The Hidden Revenue Engine:
How SaaS Companies Can Unlock Expansion Growth from Existing Customers
The Growth Strategy You’re Probably Ignoring
Every SaaS company chases growth, but most focus almost exclusively on customer acquisition. New logos. Bigger pipelines. More deals. But what if I told you your biggest growth opportunity is already paying you?
Customer expansion—growing revenue from your existing customers through upsell and cross-sell in SaaS—is not only a faster route to growth, it’s also more profitable.
According to McKinsey, increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25–95%. And research from Gainsight shows that expansion revenue can account for 50% or more of net new ARR in mature SaaS companies.
Despite this, many SaaS companies fail to unlock their SaaS customer expansion potential, leaving money on the table and missing opportunities to create stickier, more valuable customer relationships.
Why Do SaaS Companies Struggle with Customer Expansion?
Even though expansion revenue should be low-hanging fruit, many companies stumble in key areas that make growing revenue from existing accounts harder than it should be.
Your Customers Don’t Know What They Don’t Know
Your product has powerful features, integrations, and add-ons. But do your customers actually understand how those capabilities fit into their workflow?
Customer Spotlight:
Unlocking Expansion by Aligning to Customer Needs
A fast-growing SaaS company in the HR tech space engaged Thirdside to conduct pre-emptive due diligence on their customer base in preparation for a potential acquisition.
By all measures, they were a customer success leader—conducting regular check-ins, sharing best practices, and proactively supporting adoption. Yet despite this, they were missing out on a key source of growth: customer expansion.
Through qualitative customer insight interviews, Thirdside discovered that many of their customers were unaware of the additional solutions available to them. These were existing clients, already getting value, but unaware of how much more the company had to offer.
The Takeaway?
- This wasn’t a sales problem—it was an awareness problem.
- Customers trusted the brand but lacked visibility into the broader solution portfolio.
- There was a clear opportunity to upsell and cross-sell—but it required educating customers, not just selling to them.
By refining their customer expansion strategies around what customers actually valued, the company was able to unlock new expansion revenue streams and deepen loyalty at the same time.
Thirdside discovered that many of their customers were unaware of the additional solutions available to them. These were existing clients but unaware of how much more the company had to offer.
You’re Pitching an Upsell Before They’ve Seen Value
You can’t sell someone a second car if they’re still trying to figure out how to start the first one. If customers are struggling with your core product, any expansion conversation falls on deaf ears—or worse, annoys them.
Customer Spotlight:
When Expansion Attempts Backfire
An education technology provider promised quick, low-lift implementations for its student information system. While that helped close deals, reality quickly caught up:
- School districts faced staffing shortages and limited bandwidth.
- Product issues and delayed releases slowed time-to-value.
- Customers were still getting their bearings when expansion offers started showing up.
Account managers and CSMs pushed forward with SaaS customer expansion, but the timing was all wrong. Customers weren’t seeing the ROI they were promised. The upsell attempts were met with frustration—and in some cases, eroded trust.
The lesson? If customers haven’t seen results from the initial investment, even well-intentioned expansion efforts can feel tone-deaf. Expansion has to be timed to customer value realization, not internal revenue pressure.
If customers haven’t seen results from the initial investment, even well-intentioned expansion efforts can feel tone-deaf
You’re Talking to the Wrong Person
The person who signed the contract isn’t always the best person for an expansion conversation. Selling to the wrong champion creates friction and slows down expansion momentum.
Key Issues:
- Your original champion may not have budget authority for expansion.
- The decision-makers for Product A may be different from Product B.
- Expansion requires cross-departmental buy-in, but no one is driving it internally.
You’re Waiting Until Renewal to Have the Conversation
If the first time a customer hears about expansion is during renewal, you’ve already lost. By then, budgets are set, priorities are locked in, and the decision to renew—or leave—has often been made months earlier.
Instead:
- Expansion should be an ongoing conversation baked into customer success.
- Look for natural triggers that indicate a customer is ready to expand before renewal.
- Position expansion as part of the customer’s evolving needs, not a last-minute upsell.
You’re Not Learning from Your Most Successful Customers
Most SaaS companies invest in churn analysis—trying to understand why customers leave. But what about those who stay? Understanding why your happiest customers continue investing gives you a roadmap to scale expansion strategies across your base.
Customer Spotlight:
Using Retention Insights to Fuel Expansion
One enterprise software company had plenty of loyal customers—but few were expanding. Thirdside stepped in to help them go beyond churn prevention and explore how to grow expansion revenue by talking to those who kept renewing year after year.
What they discovered:
- Customers loved the product—but had little visibility into newer modules.
- Other teams within the same company needed similar solutions, but no one had connected the dots.
- The retention team wasn’t sharing insight with the sales team—or vice versa.
By connecting the dots and reframing expansion as solving new problems for already-satisfied customers, the company kickstarted a powerful new phase of SaaS customer expansion—without needing to hunt for new leads.
Understanding why your happiest customers continue investing gives you a roadmap to scale expansion strategies across your base.
How to Win at Customer Expansion
Build Expansion into the Customer Journey
Expansion should be a natural progression—not an afterthought.
Key Expansion Milestones:
- Onboarding: Highlight features that lead to long-term engagement.
- Usage Monitoring: Identify patterns that signal expansion readiness.
- Customer Success Check-ins: Align solutions with evolving business goals.
- Timely Expansion Offers: Present relevant add-ons when customers actually need them.
Have Real Conversations with Customers
Your best customer expansion strategies won’t come from guesswork. The only way to unlock them is to talk to your customers and listen to what they actually need.
- What features do they love?
- Where do they still struggle?
- What would make their jobs easier?
- Which departments could also benefit from your solution?
These insights don’t just come from sales—they emerge in customer success conversations, support interactions, and user feedback sessions.
Sell Solutions, Not Features
Customers don’t care about “advanced AI-powered reporting.” They care about making faster decisions, automating tedious work, or improving results.
- Tie every expansion conversation to an outcome they care about.
- Use real customer insights to tailor your messaging.
- Make adoption easy, so upgrading feels like a natural next step.
Customer Expansion Checklist
Are your customers ready for expansion? Ask yourself:
✔ Are they fully utilizing their current solution → If not, expansion will feel premature. Focus on adoption first.
✔ Are they engaged and seeing value? → High usage and strong engagement indicate expansion potential.
✔ Do they have a strong internal champion? → A weak or disengaged champion makes expansion difficult. Find the right advocate.
✔ Is the current champion the right contact? → Just because they led the initial deal doesn’t mean they’re the right person to push expansion.
✔ Do they know about all the solutions you offer? → Many customers simply don’t realize how else you can help them.
✔ Are you positioned to upsell and cross-sell in SaaS strategically? → If not, your offerings may be overlooked or misunderstood.
How Thirdside Can Help
Expansion opportunities aren’t always obvious—and most SaaS companies don’t have the bandwidth to conduct deep customer research. That’s where Thirdside comes in.
We specialize in qualitative customer insight interviews across the entire customer journey, helping companies understand:
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- Why customers buy
- How their experience is going
- What needs to happen to get them to buy more
By surfacing real customer insights, we help companies remove blind spots, refine customer expansion strategies, and accelerate expansion revenue.