What Notion's $300M Sales Funnel Looks Like

With 100 million users and $300M in revenue, Notion is one of the most well-known SaaS companies—here’s how they acquire customers.

Dec 18, 2024

In 2024, Notion reached 100 million users globally. With 4 million premium users, they generated $300M in revenue, making it a heavyweight in the SaaS space.

All the more reason to take a closer look at how Notion’s growth and sales funnels work.

Quick Note

A classical sales funnel does not reflect how marketing and sales work. You cannot strictly separate content and channels that solely drive awareness from those responsible for conversions. However, for the purpose of this analysis, it is easier to break it down this way.

What a $300M Sales Funnel Looks Like

Notion is a pretty complex solution—you can use it for almost everything:

CRM? → Notion
Project Management? → Notion
Time Tracking? → Notion
… You name it.

Because of this versatility, I’ve always been curious to understand how they promote this tool.

And I found the answer: ABM (Account-Based Marketing).

Instead of promoting Notion as a whole, the company creates ads & content that highlight specific use cases with success stories from businesses, targeting particular industries.

Making the sales funnel look like this (link to the full funnel breakdown at the end of the article):

But before diving deeper into this, let’s start with how the company drives awareness.

How Notion Drives Awareness

Notion is in the fortunate position of not needing much introduction.

With $353M in funding, 300M users, and 6.9 million organic monthly visitors, it is one of the most well-known tools out there.

From an awareness perspective, they are already strong.

It’s also no surprise that Notion is present on every major platform—from TikTok to LinkedIn.

When we dive into their channels and take a closer look, we see that they aren’t focused on educating people about what Notion is.

This is largely done by other sources, with just one top-ranking article from the company itself:

All their own content primarily focuses on people who are already aware of Notion.

💡 You may have already heard about ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu—a concept that breaks down the funnel into different stages. This framework allows you to divide e.g. your content strategy into:
ToFu-Content (Top of the Funnel): Focuses on the customer’s problem and drives awareness.
MoFu-Content (Middle of the Funnel): Educates customers about the solution your company offers.
BoFu-Content (Bottom of the Funnel): Explains why customers should choose your specific solution.
Notion clearly emphasizes MoFu and BoFu content, where demand is created and purchase decisions are made.

Like on:

LinkedIn:

Twitter:

TikTok:

Notion here is making fun of themselves or using Notion mechanics in combination with viral trends so adapt their content to the channel’s nature.

YouTube:

Here, in addition to the podcast/videocast I’ll discuss later, you’ll find stories, webinars, tutorials, and everything you need to dive into the Notion universe.

Notion’s Affiliate & Ambassador Program

With their affiliate and ambassador program, Notion incentivizes individuals to promote the tool, teach it, and earn money on the side.

With all these different channels and strategies, Notion drives an impressive 6.9 million organic visitors to its site each month.

With all this traffic, Notion’s website is optimized for conversion rates down to the last detail.

How Notion Converts Traffic on Its Website

When you arrive on Notion’s website, you’re greeted on the homepage with:

A header that builds trust by showcasing logos from well-known companies like Netflix and Figma.
Familiar Notion-style graphics.
An immediate glimpse of the tool, highlighting its various use cases.

This continues as you scroll down, showcasing even more use cases with subtle hints at which tools it can replace.

Building trust by highlighting mentions and endorsements from reputable sources.

With everything guiding you toward the call to action to try it for free.

Browsing further through the rest of the website, you’ll find subpages in the main navigation at the top for:

Product → showcasing different use cases.
Teams → demonstrating how various departments work with Notion.
Downloads → providing access to Notion’s tools for download.
Pricing → where the conversion happens (we will look at it later).

These pages are similar to the homepage and follow the same patterns:

Simple and clear copy.
Demonstrations of how the tool works.
Trust-building elements like logos and testimonials.
A call to action that leads you to try the tool for free.

Looking at 100M users, Notion’s website appears to achieve a pretty good conversion rate, effectively turning traffic into free users.

How Notion Creates Targeted Demand

While the website captures organic traffic—seemingly driven by a broad strategy of posting about various topics across multiple channels—the more strategic and targeted approach happens one level deeper.

By analyzing Notion’s pricing model, we can identify different target groups:

Solo users
Startups/SMBs
Enterprises (or likely larger organizations)

How Notion Targets Solo Users

For the first target group, demand is likely generated primarily through Notion’s organic channels.

This suggests that many solo users come organically, meaning Notion itself does little direct targeting, especially since this segment generates less revenue.

However, over the years, a strong community has formed around Notion. This community, largely active on X (formerly Twitter), consists of solopreneurs who create Notion templates and solutions for other solopreneurs and solo founders.

Which likely now accounts for a significant portion of Notion’s solo users.

How Notion Targets Startups

This is where targeted demand creation begins.

As mentioned, next to its other channels, Notion runs a podcast called “First Block.”

The concept revolves around Notion’s founder talking to other industry heavyweights about their first steps in the startup world and how they built their businesses.

Naturally, the discussions often touch on topics related to productivity, management, and tools—directly connecting to Notion’s value proposition.

Each episode is:

Published on major podcast platforms,
Released as a videocast on YouTube, and
Transcribed and published on their blog.

Each episode and article links to the following landing page (link to the full funnel breakdown at the end of the article):

Here, Notion promotes its startup program, which offers startups over 6 months of free access to Notion, including their AI tools.

To join the program, startups need to apply through the following form:

And this is a super smart move by Notion.

Imagine this: as a startup, you get 6 months of Notion for free. You build your business on it, grow with it, and rely on it. Upselling becomes easy for Notion because you’re already locked in—all your data and processes are there. After 6 months, paying for it feels natural.

The podcast/videocast are the only channels driving traffic to the startup program. Since the content is tailored to startups, routing them to this program is a no-brainer.

How Notion Creates & Captures Demand at SMBs

SMBs are the first target group where Notion actively spends on ads to create and capture demand.

This primarily happens through dedicated landing pages and various types of ads on Google, Google Display Network, and LinkedIn.

With Google Ads, Notion targets users searching for solutions that align with what Notion offers.

On Google Display Network, Notion focuses on videos featuring customers who explain what Notion does for them and why it is the perfect solution.

Here, Notion tests a variety of videos across different platforms.

And directing all ads to the following landing page (link to the full funnel breakdown at the end of the article):

With the call to action “Start your free Plus trial” on it, which leads to the following screen:

Here, you have the option to log in and test it for free.

On LinkedIn, there are ads that direct users to the same landing page, as well as ads with a more creative approach.

Those ads lead to an interactive demo of Notion, where you get a guided tour of the tool and its functionalities. The demo ends with a call to action to request a full demo or test the tool for free.

I assume these ads primarily function as retargeting ads. This means every click on the Notion website is tracked, and users are then retargeted with the interactive demo through LinkedIn ads.

With “Request a demo,” you are directed to a landing page with a form to connect with the sales team.

How Notion Creates & Captures Demand for Bigger Companies

The enterprise package is where Notion generates the most revenue. As a result, this is where they allocate the largest share of their ad budget.

Here comes the ABM (Account-Based Marketing) approach into play.

When analyzing Notion’s ads, I noticed that they promote success stories from companies like Toyota, Headspace, and Figma to other businesses that match the profile of these well-known companies.

This strategy works because the tool itself is highly complex, and it’s easier to promote specific use cases rather than the entire platform.

These success stories are then featured in ads on Meta and LinkedIn.

Source: Meta Ad Library / LinkedIn Ad Library

By clicking on the ads, you are directed to various landing pages that dive deeper into the respective case studies.

Figma’s Landing Page:

Toyota’s Landingpage:

Headspace’s Landingpage:

What Notion excels at here is tailoring each landing page to the specific use case and industry they are advertising for. This means the Toyota landing page features completely different content and angles than the one for Figma.

(You find the full landing page breakdown in the Figma link at the end of the article.)

What left me wondering, however, is the absence of a clear call to action on these pages. It’s evident that they are targeting clients with hundreds of employees, but the primary goal of these pages seems to be encouraging visitors to register for a free account—whereas I would assume a demo call might work better.

The reason for this approach might be the following:

A) The people they are targeting with these ads are likely in middle management positions. While they may not have the final purchasing authority, they can influence the buying decision. By signing up for a free account, testing the tool’s functionalities, and introducing it internally, they help bring Notion into the buying process.

💡 In B2B, you are often targeting an entire buying center. This means there isn’t just one person directly responsible for deciding on a new tool like Notion. The larger the company, the more carefully you need to consider who to target.
For example, a CEO at a company with 500+ employees might see the ad, but they are often too far removed from the problem and lack the time to decide on a tool. In this case, it makes more sense to address middle management—those who are closer to the problem and have the power to influence the buying decision.
However, in smaller companies, the CEO might be close enough to the problem to take a look at the tool personally and make the decision themselves.
Like the graphic shows:

B) Notion may also be leveraging a layer of retargeting ads. These ads likely retarget individuals who have viewed the success stories, keeping Notion at the top of their minds and further encouraging them to take action.

These ads then lead to the contact page, where visitors can book a call with the sales team.

Where the Money Is Made

Ultimately, everything Notion does—whether it’s attracting free users or driving a sales call—leads to the pricing page at some point.

And Notion employs some smart psychological tactics here.

A) They build trust again by showcasing well-known logos.

Source: Notion

B) They keep the prices low at first glance and highlight a discount, with the yearly pricing pre-selected by default.

Source: Notion

C) People tend to choose the package in the middle. Notion leverages this behavior through smart anchoring: they use a different color for the CTA button and add a “Popular” tag to create credibility by signaling that most people choose this option.

D) They provide a clear and concise overview of what each package includes, with additional explanations where needed.

E) And most importantly, the pricing page includes FAQs that address the most common questions people may have.

Overall, their pricing page includes every element a pricing page should have to convert users, and I’m sure a lot of A/B testing went into it.

After Sales: How Users Generate More Awareness

After the sale, Notion has several growth motions with different goals in place.

For example, you’ll find guides that explain how to build specific solutions using Notion.

You’ll find a comprehensive academy with numerous short videos that guide you step by step on how to set up and build your Notion workspace.

You’ll receive regular email updates.

And Notion fosters a thriving community through events, online groups, and active engagement at universities.

These are all strategies used to:

A) Spread the word, generate awareness, and attract new users.
B) Keep existing users engaged and loyal.

What Notion truly excels at is building raving fans and fostering a thriving community, which is the tool’s strongest asset.

Final Thoughts

Of course, Notion’s funnel is not linear. You might see an ad, click on it, sign up, forget about Notion, reencounter it at an event, or read about it from an influencer. Then you start using it again and, ultimately, decide to pay for it—I get it.

However, by breaking it down and following the conversion path like this, it becomes clear that Notion focuses on MoFu (Middle of Funnel) and BoFu (Bottom of Funnel) tactics. They address different target groups while allocating their budget where the most revenue is generated.

The key takeaway here—especially relevant for smaller startups—is to address your customers with success stories and use cases that resonate with them.

Notion is great here. For example, they build entire campaigns tailored to "Figma-like" companies with ads, landing pages, user stories, and testimonials—ABM (Account-Based Marketing) at its finest.