labeled by source type and freshness.
The evidence supports a genuine, purchasable course taught by a named professional through an active checkout, with independent third-party reviews. That does not guarantee teaching quality, fit, refund enforcement or results. The paid lessons were not inspected, and almost all student evidence describes the retired live-cohort version rather than the 2026 self-paced bundle.
Quick verdict
The SaaS Academy is Ben Murray’s SaaS-finance training site, and its flagship course, The SaaS Metrics Foundation, currently sells for $995 USD one-time with lifetime access. It is not Dan Martell’s SaaS Academy at saasacademy.com. The course is real and well documented; its refund policy is stated three different ways across three official pages.
Rating methodology
Price, checkout, syllabus, creator identity and price history are all directly verified, and independent reviews exist. But the course was not purchased, the refund policy is stated three contradictory ways so its real terms are unknown, and there is no independent discussion of the current 2026 version anywhere.
Weighted total: 3.475, rounded to one decimal as 3.5/5. Read the rating methodology.
Course record
The current offer is a self-paced, on-demand SaaS metrics course hosted on Kajabi, sold as a “SaaS Metrics Operating System”: roughly 40 named video lessons built on Ben Murray’s Five Pillars framework, 30+ Excel templates and forecast models, benchmark data, monthly live AMA sessions and bundled access to his SoftwareMetrics.ai dashboard. Until 2025 the same product was sold mainly as a five- to six-week live cohort meeting twice a week at $1,950–$2,395; those cohorts have ended, their enrolment links now hit a login wall, and buyers today receive recordings of a past live cohort rather than live teaching.
Founder, instructor and sole named teacher (“The SaaS CFO”)
Source: tsa-creator, tsa-courseCurrent official syllabus
These section and lesson names are taken verbatim from the current official sales page, where they are published in full before purchase. The identical list appeared on the 19 April 2025 archived snapshot. The paid lessons themselves were not purchased or inspected, and no per-lesson runtimes are published.
Fit
SaaS and AI finance staff — CFOs, controllers, FP&A analysts and accountants — who need a defensible, repeatable way to define and report ARR, retention, margin and efficiency metrics.
Founders and operators preparing for board meetings, fundraising or diligence who want to understand the numbers investors will interrogate.
Not a fit for complete finance beginners, for non-SaaS businesses, or for anyone wanting live teaching: the live cohorts have ended and only recordings plus a monthly AMA remain.
The complete lesson list — roughly 40 named lessons across ten sections — is published before purchase and is specific SaaS-finance material, not generic business content.
$995 USD one-time with lifetime access, verifiable at the checkout in one click from the sales page.
The instructor is fully identifiable with a decade-long public record: a 2016-founded blog, an active podcast (episode #383 published 8 August 2026) and a named Iowa LLC.
26 independent Trustpilot reviews exist with named reviewers and dates, and several seller-reprinted testimonials trace back to real posts there.
Klarna and Afterpay are offered at checkout for buyers who need to spread the cost.
The same site publishes seven genuinely free courses and a free community, so the teaching style can be sampled before spending anything.
Three official pages state three different refund policies, and the legal Terms of Use — the only one that is contractual — say no refunds at all after purchase.
The Terms of Use were last updated on 11 October 2019 and still contain an unfilled template placeholder reading “[INSERT LEGAL EMAIL ADDRESS]”.
The sales page promises both “12 months of free access” and “3 months included” for the bundled SoftwareMetrics.ai platform, so the buyer cannot tell what they are getting.
Live cohort teaching has been discontinued; buyers now receive recordings of a past cohort plus a monthly AMA.
At least four abandoned landing pages are still publicly live advertising $1,950 and $2,395 cohorts from 2024–2025 with expired countdown timers and Enroll buttons that lead to a login wall.
Student-count claims are inconsistent between the homepage (25,000+ operators, 5,000+ companies) and the course page (23K+ students, 3.5K+ companies) on the same day, and rose from “10,000+” in April 2025.
The $13,200 of stacked “values” at checkout, including “$1,200/annual” for the bundled dashboard, cannot be checked: SoftwareMetrics.ai publishes no standalone price.
No independent discussion of the course exists on Reddit or Hacker News, and no third-party video review was found.
Risk review
Active Kajabi checkout at $995.00 USD accepting Card, Klarna and Afterpay, matching the price on the sales page.
Named legal operator, Data on the Fly, LLC, with Iowa governing law disclosed in the Terms of Use.
Domain registered 25 March 2019, consistent with the seller’s claim to have founded the Academy in 2019.
Independent Trustpilot profile with 26 named reviews, 92% at five stars, most recently November 2025 — and no unresolved complaint on it.
Public affiliate programme with published terms and an FTC-disclosure link, paying up to 35% per course sale.
A direct support route is published: a named contact email (ben@thesaasacademy.com) plus a bookable 10-minute call.
The refund promise a buyer sees while paying is contradicted by the site’s own legal terms; the marketing promises are not incorporated into that contract.
“No one has asked for a refund yet”, printed beside the refund promise, is an unverifiable claim that discourages claims.
“World’s #1 SaaS Metrics Program” and “The #1 source for SaaS finance education” are unsubstantiated superlatives.
The course has been repositioned as a funnel for the seller’s own SoftwareMetrics.ai software, whose bundled duration and market price are both unclear.
Stale, contradictory landing pages advertising retired cohorts remain indexed and reachable, which is how the outdated $1,950 figure keeps circulating.
The name collides with Dan Martell’s unrelated SaaS Academy, whose separate Trustpilot profile carries high-ticket complaints that have nothing to do with this course.
Terms
Price read on 2026-08-10 directly from the live official Kajabi checkout.
Homepage testimonials
These are seller-selected user posts and screenshots, not a representative sample. We preserve the visible wording and label what was and was not independently verified.
“I took over as CFO at a time when we needed some rigorous answers quickly about our finances. I knew the business really well. But Ben taught me exactly how to make our finances into a repeatable process that made us look great in front of investors... overwhelming value.”
Verbatim from the seller’s homepage, labelled “CFO Perspective”. The same person posted the same account independently on Trustpilot on 4 June 2024; the seller’s version is trimmed, replacing “...and I feel like I barely scratched the surface of what he was teaching. Overwhelming value.” with an ellipsis. Identity is attributable; the outcome was not independently audited.
View source ↗“As VP of Ops for a high-growth SaaS business, it was critical for me to have a deep understanding of the financial drivers and KPIs for the business. Sure, there are plenty of free resources online, but Ben's SaaS metrics class offers a structured and efficient walkthrough of how to think of a SaaS business. It has provided great insight and value, and saved me a ton of time.”
Verbatim seller-selected testimonial on the course sales page, headed “Essential if you're running a SaaS business”. No date is displayed beside it and the version on the homepage is shortened; the claim was not independently audited.
View source ↗“I recently completed the SaaS Metrics Foundation Live course and it was great. As a SaaS CFO for a number of years, it was good to see a system and framework for SaaS metrics that clearly defined explained and categorized these metrics. Lastly I should mention that Ben is very knowledgeable and is a great instructor.”
Verbatim seller-selected testimonial that also exists as an independent Trustpilot review by a reviewer of the same name. Note that it explicitly describes the “Live” course, which is the discontinued cohort format, not the product sold today.
View source ↗“There are very few CFO's who actually get metrics and how to use them. I was not disappointed! I was very impressed with the detail, quality of answers and depth of knowledge!”
Verbatim seller-selected testimonial headed “Ben gets it...”. Our own 2025 entry quoted a trimmed version of this same testimonial. Undated, first name and initial only, and not independently traceable.
View source ↗Evidence
Facts, claims, reports, analysis, and unknowns are deliberately kept separate.
On 2026-08-10 the official Kajabi checkout showed $995.00 USD for The SaaS Metrics Foundation with Card, Klarna and Afterpay payment methods, while the sales page published the full lesson list, the $995 one-time price and the bundled SoftwareMetrics.ai access.
Sources: The SaaS Metrics Foundation Course — official Kajabi checkout · 1 further source recorded in the research fileWayback snapshots show the same on-demand course at $1,395 in July 2024 and $1,495 from April to October 2025, with an identical syllabus, and the retired live cohorts were sold at a $1,950 early-bird rate (four instalments of $473.75) and at $2,395; those prices are historical and do not govern a purchase today.
Sources: The SaaS Metrics Foundation — 19 April 2025 archived sales page“20+ hours” of training, “30+ templates”, “110K+ newsletter subscribers”, “25,000+ operators trained”, an NPS of “70+”, “World’s #1 SaaS Metrics Program”, the $13,200 stack of bonus values and “No one has asked for a refund yet” are all seller representations. Several conflict between the seller’s own pages on the same day.
Sources: The SaaS Metrics Foundation Course — official Kajabi checkout · SoftwareMetrics.ai — bundled platform and its pricing page · 1 further source recorded in the research fileAn independent Trustpilot profile carries 26 reviews — 24 five-star and 2 four-star, none below four — from named reviewers between 2023 and November 2025, with several matching testimonials the seller reprints; one reviewer notes their earlier 1-star review was resolved and re-rated, and some reviews carry Trustpilot’s “Redirected” label.
Sources: The SaaS Academy — Trustpilot profile (26 reviews)The product is legitimate and well documented, but the sales page, the checkout and the 2019 Terms of Use publish three mutually exclusive refund policies, the bundled platform duration is stated as both 3 and 12 months, and retired $1,950–$2,395 cohort pages remain live — which is what holds the rating to 3.5/5 rather than higher.
Sources: The SaaS Metrics Foundation Course — official Kajabi checkout · The SaaS Metrics Foundation — 19 April 2025 archived sales page · Disambiguation — Dan Martell’s SaaS Academy (saasacademy.com) is now Precision · 2 further sources recorded in the research fileRefund enforcement, the true bundled-platform duration, lesson runtime and update dates, community activity, and outcomes for the current self-paced version remain unknown: the course was not purchased, no representative data are published, and no independent discussion of the 2026 version exists on Reddit, Hacker News or YouTube.
Sources: The SaaS Academy — Trustpilot profile (26 reviews) · 2 further sources recorded in the research fileUnresolved
Which of the three published refund policies the seller actually applies, and whether any refund has ever been paid.
Whether the bundled SoftwareMetrics.ai access lasts 3 months or 12 months, and what it costs to keep afterwards.
Total video runtime beyond the seller’s “20+ hours” claim, and when individual lessons were last re-recorded.
Completion rates, satisfaction distribution and outcomes for the current self-paced 2026 bundle, as distinct from the retired live cohorts.
How active the private Slack community and the monthly AMA sessions actually are after purchase.
Whether the “110K+ newsletter subscribers”, “25,000+ operators trained” and “NPS 70+” figures are accurate; none is independently auditable, and the site’s own pages disagree with each other.
Whether the parity-purchasing-power discount banner observed during rendering is offered consistently, and to whom.
Next options
These alternatives are descriptive only. We have not researched or rated them here.
The same store gives away SaaS Finance 101, Focus on Cash, the Five Year SaaS Financial Plan course, a cash-runway course and a free community. Work through those first to test the teaching style before spending $995.
View current company site ↗Cheaper products from the same seller covering the vocabulary and the forecast model respectively, if the full metrics system is more than you need.
Ben Murray has published free SaaS metrics writing since 2016 and a near-daily podcast; much of the conceptual material is available at no cost, without templates or the software bundle.
View current company site ↗13 · Buyer checklist
Questions
Ben Murray’s The SaaS Academy at thesaasacademy.com appears to be a real business: a named Iowa LLC, a seven-year-old domain, a working checkout, a fully published syllabus and 26 independent Trustpilot reviews. That supports legitimacy, not guaranteed quality, value or refund enforcement.
No. Dan Martell’s SaaS Academy is a separate high-ticket coaching business at saasacademy.com, which now redirects to precision.co and has its own Trustpilot profile with roughly 70 reviews. Nothing in this report refers to it.
$995 USD as a one-time payment with lifetime access, read from the live official checkout on 2026-08-10. Klarna and Afterpay instalments are offered; no seller-run payment plan was available for this product when checked. It was $1,495 as recently as October 2025.
That was the early-bird rate for the February 2025 live cohort. Those cohort landing pages are still publicly live with expired countdown timers, but their Enroll buttons now lead to a login wall. The current on-demand product is $995.
There is no single answer, which is the problem. The sales page promises a no-questions-asked refund within 2 weeks; the checkout advertises a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee; the Terms of Use, last updated in 2019, state that no refunds are provided after the purchase date. Get the terms you are relying on confirmed by email before paying.
Self-paced. The five- and six-week live cohorts that ran through early 2025 have ended; buyers now get on-demand lessons, recordings of a past live cohort, 30+ templates, a private Slack community and monthly AMA sessions.
Source registry
tsa-checkoutSupports: Live checkout showing $995.00 USD, a coupon field, Card / Klarna / Afterpay payment methods, the “30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee” wording, the stacked bonus values and the buyer FAQ.
Limitations: A working checkout proves the offer is purchasable and states its price; it proves nothing about teaching quality, delivery, or whether the guarantee is honoured. The guarantee wording here conflicts with both the sales page and the site’s Terms of Use.
tsa-archive-2025Supports: The same course was priced at $1,495 one-time in April 2025 and stated “12 months of free access to my custom-built SaaS Metrics Dashboard”; the syllabus headings are identical to today’s. Earlier snapshots show $1,395 (July 2024).
Limitations: A snapshot describes a prior version only and must not be read as current terms or current pricing.
tsa-platformSupports: The bundled platform is a real, live product with a 14-day free trial; its pricing page publishes no dollar figure and routes all purchases back to TheSaaSAcademy.com.
Limitations: Because no standalone price is published anywhere, the “$1,200/annual” value the checkout assigns to this platform cannot be independently verified.
tsa-trustpilotSupports: 26 independently hosted reviews with named reviewers and dates: 24 five-star (92%), 2 four-star (8%), none at 1–3 stars. Reviews run from 2023 to November 2025 and several match testimonials the seller reprints.
Limitations: A 26-review sample is small; some reviews carry Trustpilot’s “Redirected” label, meaning the reviewer arrived from the company. One reviewer states they previously left a 1-star review that was resolved and re-rated, so the zero 1-star distribution is not the full history.
tsa-disambiguationSupports: saasacademy.com 301-redirects here, to a page titled “SaaS Academy is now Precision” carrying the banner “PRECISION ACQUIRES SAAS ACADEMY”. That business — the SaaS founder-coaching company Dan Martell founded — is entirely separate from Ben Murray’s thesaasacademy.com, and keeps its own Trustpilot profile of roughly 70 reviews.
Limitations: This source documents only that the two businesses are different; it says nothing about the course reviewed here.