How Much Does It Cost to Build a SaaS Product in 2026

EUR 120,000. That's the median cost of an agency-built SaaS MVP in 2026. We've shipped one for a third of that in 30 days.

The gap between what agencies charge and what a SaaS product actually costs to build has never been wider. Some founders spend EUR 300k on a product that should've cost EUR 50k. Others underspend and rebuild from scratch six months later.

We're going to break down real numbers from real projects. No vague ranges. No "it depends" as the final answer.

Key Takeaways > - A basic SaaS MVP costs EUR 25k-50k. A mid-complexity product runs EUR 50k-150k. Enterprise-grade hits EUR 150k-400k+. > - We shipped Pushary (a full SaaS product) in 30 days and Morta (a complete CRM) in 3 months. > - The biggest cost driver isn't features. It's how you structure the engagement.

What Does a SaaS Product Actually Cost to Build?

The honest answer: somewhere between EUR 25,000 and EUR 400,000+. That range is useless without context, so here's the breakdown by complexity level.

Basic SaaS MVP (EUR 25k-50k) Authentication, a core feature loop, a simple dashboard, and Stripe billing. This is your "does anyone want this?" product. 3-4 months with a small team. Good enough to get paying users and validate the business model.

Mid-complexity SaaS (EUR 50k-150k) Multiple user roles, integrations with third-party APIs, real-time features, admin panel, analytics. This is where most funded startups land. 4-6 months of development. You're building a product, not a prototype.

Enterprise SaaS (EUR 150k-400k+) Multi-tenant architecture, compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI-DSS), complex workflows, audit trails, SSO. 6-12 months. The compliance and security work alone can cost EUR 30k-50k.

We built Pushary, a push notification SaaS, from zero to production in 30 days. That's not a demo or a mockup. Users create campaigns, build flows, send AI agent notifications, and pay for the service. The entire cost was under EUR 60k because we scoped it as a focused MVP with 4 core features.

How We Price SaaS Development (With Real Numbers)

Most agencies hide their pricing. We publish ours on our website. Here's what we charge and what's included.

Full SaaS Product Build: from EUR 60k (~6 months) This covers everything: product strategy, UI/UX design, full-stack engineering, DevOps, documentation, and 30 days of post-launch support. You get a production-ready product with CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and complete handoff docs.

Web and Mobile Apps: from EUR 30k (~2 months) iOS, Android, or responsive web. Includes API development, app store deployment, and testing. We built Shamaze (iOS + Android, bedtime stories for kids) in 2 months at this price point.

Brand and Marketing Sites: from EUR 5k (48 hours) Landing pages and marketing sites. CryptoTicker's rebrand hit 1.6 million impressions in month one. Fast doesn't mean cheap-looking.

Deep-Tech Engineering: from EUR 20k (~1 month) Algorithms, signal processing, data pipelines. We stabilized industrial spray-paint velocity measurement for ProxControl across 2 algorithm phases.

Every project is fixed-scope. You know the price before we start. No hourly billing, no scope creep surprises.

Agency vs Freelancer vs In-House: Actual Cost Comparison

The development cost is only part of the equation. How you build matters as much as what you build.

Freelancers (EUR 30-100/hour) Best for budgets under EUR 50k and simpler MVPs. You save 40-60% compared to an agency. The tradeoff: you're the project manager. You coordinate the designer, the frontend developer, and the backend developer yourself. If one freelancer disappears, the project stalls.

Agencies (EUR 100-200/hour equivalent) Best for complex products above EUR 50k. You get a coordinated team: design, engineering, QA, and project management under one roof. Studies show agency-built products have roughly 30% fewer bugs than freelancer-assembled teams because of integrated QA processes.

We're an agency, so we're biased. But we've also been freelancers. The honest answer: if your MVP is straightforward and you can manage the team yourself, hire freelancers. If you need to ship something complex fast and can't afford to be the PM, hire an agency.

In-house team (EUR 150k-300k/year in salaries) Best when you've found product-market fit and need to iterate continuously. Before that point, you're paying EUR 25k/month in salaries to figure out what to build. That's expensive exploration.

Here's the contrarian take: most startups hire in-house too early. You don't need a CTO at EUR 0 revenue. You need a senior team that ships v1 and hands off clean code. Hire your first engineer after you have paying users, not before.

What Actually Drives the Cost Up?

It's rarely the features you think it is. The top cost drivers we see:

1. Scope changes mid-project This is why we only do fixed-scope. Every "small addition" during development costs 3-5x more than if it was planned from the start. We scope everything before writing code.

2. Auth and payments complexity Basic email/password auth takes 2 days. Enterprise SSO with SAML, SCIM provisioning, and role-based access takes 3 weeks. Stripe Checkout takes a day. Usage-based billing with metering takes 2 weeks. These are the hidden multipliers.

3. Compliance requirements HIPAA adds EUR 30k-50k. SOC 2 compliance adds EUR 20k-40k in audit trails, encryption, and documentation. If you're in fintech or healthtech, budget for this from day one.

4. Integrations Each third-party API integration costs EUR 3k-10k depending on complexity. A product with 8 integrations has added EUR 30k-80k to the build just in integration work. Start with 2-3 integrations and add more post-launch.

5. Rebuilding someone else's work We've inherited 4 projects from cheap agencies in the last year. Every single rewrite cost more than the original build. The "cheap" option turned out to be the most expensive.

How to Spend Less Without Getting Less

Not every SaaS needs to cost EUR 60k. Here's how to reduce the bill without sacrificing quality.

Start with fewer features. Pushary launched with 4 core features. Not 14. Not 40. Four. Campaigns, flows, analytics, and billing. Everything else came after launch based on user feedback.

Use proven stacks. We build with Next.js, PostgreSQL, and Vercel. Boring choices. Zero time wasted evaluating trendy frameworks. The stack doesn't make the product. Shipping speed does.

Skip the admin panel in v1. Most founders want a beautiful admin dashboard. Most early-stage products can run on direct database queries and a simple internal tool for 3-6 months. That admin panel costs EUR 10k-20k and delays launch.

Fixed-scope, not hourly. Hourly billing incentivizes slow work. Fixed scope means we're motivated to ship efficiently because our margin depends on it. Both sides win.

When we built Morta's full real estate CRM, we ran 12 two-week sprints across 3 months. Each sprint delivered working software. The client could have stopped after sprint 4 and still had a usable product. That's the power of incremental delivery with fixed milestones.

How Long Does It Take to Build a SaaS Product?

Timelines map roughly to complexity:

- Basic MVP: 1-3 months (Pushary shipped in 30 days) - Mid-complexity: 3-6 months (Morta CRM in 3 months) - Enterprise-grade: 6-12 months - Complex platform: 12+ months

The biggest timeline killer isn't engineering. It's decision-making. Founders who take 2 weeks to approve designs add 2 weeks to the project. We structure our sprints so design decisions happen in real-time, not in approval queues.

Is EUR 60k Worth It?

Depends on what you're building and why.

If you're validating an idea with no revenue, EUR 60k might be too much. Start with a EUR 25k MVP. Test the market. If users pay for it, invest in the full build.

If you have funding, paying customers, or a validated concept, EUR 60k for a 6-month build is below market rate. The median agency-built SaaS costs EUR 120k. We're faster and more focused because we're a two-person senior team with contractors, not a 50-person agency with layers of overhead.

What you're really paying for isn't code. It's speed, quality, and the docs handoff that lets your future team continue without us. We hand off so you can leave. For some reason, they keep coming back.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a SaaS MVP cost?

A basic SaaS MVP costs between EUR 25k and EUR 50k with a small team. Mid-complexity MVPs with integrations and multiple user roles run EUR 50k-150k. We've shipped production-ready SaaS products starting from EUR 60k with full design, engineering, and documentation included.

Can you build a SaaS product in 30 days?

Yes, with aggressive scope control. We shipped Pushary (push notification SaaS) from zero to production in 30 days. The key is launching with 3-4 core features, not 15. Most of the time saved comes from eliminating scope creep, not writing code faster.

Should I hire an agency or freelancers for my SaaS?

If your budget is under EUR 50k and the product is straightforward, freelancers save you 40-60%. Above EUR 50k or with complex requirements, an agency reduces risk because you get integrated design, engineering, and QA. We've been both, and the answer depends on whether you want to manage the team yourself.

What's included in a EUR 60k SaaS build?

Product strategy, UI/UX design, full-stack engineering (frontend + backend + database), DevOps and deployment, automated testing, complete documentation, and 30 days of post-launch support. Fixed-scope pricing means no surprise invoices.

How do I reduce SaaS development costs?

Ship fewer features at launch. Use proven tech stacks instead of trendy ones. Skip the admin panel in v1. Choose fixed-scope pricing over hourly billing. And don't hire the cheapest option, because rebuilds cost more than building right the first time.