How much does a SaaS MVP cost?
With us, $4,000 to $8,000, live in 3 to 5 weeks.
A SaaS MVP costs $4,000 to $8,000 with us and takes 3 to 5 weeks: sign-up, accounts and roles, the one workflow customers pay for, plans and billing, and an admin view. A mobile app on top is a separate build at $2,000 to $5,000. We build and run our own SaaS products, so billing, plans, and tenants are work we do every week.
Updated · Prices in USD · Acasa Labs
The numbers
What a SaaS MVP costs with us.
| What you get | Price (USD) | Timeline | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web app or SaaS MVP | Price (USD)$4,000 to $8,000 | Timeline3 to 5 weeks | Accounts and roles, the core workflow, a database, an admin view, and payments or plans if the product sells. |
| Mobile app for the same product | Price (USD)$2,000 to $5,000 | Timeline3 to 5 weeks | One Expo codebase for both stores, the screens for one core flow, sign-in, a backend, and release to the App Store and Google Play. |
| AI pilot (RAG search or chatbot) | Price (USD)$5,000 to $10,000 | TimelineAgreed in the scope | Search or chat over one document set, answers with sources, and an evaluation set that measures whether the answers are right. |
| Half-time developer | Price (USD)$750 to $1,000 a month | TimelineMonthly, about 80 hours | Steady work on a product that is live and needs a few days a week, not a full sprint. |
| Dedicated developer | Price (USD)$1,500 to $2,000 a month | TimelineMonthly, about 160 hours | One developer full time on your roadmap, in your repository, with a senior reviewing pull requests. |
A SaaS MVP with both a web app and a mobile app is two builds. Adding the two ranges gives $6,000 to $13,000 as a planning figure from our rate card. It is not a quote; your number comes from a written scope.
Every price on this page is our own rate card, in US dollars. The minimum project is $1,500. A dedicated developer is $1,500 to $2,000 a month. Hire engagements start with a risk-free first week, and you own the code, repositories, and cloud accounts from day one. Indian clients are invoiced in INR by Acasa Labs (OPC) Private Limited. See every engagement model and rate.
01
What drives the cost of a SaaS MVP
SaaS adds three things on top of a normal web app: many customers sharing one system, plans that decide who can do what, and billing that has to be right every month.
Tenancy
Each customer's data must stay separate. Doing that in the database, with tests that prove it, is part of the MVP, not something to add later.
Plans and entitlements
A single paid plan is simple. Per-seat pricing, usage limits, credit packs, or feature tiers each add rules that every screen has to respect.
Billing
Stripe or Razorpay subscriptions, invoices, failed-payment handling, and upgrades. Billing in more than one currency, or across web and app stores, adds more.
The core workflow
The one thing customers pay for. The narrower it is, the lower in the range the MVP lands.
AI inside the product
If the product's value is an AI feature, that part is often worth piloting first, at $5,000 to $10,000, to prove the answers are good before the rest of the product is built around it.
02
What a SaaS MVP should leave out
Most of the cost in an early SaaS is features nobody uses yet. A good MVP leaves out team management beyond basic invites, custom reports, a public API, white-labeling, and every integration except the one your first customers ask for.
What it should not leave out: tenant isolation, working billing, and a way for you to see and fix customer accounts. Those are expensive to retrofit and dangerous to get wrong.
Example builds
SaaS products we have built and run.
These are our own products. Each is well past MVP, and each shows a piece of SaaS work we can do on yours.
Plans enforced by the database
PullsyPullsy's entitlement service covers per-seat and per-storefront plans, enforced down to a database constraint, with multi-tenant isolation covered by tests. Plans are sold in INR and USD.
Credits and multi-currency billing
KraftrKraftr sells credit packs for AI image generation, with a batch mode at half the credit cost and billing in six currencies through Razorpay.
Organizations, seats, and modules
SigmaCPMSigmaCPM's backend has organizations, seats, and per-module entitlements, shared by more than one product on the same platform.
Billing across web and app stores
NoteTubeNoteTube bills through Stripe on the web and RevenueCat in the apps, with a scheduled job that reconciles subscriptions between the two.
03
How to spend less on a SaaS MVP
- 01Launch with one plan. Add tiers when customers ask what more they can pay for.
- 02Use Stripe or Razorpay's hosted checkout and billing portal instead of building billing screens.
- 03Build web first. Add the mobile app once customers use the product every day.
- 04Use managed services for auth, email, and file storage.
- 05Sell to five customers before the MVP is finished, and let them decide the second feature.
04
When a cheaper option is the better choice
If you have not yet talked to customers, do not build a SaaS. A landing page, a waitlist, and a spreadsheet you run by hand will tell you more for far less. A website with us is $1,500 to $3,000, and a no-code page builder is cheaper still.
If customers can be served by a manual process plus off-the-shelf tools for the first few months, do that. Build the software when doing it by hand becomes the bottleneck.
No-code tools such as Bubble can carry a simple SaaS to its first paying customers. They get expensive and limiting as the product grows, but that is a good problem to have.
Rough number first
Pick platforms, features, and integrations, and get a range and a timeline in a minute.
Questions
SaaS MVP cost, asked often.
How much does it cost to build a SaaS MVP?
With us, $4,000 to $8,000 for the web app, in 3 to 5 weeks. A mobile app for the same product is $2,000 to $5,000 more.
What is included in the MVP price?
A typical scope covers sign-up and accounts, roles, the core workflow, plans and billing, and an admin view, built so each customer's data stays separate.
How long does a SaaS MVP take?
3 to 5 weeks for the scope in our range. A clear scope and quick decisions on your side keep it at the short end.
What happens after launch?
The usual next step is a half-time developer at $750 to $1,000 a month, or a dedicated one at $1,500 to $2,000, for the features customers ask for.
Will I own the code and the Stripe account?
Yes. The repository, the cloud accounts, and the payment accounts are in your name from day one.
Can you add AI to the SaaS later?
Yes. An AI feature can be piloted on its own for $5,000 to $10,000, with an evaluation set, before it ships to customers.
SaaS MVP cost
Get a fixed estimate for your SaaS MVP.
No call needed to start. Tell us who the customer is and the one thing they pay for, and we reply with a scope and a number.