Accounts and billing
Sign-up, login, password reset, and Stripe subscriptions with a trial, a customer portal for cards and cancellations, and webhooks that keep access in sync.
App costs · 2–4 weeks
How much does a SaaS MVP cost in 2026?
A software-as-a-service MVP is a login, one job done well and a subscription. That is exactly what the $5K MVP Sprint is shaped around: a web app with auth, one core flow and Stripe, live in two to four weeks on your own accounts.
Where the number comes from
Founders overestimate what version one needs. The thing that proves a SaaS idea is a stranger signing up, getting the result and paying. Everything else, teams, roles, integrations, a marketing site with a blog, comes after that stranger exists. The MVP Sprint scope is written as that one flow and about eight screens, which is enough for most ideas and forces the right cuts.
Resumemaster, built here, started this way: upload a résumé, get it rewritten for applicant tracking systems, pay for the download. It reached a thousand users in its first four months and later grew to a mobile app and multiple languages. None of that was in version one and none of it needed to be.
The price steps up to the $10K–$25K Product Build when the product needs team accounts with roles and billing seats, a public API, several integrations, or iOS and Android apps. Those are real features with real cost; they are also the features you should know you need before paying for them.
What the price includes
The scope, as it would be written.
The one job
The feature your product is about, built properly: fast, handling the edge cases, with the empty states and errors that make it feel finished.
A usable UI
A clean system UI on a component library, responsive and accessible, with no custom brand design. Your logo and typeface go in; a designer's Figma does not.
One integration
Transactional email is always in. One more, a CRM, a calendar, a file store, if the flow needs it.
Production on your accounts
Vercel or AWS, Supabase or Neon for PostgreSQL, Stripe, your domain, error monitoring and a runbook. The repository is yours from the first commit.
What moves the price
Four things that change the number.
Team accounts
Organisations, invitations, roles and per-seat billing roughly double the account model. The most common reason a SaaS leaves the entry tier.
A public API
Keys, rate limits, documentation and versioning are a product for developers, with its own support load.
A model inside the product
Calling a model is an afternoon. Making it reliable, bounded in cost and good enough to charge for is the work, and it is a Product Build line item.
Mobile apps
A SaaS rarely needs them at launch. When it does, Expo builds iOS and Android from the same codebase in a later Product Build.
Built here
Resumemaster
AI résumé engine · Next.js + React Native · Web + mobile
Upload a résumé, get it rewritten for applicant tracking systems, pay for the download. A thousand users in its first four months.
Questions
What people ask about saas mvp costs.
- What does $5K not cover for a SaaS?
- Team accounts with roles, a public API, more than one extra integration, native mobile apps, custom brand design and more than about eight screens. Each is either a Product Build or an add-on quoted in writing before it is built.
- Which stack will my SaaS be on?
- Next.js with TypeScript, PostgreSQL, and Node or Python for anything heavier, deployed on Vercel or AWS with Supabase or Neon. Mainstream on purpose: any engineer you hire later can read it on day one.
- How fast is the first working version?
- A deployed URL with sign-up and the core flow by day five. Then a live demo every three to four days until the launch date in the contract, two to four weeks from signing.
- What if I want to keep building after launch?
- Thirty days of fixes are included. Beyond that, the retainer gives you sixty to eighty senior hours a month from the engineer who built it, from $3K/mo, month to month.
Your number