The Customer Proof Index 2026
What 1,000 B2B software companies actually publish, measured from what their websites hold, not taken on their word.
We analysed 1,000 B2B software companies across 55 categories on 2026-08-21 and found that 39.0% (372 of 954) have no written proof of a customer result anywhere on their site. That splits into 21.5% with nothing at all and 17.5% that substitute video only.
Of the 335 companies where we could open a real story, 1 in 10 (10.7%) contains no number anywhere, even though 84.8% name the customer and 83.6% quote them directly. Most published B2B case studies are personal, just not measurable. And they go stale: among stories with a verifiable publish date, the median newest one is about 9.9 months old, and 44.2% of those companies have not published a new story in over a year.
Key findings
- 21.5% of B2B software companies (205 of 954) have no written case study anywhere on their site; another 17.5% (167) substitute video-only proof with no written companion.
- Among the 335 companies with at least one readable story, 10.7% (36) never state a number in any sampled story: no percentage, dollar figure, or before-and-after.
- 84.8% name the customer and 83.6% include a direct quote: the parts of a case study that take the least verification effort are the parts most companies get right.
- The median B2B case study runs 858 words (n = 1,348 stories sampled across the 335 companies).
- IT, dev & security companies are the least likely to have written proof (48.4% have nothing written, n = 221); HR & people companies are the most likely (30.8% have nothing written, n = 91).
- Case studies age fast and are rarely dated: only 120 of 335 story-bearing companies carry a verifiable publish date at all, and among those, the median newest story is about 9.9 months old.
How much customer proof do B2B software companies actually publish?
Three states, measured across every company we could reach (n = 954, excluding 46 unreachable homepages). “Written proof” means at least one page reads as a real case study or customer story, not a testimonial wall of one-line blurbs.
It gets thinner once you open the stories
Having a case study page and having a credible one are different questions. Among the 335 companies where at least one sampled story loaded successfully:
10.7%
have no number in any sampled story (36 of 335)
84.8%
name the customer by strict signals (284 of 335)
83.6%
include a direct customer quote (280 of 335)
858
median words per story (n = 1,348 stories)
Which B2B software categories have the least written proof?
We grouped the 55 SaaSHub categories into 7 broader groups and measured “nothing written” (no written case study and no video either) and, within the companies that do have a readable story, the share with no number in it. Sorted worst to best by nothing-written rate.
| Category group | Companies (n) | Nothing written | Of story-bearing, no number |
|---|---|---|---|
| IT, dev & security | 221 | 107 (48.4%) | 10/62 (16.1%) |
| Operations & vertical | 87 | 36 (41.4%) | 1/30 (3.3%) |
| Finance & admin | 212 | 83 (39.2%) | 6/62 (9.7%) |
| Customer support & success | 93 | 35 (37.6%) | 3/40 (7.5%) |
| Marketing | 179 | 61 (34.1%) | 6/77 (7.8%) |
| Sales & CRM | 71 | 22 (31.0%) | 5/28 (17.9%) |
| HR & people | 91 | 28 (30.8%) | 5/36 (13.9%) |
“Nothing written” % is of all companies in the group (n excludes unreachable sites). “No number” % is of only the story-bearing subset in that group.
How fresh is the case study a buyer actually finds?
Among the 335 companies with a readable story, we only count a date the story itself verifiably declares. Server and build timestamps are excluded, even though including them would make every library look fresher than it really is.
Among the 120 companies where we do have a verifiable date, the median newest story is about 9.9 months old, and 44.2% have not published a new one in over a year. Read that alongside the other 215: a missing date is not proof of a stale story, only proof we could not verify it either way.
What the best do
We did not hand-pick these from memory. Every company below cleared the same objective bar inside our dataset: a named customer, a real quantified result, a direct quote, and a story verifiably published within the last 12 months. Quotes are shown as captured; an ellipsis marks where the sentence continues on the page.
CI/CD tool
bitrise.io →The story about Shopify states that up to 50% faster CI/CD builds and 50% fewer tools.
- Named: named through a JSON-LD Organization record, not just the headline
- Quoted: “We started questioning whether it was better to look outside for an off-the-shelf solution that could offer us more functionality and help improve our merchant experience.”
Published 2026-08-14, about a week before our crawl.
Recruiting tool
recruitee.com →The story about Keolis states that Keolis brought its time-to-hire down to 18 days.
- Named: introduced in an “About Keolis” section
- Quoted: “We were flying blind at the time. We had no compass to tell us where we were heading with recruitment.”
Published 2026-08-21, the same day as our crawl.
Contract management tool
gatekeeperhq.com →The story about Redwood Logistics states that the customer uses the vendor’s agent to return around 300 hours to procurement by automating renewal preparation.
- Named: the customer’s name appears 8 times through the body, not just in the title
- Quoted: “Gatekeeper’s Agent handles the work my team would normally do at the start of every renewal… By the time we start, the groundwork is already done.”
Published 2026-07-18, about five weeks before our crawl.
Fleet management tool
verizonconnect.com →The story about Green Mountain states that the headline carries the number without hedging: “Green Mountain saves $70k in auto claims”.
- Named: the customer’s name appears 23 times through the piece
- Quoted: “Day to day, there’s a lot of driving…” (a fragment; the sentence continues on the page)
Published 2026-08-21, the same day as our crawl.
Help desk tool
front.com →The story about Gattinoni Business Travel states that about 65% of Gattinoni’s tickets are classified with enough confidence to route automatically.
- Named: the customer’s name appears 13 times through the piece
- Quoted: “At Gattinoni, great service means combining human expertise with technology…”
Published 2026-06-24, about two months before our crawl.
About this research
We are not an independent research firm. StoryVoice makes case-study software, and StoryVoice Research measured this dataset ourselves, from what each company publishes on its own website. Two things matter most when weighing any number above:
- Freshness counts only dates the stories themselves declare. Only 120 of the 335 story-bearing companies carry a verifiable publication date. Server and build timestamps are excluded from every freshness claim, because they change when a site redeploys, not when a story is written, and including them makes every library look artificially fresh.
- The sample is one directory's curation, not a census. All 1,000 companies came from 55 software-category listings on the same directory. That is a reasonable cross-section of B2B software that maintains a public listing, but it is not a random sample of every B2B software company, and this report never claims otherwise.
What this means for you
- 01You have zero written case studies. You are one of 205 companies (21.5%) in exactly this position, not an outlier. Start with one, in the segment you are most starved for proof in; our customer proof guide covers where to begin.
- 02You only have video testimonials. 17.5% of companies are in the same spot. Video does not get indexed, quoted, or pasted into a sales email the way a written story does. A written companion to your strongest video is worth more than a second video; here is how to turn video testimonials into written case studies.
- 03You have case studies, but no numbers in them. You are not alone (10.7% of story-bearing companies), but you are leaving the highest-trust part of a case study out. A before-and-after in the customer's own words is usually sitting in the interview you already did; a case study without metrics can still work, but not by accident.
- 04You sell IT, dev, security, finance, or operations software. Your category is behind its peers (39-48% have nothing written). That is a bigger opportunity than it is an excuse. The category deep dives go further: IT, dev and security software, property management software, and vertical SaaS like field service and booking software.
- 05Your newest case study is over a year old. 44.2% of dated stories are in the same position. A stale library reads as an inactive company to a buyer doing due diligence.
Frequently asked questions
How common are case studies in B2B software?
Less common than most marketers assume. In our crawl of 954 B2B software companies (2026-08-21), 61.0% publish at least one written case study, which means 39.0% have nothing written: 21.5% have no customer proof of any kind and 17.5% substitute video testimonials with no written companion. A written case study is the majority position, not a given.
What share of published case studies have a number in them?
About 9 in 10. Among the 335 companies where we could open at least one real story, 89.3% include a quantified result somewhere (a percentage, a dollar figure, a time saved, a before-and-after). The remaining 10.7% (36 companies) never state a number in any story we sampled. Naming and quoting are stronger still: 84.8% name the customer and 83.6% include a direct quote.
How old are the case studies most companies publish?
Older than they look, on the ones we could date at all. Of the 335 story-bearing companies, only 120 carry a verifiable publication date. Among those 120, the median newest story is about 9.9 months old, and 44.2% have not published a new one in over a year. The other 215 companies have no verifiable date on their story, so their real freshness is unknown rather than confirmed stale.
Which B2B software categories have the least written proof?
IT, dev and security tools, by a wide margin. 48.4% of companies in that group (107 of 221) have nothing written, the worst of the 7 groups we measured. Operations and vertical software (fleet, property, field service, legal practice management) was second-worst at 41.4%. HR and people software was the strongest group, at 30.8% with nothing written.
Cite this research
StoryVoice Research. (2026, August 21). The Customer Proof Index 2026: What 1,000 B2B Software Companies Actually Publish. StoryVoice. https://storyvoice.io/research/customer-proof-index-2026
If you cite a figure, link this page as its source. Every figure here carries its own n.
First-party research by StoryVoice, published 2026-08-21. A future re-run will be published as its own dated version, never silently over this one.
Further reading
4 in 10 B2B Software Companies Have No Written Case Study: 2026 Data
The existence findings from this index, expanded
Only 1 in 10 Published Case Studies Has a Number In It
The quality findings from this index, expanded
Customer Proof Benchmarks: IT, Dev and Security Software (2026)
The IT, dev and security cut of this index
Customer Proof Benchmarks: Property Management Software (2026)
The property management cut of this index
Curious where you land in this dataset? Run your own case study library through the same checks we ran on these 1,000 companies.
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