SaaS MVP cost: what discovery decides
A custom SaaS platform starts at EUR 7.500. That figure is a floor rather than a range, and the reason is simple: at step 05 the product itself is the unknown, so the fixed quote follows discovery instead of arriving before it.
Every step below 05 has a top end because the work is recognisable. A business website is 4 to 7 pages, a CMS and a booking or contact flow, so it prices at EUR 1.500 to EUR 3.500 in 3 to 6 weeks. An advanced site or web app adds login, a dashboard, an API, a CRM connection, payments or a chatbot, so it prices at EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500 in 6 to 12 weeks. Step 05 is what happens when the answer to what does it do is different for every founder who asks.
What discovery settles
Discovery is a short, structured piece of work that turns an idea into something quotable. Five things come out of it, and each one moves the number.
- Scope. What the first release does and, more usefully, what it does not. Naming the second release is how the first one stays affordable.
- Auth. One person per account, or teams with roles, invitations and an organisation that survives someone leaving. Whether customers sign in with a password, a link, Google, or their company identity provider.
- Billing. One price, or plans, trials, upgrades mid-month, usage counted and charged, VAT for the countries you sell into, and a customer who can change or cancel a plan without emailing you.
- Admin. The screens your own side needs: finding a customer, seeing their account, fixing a mistake, issuing a refund. Skipping this is how a founder ends up answering support questions with database queries.
- Deployment. Environments, a place to test before customers see it, backups, where the data physically lives, how a release goes out and how it comes back if it is wrong.
You can answer some of these in a sentence today. The ones you cannot answer are the ones that decide the price, which is exactly why the quote waits for them.
Where step 04 ends and step 05 begins
| Question | Step 04: advanced site or web app | Step 05: custom SaaS platform |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs in | One kind of user with a login and a dashboard | Several kinds, with roles, teams and invitations |
| How money arrives | Payments for a known set of things | Billing: plans, trials, metering, self-service changes |
| Who supports customers | You, in a dashboard built for you | An admin side so support never needs a developer |
| What the data looks like | Your content, orders and records | A data model designed per customer account |
| Price and time | EUR 3.500-7.500, 6-12 weeks | from EUR 7.500, quoted after discovery |
Why the number starts rather than ends
A range quoted before anyone knows the product is one of two things. It is padded, in which case you pay for unknowns whether or not they turn up. Or it is optimistic, in which case there is a conversation about more money halfway through the build, at the point where you have the least room to say no and the most already spent.
Naming a floor and then quoting after discovery avoids both. You see the scope written down, you see a fixed price against it, and you decide with the real number in front of you. If the scope that comes out of discovery is smaller than you feared, you get told that too. A smaller honest project is better business for us than a large unhappy one.
Process and timeline
Discovery comes first and is agreed before it starts, so there is no open meter. It ends in a written scope: the screens, the flows, the data model in outline, the decisions about auth, billing, admin and deployment, and the fixed quote.
Then the build, in phases. If the first release fits inside login, dashboard, API and payments, it can be scoped and delivered as a step 04 build at EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500 in 6 to 12 weeks, with the rest quoted once it is live and real people are using it. That is the cheapest route to a working product that people can actually pay for, and it is worth asking for by name.
You own what is built: the code, the repository and the database. Hosting is agreed per project and settled during scoping rather than assumed. How we work is on design and engineering, and the stack we build platforms on is on our Next.js development page.
When to spend less
If nobody has paid for this yet, do not start at step 05. A single-page landing at EUR 600 to EUR 900 in 1 to 2 weeks, with a form and analytics, puts the offer in front of people while you run the service by hand behind it: a spreadsheet, an inbox, your own time. Doing it manually is not a failure. It is how you learn what the software has to do before you pay for the software.
If what you are describing is really a service with a login and a dashboard around it, that is step 04 at EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500, and calling it a platform only raises the price. If an existing tool plus configuration covers the first version, we will say so. Every step is listed with its price on packages, so you can see where your idea lands before you talk to anyone.
After launch
A platform with paying customers needs a development budget, not just a maintenance plan. Care at EUR 100 to EUR 300 per month covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes, and it is worth having from day one, but it is not redesign and not new features. Plan for a separate line for the next phase, because a product that people pay for keeps generating things they ask for.
Questions founders ask
Why will you not give me a fixed price today?
Because a fixed price today would be a guess, and you would pay for the guess. Tell us what you have decided so far and we will tell you which of the five discovery questions are already answered. If enough of them are, the quote can come quickly.
What do I actually get from discovery?
A written scope: the screens and flows for the first release, an outline of the data model, the decisions on auth, billing, admin and deployment, and a fixed quote against it. It is a document you can act on, not a sales deck.
Can we start smaller than EUR 7.500?
Yes, if the first release fits inside login, dashboard, API and payments, it is a step 04 build at EUR 3.500 to EUR 7.500 in 6 to 12 weeks. That gets a real product in front of real users, and the platform work is quoted afterwards with evidence behind it.
Who owns the platform and the customer data?
You do. The code, the repository and the database are yours, and you can move them to another team. Hosting is agreed per project as part of the scope.
What changes the price most?
Billing and roles. A single price charged to a single user is a small piece of work. Plans with trials, mid-cycle changes, usage counted and invoiced, and teams whose members have different permissions touch almost every screen in the product, so they belong in the scope on purpose rather than by accident.
Tell us what the product does for its first customers and we will tell you whether that is step 04 or step 05. Start with a scoping conversation.
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