How Much Does a SaaS MVP Cost to Build?
Published data puts most first versions between $10,000 and $100,000. The GoodFirms cost survey, updated September 28, 2026, classes small and MVP projects as under $30,000 and medium projects as $30,000 to $100,000, and the most common project band in Clutch's review data is $10,000 to $49,999. Where a product lands depends on its scope, where the team is located and whether it includes AI features.
After launch, expect hosting, payment fees, monitoring and maintenance. GoodFirms puts maintenance at 10–20% a year.
Prices and quotes were read on October 3, 2026. Where a page carries its own date, that date is given.
What is a SaaS MVP, and what is left out?
A SaaS MVP is the smallest version of a subscription product that a customer can sign up for, use for its main job and pay for. Everything else waits until real customers have used it.
Eric Ries gave the working definition on August 3, 2009: "the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort."
The reason to keep it small is market risk. CB Insights reported on March 5, 2026, from 431 venture-backed companies that shut down since 2023, that "Ran out of capital" was cited by 70% and poor product-market fit by 43%. A smaller first release tests the market for less money.
| Usually in the MVP | Usually left for later |
|---|---|
| Sign-up and login | Single sign-on and complex permission schemes |
| The one workflow customers pay for | Secondary workflows and settings |
| One or two paid plans through a payment provider | Custom invoicing, coupons, regional pricing |
| A basic admin view for support | Reporting dashboards and exports |
| Error tracking, backups and logs | Native mobile apps |
| Privacy policy and terms | Compliance certifications |
| One integration, if the product depends on it | An integration marketplace or public API |
Leaving a feature out is a decision to record. A written "not in this release" list prevents most scope arguments later.
How much does a SaaS MVP cost, according to published data?
The published figures cluster between $10,000 and $100,000 for a first version. Averages across all software projects are higher, because they include large systems that take a year or more.
| Source | What it measures | Figure | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| GoodFirms, survey of 100+ software companies | Small or MVP project | Under $30,000; 1–3 months; 14.1% of companies | Updated September 28, 2026 |
| GoodFirms, same survey | Medium project | $30,000 to $100,000; 3–6 months; 65.7% of companies | Updated September 28, 2026 |
| Clutch, client reviews | All custom software projects | Most common band $10,000 to $49,999; average $132,480.29; about 13 months | Updated September 21, 2026 |
| Clutch, client reviews | Mobile app projects | Most common band $10,000 to $49,999; average $90,780.11; about 11 months | Updated September 21, 2026 |
| GoodFirms, same survey | AI builds at MVP size | $50,000 to $125,000; 71.4% of companies | Updated September 28, 2026 |
The sources disagree for clear reasons. Clutch's average covers every reviewed project, including long enterprise builds, so it sits far above its most common band. A 13-month timeline is not an MVP. GoodFirms asked vendors what they charge, in a survey run "between September and October 2025", so its figures are asking prices.
GoodFirms sums up the market this way: "Most software projects globally fall under $100,000".
What drives the cost of a SaaS MVP?
Four things drive it: how much the product does, who builds it, how much it connects to, and how often the scope changes.
Scope. Each workflow, user role and screen adds design, code and testing. A second user role with different permissions adds work to every screen, because each one has to be built and checked for both.
Team and location. Hourly rates differ by a factor of four or more. Clutch's location table, updated September 21, 2026, puts custom software companies at $25–$49 an hour in India, the Philippines, Ukraine and Mexico, $50–$99 in the United States and Poland, and $100–$149 in Canada and Australia.
As an illustration, take an assumed team of three people for three months at 160 hours a month each, which is 1,440 hours:
| Clutch rate band | Cost of 1,440 hours |
|---|---|
| $25–$49 an hour | $36,000 to $70,560 |
| $50–$99 an hour | $72,000 to $142,560 |
| $100–$149 an hour | $144,000 to $214,560 |
The team size and duration are assumptions. The rate bands are Clutch's.
Integrations. Payments, email, file storage and third-party APIs each need setup, error handling and testing. Using a provider's hosted checkout or login costs less than building your own.
Scope changes. In the GoodFirms survey, "65.6% of the survey respondents reported that scope creep typically increased project cost by 10-25%."
How much does it cost to build an app?
Clutch reports that "the average cost of app development projects is $90,780.11" and that the timeline "is about 11 months", as of September 21, 2026. Its most common band is again $10,000 to $49,999.
GoodFirms gives a breakdown by size:
| App size | Price range | Share of companies |
|---|---|---|
| MVP | Up to $5,000 | 21.9% |
| Simple app | $5,000 to $50,000 | 56.3% |
| Medium complex app | $50,000 to $150,000 | 18.8% |
| Highly complex app | $100,000 to $300,000+ | 2.9% |
For a SaaS product, the first release is usually a web application, which every customer can reach from a browser. A native mobile app adds a second interface to design, build and test. It also adds store fees: the Apple Developer Program "is 99 USD per membership year".
How do AI features change the bill?
AI features raise the build cost and add a running cost that grows with usage. Most ordinary SaaS features cost little extra per user. AI features cost money on every request.
Build cost. In the GoodFirms survey, most participants said "AI Integration alone can result in a 0-30% increase in cost." The same survey puts AI builds at MVP size at $50,000 to $125,000, against under $30,000 for small and MVP software in general. The extra work is prompt design, a test set to check answer quality, limits on what the model may do, and usage metering.
Running cost. Model providers charge per token. Take an assumed product with 20,000 AI requests a month, each with 3,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens. That is 60 million input tokens and 10 million output tokens. At the prices listed on October 3, 2026:
| Model | Input / output price per 1M tokens | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
OpenAI gpt-6-luna |
$0.10 / $0.50 | $11 |
| Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 | $1 / $5 | $110 |
| Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2 / $10 | $220 |
OpenAI gpt-6-astra |
$10 / $50 | $1,100 |
Prices are from the OpenAI and Anthropic pricing pages. The request volume is an assumption.
Two consequences follow for an MVP. Meter AI usage per customer from the first day, so that you know what each account costs. Set plan limits or credits before launch, because a flat price with unlimited AI use can cost more to serve than it earns.
What does a SaaS cost after launch?
After launch you pay for hosting, a database, monitoring, payment processing, maintenance and any model usage. For an early product the fixed tools are a small line, and maintenance is the larger one.
| Item | Published price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Web hosting | Pro plan $20 a month, with $20 of included usage credit | Vercel pricing |
| Database and backend | Pro plan from $25 a month | Supabase pricing |
| Error monitoring | Team plan $26 a month, billed annually | Sentry pricing |
| Card payments | 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction for domestic cards | Stripe pricing |
| Subscription billing | 0.7% of billing volume, pay as you go | Stripe pricing |
| iOS distribution | 99 USD per membership year | Apple Developer Program |
| Maintenance | 10–20% a year | GoodFirms survey |
These are list prices read on October 3, 2026, shown as examples of what each line costs. They are not recommendations, and usage above a plan's included amounts is billed on top.
On maintenance, GoodFirms writes that "Companies have to spend an average of 10–20% annually on post-launch maintenance, bug fixes, and updates." Read as a share of the build cost, that is $6,000 to $12,000 a year for an MVP built for $60,000, before any new features.
How do you keep an MVP budget under control?
Fix the budget and the date, and let the scope move. The opposite approach, a fixed feature list with an open budget, is where overruns come from.
- Write the scope as a short list of things a user can do, plus the "not in this release" list.
- Rank the list. The team builds from the top and stops when the budget is reached.
- Use hosted services for login, payments and email in the first release.
- Review working software every one or two weeks, and change the plan only at those reviews.
- Ask the team how it uses AI coding tools and how the output is reviewed. In the GoodFirms survey, 90.6% of participants said they had adopted AI to reduce development costs, and nearly 61% expected it to trim costs by 10-25%.
A prototype generated by an AI app builder can be a useful way to test the idea. It is a different thing from an MVP that takes payments and holds customer data, which needs reviewed access rules, backups and tests.
Key takeaways
- Published figures put most first versions between $10,000 and $100,000.
- Clutch's average of $132,480.29 covers all project sizes and is not an MVP figure.
- Scope, team location, integrations and scope changes drive the build cost.
- AI features add up to 30% to the build in vendor surveys, and a per-request running cost.
- After launch, budget 10–20% of the build cost a year for maintenance, plus payment fees and tools.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to build a SaaS MVP?
GoodFirms' 2026 survey gives 1–3 months for small and MVP projects and 3–6 months for medium projects. Clutch's 13-month figure is an average across all custom software projects.
Is $10,000 enough to build an MVP?
It can be for a narrow product. At Clutch's $25–$49 an hour band, $10,000 buys about 200 to 400 hours of work. That covers one workflow with login and payments built on hosted services, and little else.
How much does it cost to build an app?
Clutch's review data gives an average of $90,780.11 and a most common band of $10,000 to $49,999, as of September 21, 2026. In the GoodFirms survey, 78.2% of mobile app companies said they charge up to $50,000 for MVPs and simple apps.
Does adding AI make an MVP more expensive?
Yes, in two ways. Vendors in the GoodFirms survey put the build increase at 0–30%, and each AI request then costs money to serve. The model you choose changes that running cost by up to 100 times.
What is the difference between a prototype and an MVP?
A prototype shows how the product would work. An MVP is used by real customers, so it needs login, payments, data protection and monitoring that a prototype can skip.
Easital Technologies Ltd. builds SaaS MVPs and runs subscription products of its own, including StepVideo, Manob.ai and mAutomate. See SaaS MVP development, MVP development, SaaS development and our work.
Sources
All sources were opened and checked on October 3, 2026.
- GoodFirms, "Custom Software Development Cost Survey 2026", Jini Maxin Nepoleon, updated September 28, 2026. https://www.goodfirms.co/resources/custom-software-development-cost-survey
- Clutch, "Software Development Company Pricing Guide 2026", Hannah Hicklen, updated September 21, 2026. https://clutch.co/developers/pricing
- Clutch, "Mobile App Pricing Guide 2026", Hannah Hicklen, updated September 21, 2026. https://clutch.co/directory/mobile-application-developers/pricing
- Eric Ries, "Minimum Viable Product: a guide", Startup Lessons Learned, August 3, 2009. https://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html
- CB Insights, "The top 9 reasons startups fail", March 5, 2026. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/startup-failure-reasons-top/
- OpenAI, "Pricing", OpenAI API documentation, read October 3, 2026. https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/pricing
- Anthropic, "Pricing", Claude API documentation, read October 3, 2026. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
- Vercel, "Pricing", read October 3, 2026. https://vercel.com/pricing
- Supabase, "Pricing", read October 3, 2026. https://supabase.com/pricing
- Sentry, "Pricing", read October 3, 2026. https://sentry.io/pricing/
- Stripe, "Pricing", read October 3, 2026. https://stripe.com/pricing
- Apple, "Membership Details", Apple Developer Program, read October 3, 2026. https://developer.apple.com/programs/whats-included/