Rebranding of IT companies and SaaS products
How does SaaS rebranding differ from rebranding a regular IT company
An IT company in the classical sense is a legal entity that sells services, expertise, sometimes a set of products. Rebranding here works with perception at the reputation level: how clients, partners, and investors think about the company. The user does not physically encounter the brand daily — they see it on the website, in contracts, at conferences.
A SaaS platform is another matter. The brand lives inside the product here: in the design system, in navigation, in button and module names. Platform rebranding almost always pulls along UI changes, which means direct intervention in the workflows of thousands of users who open the product not to admire the new logo, but to complete a task in five minutes.
| Parameter | Rebranding of an IT company | Rebranding of a SaaS product |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Name, visual style, website, communications | Everything the same + interface, design system, UX patterns |
| Who notices first | Market, partners, media | Active users at login moment |
| Main risk | Confusion in market perception | User attrition and declining engagement due to change of familiar UI |
| What needs to be prepared | PR strategy, brandbook | PR strategy, brandbook + interface migration and onboarding plan |
| Horizon of effect | First shifts in recognizability noticeable within a quarter | Product metrics respond almost instantly — sometimes negatively |
Why companies even take this risk at all
The reasons for IT companies and SaaS products are the same: growth in the number of products, entry into a new market, and the need to look more solid for enterprise clients. Contour was rebranded when the product line grew to 90+ products and the old name could no longer unite them into a single story — the difference in recall between the old and new audiences after the launch reached 25 percentage points of induced recall.
A telling case of expansion — the transition of Turnkey to Sustainion. The rebranding was accompanied by product repositioning, which yielded a measurable business result, not an abstract 'increase in recall': 75% of existing clients converted to the premium product, and the company successfully entered the African market. This is an example where rebranding was a scaling tool, not just cosmetics.
After rebranding, Yandex Split raised its Top of Mind from 15% to 26%, Consideration — from 70% to 76%, and NPS increased by 2 points. The name also became embedded in the language so much that within a year, 6324 organic mentions of the verb 'split' were recorded. This is a rare case where a brand name became part of everyday speech — a strong signal of a successful launch.
How to launch a rebranding without losing users
The main fork for SaaS is not design, but adoption. A user who has been clicking familiar icons for years reacts to interface changes as an obstacle, not an improvement, even if the new version is objectively better. During the rebranding of KION (MTS), transitioning to a unified design system changed the structure of shelves and cards — and this directly affected user journeys: where people stop to look, what they notice first, and where they click by habit.
Practice shows that communication with users requires a separate plan, no less detailed than the redesign itself:
- Announce changes in advance via email and in-app messages — at least 2-3 weeks before the release.
- Provide the option to switch between the old and new interface during the transition period (where technically possible).
- Prepare short training materials right in the product: tooltips, checklists, videos of 30-60 seconds.
- Collect feedback through built-in surveys in the first two weeks after the release and promptly fix critical complaints.
- Maintaining support in accelerated mode for the first month — most questions come precisely during this period.
It's precisely the lack of such work, not the design itself, that ruins rebrandings: most failures happen due to weak communication and internal adoption, not because of problems with the visual style.
What metrics show that a rebranding worked
Evaluating success by 'likes vs. dislikes' is a dead end. For a SaaS product, you need a set of metrics that separates brand perception from product health:
- Brand awareness and Top of Mind — recognition before and after, preferably with prompted and spontaneous measurement.
- Consideration and NPS — willingness to recommend and consider the product as a purchase option.
- Retention and churn rate in the first 30-60-90 days after the new interface release — the most honest indicator of whether users accepted the changes or not.
- Activation rate of new users — if onboarding is restructured properly, conversion to the first key action increases, not decreases.
- Organic mentions of the brand and product in social networks, forums, support — as in the case with 'split' at Yandex Split.
- Conversion of the existing base to premium or new tariffs — a metric that shows whether the rebranding worked as an upsell tool, as it did with Sustainion.
It's important not to expect instant results: the first noticeable shifts in perception become visible within a quarter, and stable new brand perception forms 1,5-2 year. If metrics aren't perfect a month after launch — that's normal, not a failure.
Mistakes that kill rebranding
The most common and most expensive mistake is to start with a picture rather than a business task. The team discusses fonts and palettes, but cannot answer why the brand is being changed at all and what should change in market or user behavior. In this case, design solves the wrong problem.
The second mistake is a sharp transition without a transitional period in the interface. SaaS product users do not read press releases; they open a familiar tool and see a foreign interface without explanations — this provokes churn especially in the first days, when the decision to abandon the product is most impulsive.
Third — saving on implementation. Developing a strategy and identity is one budget item, but implementing it in the product, communications, and training the team is a completely different one, and it is almost always more expensive. A full rebranding cycle for an IT company — strategy, identity, brandbook, implementation — costs from 500 thousand to 5 million rubles and up, and trying to cut the implementation phase results in the new brand living beautifully on the website but chaotically in the product.
A good counterexample of cost-saving is the case of Celigo, which conducted in-house rebranding in 5 months instead of the standard year, saving over 500 thousand dollars, and at the same time received a Gold ADDY and a GDUSA Award. The difference from unsuccessful cases is that they cut the timeline and subcontractors, but not the work on communications and adaptation — this is a fundamentally different approach than simply 'do it cheaper'.
What to do with scaling and enterprise audience
A separate context is rebranding for entering a new market or attracting large clients. Enterprise clients evaluate a brand differently than mass users: they care not about aesthetics but about the feeling of stability, maturity, and compliance with industry standards. Rebranding for such an audience usually requires a more conservative identity and much more detailed documentation — a brandbook, communication guidelines, cases of implementation with other large clients.
At the same time, it is better not to mix the migration of an active user base and entering a new segment into a single release. If a product simultaneously changes the interface for current users and positioning for new markets, then it becomes almost impossible to evaluate what exactly worked or failed — metrics from different audiences begin to mask each other.
How does SaaS rebranding differ from rebranding a regular IT company
An IT company in the classical sense is a legal entity that sells services, expertise, sometimes a set of products. Rebranding here works with perception at the reputation level: how clients, partners, and investors think about the company. The user does not physically encounter the brand daily — they see it on the website, in contracts, at conferences.
A SaaS platform is another matter. The brand lives inside the product here: in the design system, in navigation, in button and module names. Platform rebranding almost always pulls along UI changes, which means direct intervention in the workflows of thousands of users who open the product not to admire the new logo, but to complete a task in five minutes.
| Parameter | Rebranding of an IT company | Rebranding of a SaaS product |
|---|---|---|
| What changes | Name, visual style, website, communications | Everything the same + interface, design system, UX patterns |
| Who notices first | Market, partners, media | Active users at login moment |
| Main risk | Confusion in market perception | User attrition and declining engagement due to change of familiar UI |
| What needs to be prepared | PR strategy, brandbook | PR strategy, brandbook + interface migration and onboarding plan |
| Horizon of effect | First shifts in recognizability noticeable within a quarter | Product metrics respond almost instantly — sometimes negatively |
Why companies even take this risk at all
The reasons for IT companies and SaaS products are the same: growth in the number of products, entry into a new market, and the need to look more solid for enterprise clients. Contour was rebranded when the product line grew to 90+ products and the old name could no longer unite them into a single story — the difference in recall between the old and new audiences after the launch reached 25 percentage points of induced recall.
A telling case of expansion — the transition of Turnkey to Sustainion. The rebranding was accompanied by product repositioning, which yielded a measurable business result, not an abstract 'increase in recall': 75% of existing clients converted to the premium product, and the company successfully entered the African market. This is an example where rebranding was a scaling tool, not just cosmetics.
After rebranding, Yandex Split raised its Top of Mind from 15% to 26%, Consideration — from 70% to 76%, and NPS increased by 2 points. The name also became embedded in the language so much that within a year, 6324 organic mentions of the verb 'split' were recorded. This is a rare case where a brand name became part of everyday speech — a strong signal of a successful launch.
How to launch a rebranding without losing users
The main fork for SaaS is not design, but adoption. A user who has been clicking familiar icons for years reacts to interface changes as an obstacle, not an improvement, even if the new version is objectively better. During the rebranding of KION (MTS), transitioning to a unified design system changed the structure of shelves and cards — and this directly affected user journeys: where people stop to look, what they notice first, and where they click by habit.
Practice shows that communication with users requires a separate plan, no less detailed than the redesign itself:
- Announce changes in advance via email and in-app messages — at least 2-3 weeks before the release.
- Provide the option to switch between the old and new interface during the transition period (where technically possible).
- Prepare short training materials right in the product: tooltips, checklists, videos of 30-60 seconds.
- Collect feedback through built-in surveys in the first two weeks after the release and promptly fix critical complaints.
- Maintaining support in accelerated mode for the first month — most questions come precisely during this period.
It's precisely the lack of such work, not the design itself, that ruins rebrandings: most failures happen due to weak communication and internal adoption, not because of problems with the visual style.
What metrics show that a rebranding worked
Evaluating success by 'likes vs. dislikes' is a dead end. For a SaaS product, you need a set of metrics that separates brand perception from product health:
- Brand awareness and Top of Mind — recognition before and after, preferably with prompted and spontaneous measurement.
- Consideration and NPS — willingness to recommend and consider the product as a purchase option.
- Retention and churn rate in the first 30-60-90 days after the new interface release — the most honest indicator of whether users accepted the changes or not.
- Activation rate of new users — if onboarding is restructured properly, conversion to the first key action increases, not decreases.
- Organic mentions of the brand and product in social networks, forums, support — as in the case with 'split' at Yandex Split.
- Conversion of the existing base to premium or new tariffs — a metric that shows whether the rebranding worked as an upsell tool, as it did with Sustainion.
It's important not to expect instant results: the first noticeable shifts in perception become visible within a quarter, and stable new brand perception forms 1,5-2 year. If metrics aren't perfect a month after launch — that's normal, not a failure.
Mistakes that kill rebranding
The most common and most expensive mistake is to start with a picture rather than a business task. The team discusses fonts and palettes, but cannot answer why the brand is being changed at all and what should change in market or user behavior. In this case, design solves the wrong problem.
The second mistake is a sharp transition without a transitional period in the interface. SaaS product users do not read press releases; they open a familiar tool and see a foreign interface without explanations — this provokes churn especially in the first days, when the decision to abandon the product is most impulsive.
Third — saving on implementation. Developing a strategy and identity is one budget item, but implementing it in the product, communications, and training the team is a completely different one, and it is almost always more expensive. A full rebranding cycle for an IT company — strategy, identity, brandbook, implementation — costs from 500 thousand to 5 million rubles and up, and trying to cut the implementation phase results in the new brand living beautifully on the website but chaotically in the product.
A good counterexample of cost-saving is the case of Celigo, which conducted in-house rebranding in 5 months instead of the standard year, saving over 500 thousand dollars, and at the same time received a Gold ADDY and a GDUSA Award. The difference from unsuccessful cases is that they cut the timeline and subcontractors, but not the work on communications and adaptation — this is a fundamentally different approach than simply 'do it cheaper'.
What to do with scaling and enterprise audience
A separate context is rebranding for entering a new market or attracting large clients. Enterprise clients evaluate a brand differently than mass users: they care not about aesthetics but about the feeling of stability, maturity, and compliance with industry standards. Rebranding for such an audience usually requires a more conservative identity and much more detailed documentation — a brandbook, communication guidelines, cases of implementation with other large clients.
At the same time, it is better not to mix the migration of an active user base and entering a new segment into a single release. If a product simultaneously changes the interface for current users and positioning for new markets, then it becomes almost impossible to evaluate what exactly worked or failed — metrics from different audiences begin to mask each other.
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