Options selling with Christian
Growth Investor, Options Selling, Creator of Stock Catalysts
HubSpot shows that disruptors get disrupted, as AI forces CRM vendors toward outcome-based pricing that bills for results rather than users. KCR made that call in December 2025, and it materialized on May 7, 2026, when HubSpot moved its AI agents to outcome-based pricing and cut prices; the stock fell about 19% the next day. x.comÂ
Horizontal SaaS tools such as HubSpot, Atlassian and Intuit will be disrupted as companies build their own replacements with AI. Per @CJ0pp3l, quoting one of Constellation Software's AI leads, HubSpot, Jira, Mailchimp and Zendesk have been replaced with AI-built systems and agents, and only vertical software with strong systems of record and deep workflow integration will grow with AI. The market also sold vertical names like Constellation and Topicus, which hold deep platform data. x.comÂ
HubSpot is a massive AI beneficiary because it lets customers spin up ad campaigns without a full-time employee or even an outside marketer. Yet its shares trade exactly opposite AI. x.comÂ
AI is not killing software; it is killing the per-seat software model, which is why Salesforce, HubSpot, ServiceNow, Snowflake and Datadog are getting crushed. Companies will not keep paying for 100 Salesforce users, 50 HubSpot users and 30 ServiceNow users when five AI agents can do the same work around the clock. x.comÂ
AI-first software like Palantir, Zeta Global and Duolingo is still largely misunderstood and underappreciated, while data-light SaaS is dying by a thousand cuts. Data-light SaaS may keep large enterprises on convenience and switching costs, but will struggle to win new customers from far cheaper alternatives with 90% of the capability, capping its growth. Per The Information, small companies are replacing Salesforce and HubSpot with custom AI-built apps, cutting software costs 40-80%. x.comÂ
HubSpot is the only apps company ripping the bandaid off by moving away from seat-based pricing, even if that means lower growth in the near term. Enterprise SaaS only starts to work after a total reset of pricing toward consumption-based models, which also resets near-term revenue growth and margins. x.comÂ
ServiceTitan looks mispriced, even more so than HubSpot, because its plumbers and HVAC contractors are not going to replace it by vibe coding their own software. @TheHimalayanYak, whose post this replies to, agrees that both are mispriced: most small businesses are not vibe coding, and no AI platform has yet emerged that delivers more out of the box. x.comÂ
Adobe is among the SaaS companies at risk because AI agents don't care about UX/UI, and SaaS businesses that rely on their interfaces are toast. Some were top SaaS names in 2021, before the ZIRP-era SaaS collapse. x.com x.comÂ
HubSpot and Intuit have a meaningful chance to be AI winners even as the market destroys SMB software, because selling to small businesses is life on hard mode, as @travisk put it, which makes it moaty. The math is so hard that competition is thin and survivors gain share in downturns; they have aggregated customers at scale; AI agents favor full-platform adoption and clean data; and AI may spur many new small businesses. They still add customers, but the window is closing; they must accelerate. … Show more
Salesforce is a company that cannot win on talent or product, making it one to avoid, though this view has been wrong before. x.comÂ