How Long a SaaS MVP Really Takes, and What It Costs

"How long will it take, and what will it cost?"

It's the first question almost every founder asks me, and the honest answer is "it depends", which is useless on its own. So here's what it depends on, with real build times from products I've shipped and the prices I actually charge.

What real builds took

Two of my own products give a useful baseline, because I built both of them alone.

A school management platform: about three weeks. Bicitra EMS is one system shared by many schools, with each school's data kept apart. In roughly three weeks of solo work I built the API, the web dashboards and a mobile app for parents, teachers, gate staff and bus drivers. That covered admissions, QR attendance, fees, academic records, live bus tracking and a full Bangla/English interface, backed by 338 automated tests. A collaborator supplied the school registers and government requirements, so I didn't have to work those out myself. Payments by mobile banking and SMS were built to plug in later, because they were waiting on vendor accounts rather than on code.

A self-hosted store platform: about a month. Bicitra Commerce is installed separately for each merchant. In about a month I built the store itself with two themes, a central hub for licences and updates, a safe self-update system and a plugin system that can't take a store down.

What a longer build looks like. DocBee, a telemedicine platform I was lead engineer on, has five parts: two mobile apps, an API, an admin panel and a public website. It didn't ship in one go. The patient app came first, then the doctor app and the API, then the admin panel, over roughly two years of building and improving it while it was live. That's normal for a real product. The MVP is only the start.

These numbers are real, but they're also best cases: one experienced engineer who knows the domain, a clear scope, and quick decisions. Your MVP might be simpler than these, or it might have one hard part that takes longer.

What drives the cost up or down

The tech stack matters much less than people think. These are the things that actually change the size of the job:

• User roles. Every extra type of user (admin, staff, customer, driver) means its own screens, permissions and tests. Three roles cost noticeably more than one.
• Payments. Taking money means handling failures, refunds, receipts and the case where someone taps "Pay" twice. It's never just adding a button.
• Real-time features. Live chat, video calls, live tracking or instant updates add real work, especially once more than one server is involved.
• Mobile apps. Android and iOS apps roughly add a second product on top of the web app, plus app store reviews.
• Integrations. Every outside service (SMS, maps, payment gateways, accounting tools) has its own quirks, and some take days just to get an account approved.
• Many customers in one system. If you're selling to businesses, keeping each customer's data apart has to be designed in from day one. It's much cheaper to build it in than to add it later.

What it costs to build with me

These are the "from" prices on my site, in USD:

• MVP scoping and technical plan: $400. A call, a feature spec, user flows, the architecture, a milestone plan and a fixed quote for the build, in about five days. The plan is yours to keep.
• MVP with web app, API and admin panel: from $8,000. Usually 4–8 weeks.
• MVP plus Android and iOS apps: from $15,000. Usually 8–12 weeks.

The final price is fixed in writing before work starts and paid by milestone, where each milestone is something you can click through and check yourself.

What I'd cut from month one

The fastest way to lower the cost is to build less, and most first versions can lose more than their founders expect:

• Your own login system. Use email login or a proven provider, not a custom one.
• An admin panel for everything. Build admin screens only for the things you'll change every week. Edit the rest directly for now.
• Every payment method. Start with the one your first customers actually use.
• The mobile app, sometimes. A web app that works well on phones is enough to test whether people want the product.
• Reports and dashboards. Until you have real data, a spreadsheet export is fine.

The one thing I wouldn't cut is the core rule your product can't get wrong, like two patients booking the same slot, or one customer seeing another's data. That has to be right from day one.

The costs nobody puts in the first quote

A launched product keeps costing money, and it's better to know that before you start:

• Servers and hosting. Usually modest at MVP scale, but it's a monthly bill.
• Third-party services. Email, SMS, maps and payment fees grow with your users.
• App store accounts. Apple charges $99 a year and Google $25 once, if you have mobile apps.
• Maintenance. Bug fixes, security updates and dependency upgrades don't stop. My maintenance plan starts from $750 a month, and server care from $150 a month per server.

The short version

• A focused web MVP: usually 4–8 weeks. With mobile apps: 8–12 weeks.
• User roles, payments, real-time features, mobile apps and integrations move the price most.
• Cut everything that isn't needed to test the idea, but never the one rule your product can't get wrong.
• Budget for running costs after launch, not just the build.

If you're not sure what your first version should include, that's exactly what the $400 scoping week is for.