How SaaS CFOs Can Benchmark and Control G&A Spend by ARR Stage (Without Killing Growth)

It’s one of the most painful conversations in SaaS finance right now—and one of the most avoidable.

General & Administrative spend, or G&A, has become the quiet killer of runway. While sales and marketing take the heat (and the budget), bloated back-office spending often grows unchecked, especially as ARR crosses major inflection points.

But we’ve got good news: there’s a way to benchmark and control G&A that doesn’t choke growth or leave teams under-resourced. We’ve helped dozens of SaaS companies—from sub-$1M scrappers to post-$50M scaleups—track, compare, and optimize G&A in ways that actually support smarter expansion.

In this article, we’ll show you:

What “good” G&A looks like at each ARR stage
Where overspending hides in plain sight
The right cost moves for each growth tier
How we helped one company drop G&A by 26% without layoffs
And what smart CFOs are doing right now in 2025

Let’s dive in.

Why G&A Deserves More of Your Attention

Most founders—and even some finance leaders—treat G&A as a fixed cost. Legal, HR, Finance, IT… you need these functions, and they don’t drive revenue. So they get a pass, right?

Not anymore.

In 2025, investor expectations have sharpened even more. There’s no longer room for undisciplined general spending in the back office. There’s increased scrutiny on SaaS operating leverage, and G&A is suddenly a first-class citizen in the “how efficient are you really?” conversation. That includes:

Finance: too many tools, under-leveraged analysts
HR: bloated teams managing tiny orgs
IT/Systems: overlapping SaaS tools, underused licenses
Legal/Compliance: retained counsel with minimal throughput

G&A may not generate revenue directly, but it does erode gross margin if left unmonitored. It also signals whether your back office is scaling with the business—or in spite of it.

The Benchmark Conversation: Why It’s Blowing Up on LinkedIn

In 2025, LinkedIn has become the public audit log for CFO strategy. And lately, G&A is everywhere.

One SaaS CFO recently posted: “If your G&A spend hasn’t gone down in the last two ARR jumps, your back office is growing faster than your business.” That post racked up thousands of engagements—and dozens of comments sharing benchmarking tips, red flags, and war stories.

Another called out VC portfolio companies spending 25–30% of ARR on G&A—more than they spend on product in some cases.

That’s not just inefficient. It’s dangerous.

Benchmark Table: G&A Spend as % of ARR by Company Stage

Here’s the distilled version we use internally. It holds up surprisingly well across both high-growth and more efficient SaaS models:

ARR Stage	G&A % of ARR	Notes
< $1M	20–30%	Building core teams
$1–5M	15–20%	Scaling with controls
$5–20M	10–15%	Need operating leverage
$20M+	8–12%	Efficiency in full flight

These aren’t gospel. They’re benchmarks. But if your G&A spend is outside these bounds, it’s a reason to investigate—especially if you’re not feeling the ROI.

Why G&A Gets Out of Control (Without Anyone Noticing)

We’ve helped dozens of finance teams audit G&A, and here’s the hard truth:

No one owns the full picture.

G&A is split across orgs and leaders—HR owns headcount, IT owns SaaS, Finance owns reporting—and that fragmentation leads to bloat.

Here’s what we see again and again.

Common Drivers of G&A Overspend

Multiple systems solving the same problem
Headcount in admin roles that don’t scale with ARR
Over-budget legal, audit, or compliance vendors
Corporate travel resuming post-COVID—but unmanaged
“Free” pilot tools that were never turned off
No monthly G&A scorecard or owner

The worst part? Many of these costs don’t feel wrong in isolation. It’s the accumulation that sinks you.

What To Do at Every Stage: G&A by ARR Tier

G&A optimization is not a one-size-fits-all play. It’s contextual. What’s lean at $20M ARR is reckless at $1M. Here’s how we approach it by stage.

<$1M ARR: Build the Minimum Viable Back Office

Hire generalists—don’t specialize yet
Use outsourced Finance, Legal, HR
Avoid systems that lock you into long-term cost

$1–5M ARR: Standardize and Systematize

Introduce automation (e.g. payroll, accounting, spend management)
Build your first G&A dashboard
Define what you’ll insource vs. outsource

$5–20M ARR: Drive Operating Leverage

Consolidate tools, clean up your stack
Invest in FP&A to manage all G&A centrally
Set targets for G&A % of ARR

$20M+ ARR: Professionalize and Audit

Formalize cost controls
Benchmark vs. peers
Review contracts, vendor relationships quarterly

5 G&A Control Moves You Can Make Right Now

Here’s a practical list of quick wins we deploy early in most client engagements:

Run a full tool stack audit: Remove 15–30% of unused tools in the first pass
Centralize spend tracking: No more blind spots across HR, Finance, and IT
Cap non-revenue headcount growth: Tie to ARR, not “feels like we need it”
Benchmark against your ARR peers: Use our table or tools like Benchmarkit
Stand up a monthly G&A review: Owner, scorecard, rolling forecast

None of these require layoffs. All of them require ownership.

Real-World Example: $8M ARR SaaS Company

We worked with a B2B SaaS firm doing around $8M in ARR. They weren’t inefficient—on paper.

But their G&A spend had crept to 18% of ARR. We helped them:

Rationalize a bloated IT stack (eliminated 12 tools)
Push HR ops to a fractional provider
Automate FP&A reporting
Restructure legal billing model

The result? A 26% drop in G&A costs within four months—with zero layoffs. That freed up cash for product and customer success, not admin overhead.

The 2025 CFO Mandate

Today’s SaaS CFO isn’t just a finance operator. They’re a strategic cost architect.

G&A isn’t the sexiest place to focus—but it’s often where the leverage is hiding. And in 2025, investors, boards, and executive teams are watching more closely than ever.

If you’re not benchmarking your G&A spend—or you suspect it’s out of line with your peers—we’d love to help.

Contact Us

We’re offering a free G&A scorecard review to SaaS companies between $1M and $50M ARR. We’ll benchmark your numbers, identify red flags, and show you where the leverage lives.