In SaaS, innovation may win headlines but integration wins customers.
Despite the rise of modern standards like OpenID Connect (OIDC), SAML remains a firm requirement for many enterprise buyers. Choosing to ignore it doesn’t make your product more modern, it makes it harder to sell. Without it, many enterprise prospects may never even get past their initial security review.
SAML is not “legacy”. It’s revenue.
Many teams dismiss SAML as a “legacy protocol” associated with older, slower-moving enterprises. But in reality, legacy doesn’t mean outdated, it means embedded. It means trusted. And most importantly, it means required.
Global 2000 companies, governments, universities, and multinational corporations continue to rely on SAML-compatible Identity Providers (IdPs) like Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, and Ping Identity. These systems are deeply woven into their security posture, procurement workflows, and compliance frameworks. For these organizations, SAML isn’t optional, it’s how business gets done.
And this isn’t changing any time soon. These customers aren’t rebuilding their identity architecture for your SaaS product. They expect you to meet them where they are.
Supporting SAML is a business decision, not just a technical one
Startups often deprioritize SAML under the assumption that it’s technically complex, or that modern protocols like OpenID Connect (OIDC) are “enough.” But this overlooks the commercial impact.
When your platform doesn’t support SAML, enterprise prospects frequently hit a hard stop. Their security teams won’t greenlight vendors that don’t integrate with their SSO ecosystem. Your product might win on features, usability, and vision, but if it can’t connect to the buyer’s identity layer, the deal stalls or disappears.
Supporting SAML means supporting pipeline velocity, expansion potential, and trust. In many cases, supporting SAML is the difference between a six-figure customer and a closed-lost opportunity.
Frictionless SSO drives sales, security, and customer satisfaction
Enterprise SSO is more than a compliance check. SAML SSO reduces friction during procurement, accelerates proof-of-concept timelines, and aligns with enterprise IT expectations. It improves adoption, signals product maturity, and removes barriers that otherwise slow down onboarding.
For customers, the benefits are clear: fewer help desk tickets, stronger security posture, and a seamless login experience across the tools their teams rely on. In regulated sectors like finance, education, and healthcare, SAML is often non-negotiable. These organizations depend on it to enforce identity governance, streamline audits, and meet internal security and compliance standards. While regulations like HIPAA and GDPR don’t prescribe specific protocols, SAML plays a pivotal role in enabling secure, auditable access—helping organizations meet those regulatory obligations more easily.
Modern Identity is hybrid by design
Today’s SaaS platforms must serve both cloud-native startups and highly regulated enterprises. That means your identity architecture needs to be flexible, composable, and comprehensive.
A modern, scalable identity foundation should support:
- SAML for compatibility with the broad base of enterprise IdPs
- OIDC for modern, API-driven applications and developer-first use cases
- SCIM for automated provisioning, deprovisioning, and user lifecycle management (another frequent enterprise requirement)
It’s not about choosing one protocol over another. It’s about supporting the real-world complexity of your customers’ environments built on established identity standards. Together, these standards form a complete, future-ready B2B SSO strategy. A hybrid approach ensures you’re never disqualified on technical grounds and always aligned with how your buyers manage access.
Future-proofing SaaS with identity infrastructure that scales
Today’s SaaS platforms increasingly operate in multi-tenant, multi-user, and even multi-relationship environments. Supporting modern identity is no longer about one user logging into one app. It's about enabling access across business hierarchies, partners, and potentially, consumer end-users — whether you’re building for internal teams, enterprise clients, or B2B2C models.
A flexible identity foundation allows you to adapt to this complexity. It ensures you can scale securely, serve more customer segments, and expand your platform’s reach—without revisiting foundational architecture decisions.
The takeaway: Identity strategy is revenue strategy
SAML SSO might appear to be a technical feature — but it’s far more than that. It’s a direct lever for enterprise growth. Without it, your product risks exclusion from the very buyers who can drive your largest deals.
By embracing a hybrid identity model that includes SAML, OIDC, and SCIM, you position your platform to grow into the enterprise, across regulated sectors, and alongside your customers as they scale.
If you're building your own infrastructure, Ory Polis gives you full control over SAML-based SSO in a modular, self-hosted package. If you’re ready to go faster, Ory Network provides a fully managed platform with SAML and OIDC support out of the box — so you can meet enterprise requirements without slowing down product delivery.
SAML isn’t a legacy burden, it’s a modern business advantage. Make it part of your strategy and contact us today.
