Typical costs
| Scope | Typical price | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| SaaS MVP (auth, workspaces, billing, one core workflow, admin) | From $20k | 8–14 weeks |
| Launch-ready v1 (roles, onboarding, integrations, analytics, audit logs) | $45k–$120k | 3–6 months |
| Scale-up work (SSO, usage billing, enterprise needs) | Quoted per phase | Ongoing |
Codica, a product agency, estimates a SaaS MVP at $40,000–$60,000+ assuming around $50/hour. Your number depends mostly on how disciplined the scope is.
What belongs in a SaaS MVP
- Sign-up and login that's secure and pleasant.
- Workspaces (tenants) so each customer's data is isolated from day one.
- Subscription billing - even if you give early customers a discount, charge from day one to learn willingness to pay.
- One core workflow that's genuinely good. This is the product.
- An admin view for you to see customers, usage and billing, and help people.
- Basic analytics so you learn what users actually do.
What usually doesn't
- Extensive settings and customization.
- Integrations beyond the one your first customers can't live without.
- Multiple user roles beyond admin and member.
- Native mobile apps (unless the product only makes sense on a phone).
- Enterprise features like SSO, audit exports and custom contracts - add them when a customer pays for them.
Costs founders forget
- Hosting and databases that grow with customers.
- Payment processing fees on every subscription payment.
- Transactional email and possibly SMS.
- Error monitoring, logging and backups.
- Support time - even a small SaaS generates questions.
Model these per customer so your pricing covers them.
How to keep the MVP affordable
- Write down your riskiest assumption and cut every feature that doesn't test it.
- Put a clickable prototype in front of 5–10 target customers before building.
- Reuse proven components (auth, billing, email) instead of building them.
- Ship, measure for four to six weeks, then decide what version two is.
Our team builds and operates its own SaaS products, including a construction ERP and a billing platform, so we build MVPs with the operational side in mind. See SaaS development and MVP development.
Sources
Prices, plans and laws change. We review this guide periodically; check the linked sources for the latest figures. Nothing here is legal or financial advice.
