In our published project examples, focused MVP engagements cost $13,000 to $24,000, and two more substantial software products, with a backend, web and mobile apps, were delivered for $40,000 and $93,000. These are historical project costs, not packages or guarantees for a new project. The distinction that matters is what the first version has to do: a product testing one customer workflow is a different build from a multi-role SaaS platform with payments, integrations, security requirements and mobile apps. We have built both. This page shows the real budgets, what changed between estimate and final cost, what a quote should include, and what the first year costs after launch.
Who this is for: founders with funding who need a credible first version without overbuilding, and established businesses turning a process they already run into a product. If you are modernizing a platform you already own, hardening a prototype built with an AI tool, or adding one missing capability to software that works, there are better starting points linked below.
1. What does an MVP cost?
Most published answers are a tier table running from about $5,000 to $500,000. That range is not wrong; it is just pricing everything from a clickable demo to an enterprise platform. A narrowly scoped MVP proves that one group of customers will use one workflow and pay for it. A substantial product engagement is a first version you intend to sell, support and scale, with roles, payments, integrations and mobile apps already in it. The examples below are labelled as one or the other.
2. Real costs from our projects
Historical figures from delivered work, as published on our custom software cost guide and mobile app cost page. Scope detail is shown only where our project records confirm it.
Project | Class | Quoted | Delivered | What changed | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TrueFanz, first version of a creator platform. Disclosure: TrueFanz’s co-founders include Tim Branyan, now Logic Square’s President, and Vineet Harbhajanka | Focused MVP | $13,000 | $13,000 | Nothing; the founder gave up everything nonessential and built the business alongside a full-time job | A ruthless first scope holds its price; the platform has since processed more than $10 million in gross merchandise value (October 2026) |
Freight marketplace MVP: shippers post loads, truckers bid | Focused MVP | $15,000 | $24,000 | After using version one, the client added route planning, moderation and payment collection, priced and scheduled as an expansion | Growth after evidence is an investment, not an overrun |
An application, 2024 | Started as an MVP | $25,000 | About five times that | Scope grew 40 to 50 percent while cost grew about 400 percent, because built features were changed and changed again for months | Rework, not new features, is the expensive failure mode |
An education organization build | Fixed budget | Fixed | About 20 percent over | Minor changes held inside the budget; a late batch of ideas that could not wait for a second phase added the rest | Late ideas are fine; pretending they are free is not |
Hotel eConcierge: web, iOS and Android | Full product | $40,000 | $40,000 | Held | Engineering in India with US leadership; a comparable US-only engagement would likely have run $100,000 or more |
Vayco Plus: backend, web and mobile | Full product, fixed price | $40,000 for an estimated 800 hours | 950 hours at the same price | Scope changes and ambiguity during the build | Under a fixed price the vendor absorbs the overrun, which is why fixed-price scoping is slower and stricter |
StatClub: backend, web, native iOS and Android | Full product | $93,000 | $93,000 | Held, because scope changes surfaced in design and prototyping rather than in code | Settling arguments before code is the cheapest budget control we know |
Two cautions. These are our projects, not market averages; the right comparison for yours is the one whose roles, platforms and integrations look most like it. And they do not include post-launch costs, which section 7 covers. If one of these rows looks like your project, tell us which one and what is different.
3. What should an MVP quote include?
When two quotes for the same idea are $8,000 and $60,000 apart, the difference is usually in this list. Ask every vendor, us included, to mark each line in, out or assumed.
Line | What to ask |
|---|---|
Discovery and design | Is there a clickable prototype before code, and who signs it off? |
Accounts and roles | A login form, or roles, permissions, password reset, two-factor and an audit log? |
Payments | A checkout call, or webhooks, refunds, failed payment retries and reconciliation? |
Integrations | Which external systems, in which direction, and who maintains them when the other side changes? |
Data migration | Is existing data imported, cleaned and validated, or left behind? |
Admin tooling | Can your team fix a customer problem without a developer? |
QA depth | Developer testing on the happy path, or regression across devices, browsers and roles? |
Security and compliance | What standard is the build designed to, and what evidence will you get? |
AI features | An API call, or evaluation against real examples, guardrails and a monthly usage cost estimate? |
Deployment and environments | Separate staging and production, repeatable deployment, backups, monitoring? |
Documentation and handover | What you receive, and when (section 9) |
Warranty and change control | How long bugs are fixed free, and how a change request is priced and approved |
4. Why does one MVP cost more than another?
The drivers, roughly in order of how often they move our numbers: the number of user roles and what each can see; platforms (web only, or web plus native iOS and Android); payments and anything that touches money; integrations with systems you do not control; data you have to bring with you; security or compliance requirements a client or investor will check; AI features that need evaluation, not just an API key; and how much admin tooling your team needs to run the product without engineers. For a directional range before you talk to anyone, our software cost calculator gives phase-one estimates by project type, with no email required.
5. Build, buy, integrate or prototype?
- Prototype first if you cannot yet name the three features that would make version one useful. A prototype now costs very little, and in our recent work planning plus a clickable prototype takes one to two days rather than one to two weeks; we often provide it free.
- Buy if a SaaS product already runs the workflow and your differentiation is elsewhere (service, distribution, brand).
- Integrate if the products you use are fine and the problem is that they do not share data.
- Build when the software is the product, or when the workflow you would sell is the thing no product models.
- Wait if nothing has been sold yet; a landing page and ten customer conversations cost less than the cheapest quote you will get.
For an established business the question is usually build versus extend: should we build custom software walks through it, and custom app, SaaS or MVP covers the sequencing for founders.
6. Fixed price or time and materials?
Both work, for different situations. A fixed-price agreement works well when scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria and the change-control process are defined well enough to price; the vendor then carries the overrun risk, as we did on Vayco Plus. Time and materials can be the better choice when requirements are genuinely evolving, provided you get transparent reporting, budget controls and milestone reviews. What goes wrong in either model is unpriced ambiguity. Our usual pattern is a fixed price for a scoped first version with change requests priced as expansions, and time and materials for open-ended work after launch, but we will recommend the model that fits your situation.
7. What does the first year cost?
The build is not the whole budget. For year one, plan for:
- The build, as quoted, plus a contingency for the changes you have not thought of yet.
- Maintenance. Our standard model is 20 percent of the build cost a year, or 6 percent a quarter on the quarterly option. On a $40,000 build that is $8,000 a year, or $9,600 across four quarters. It covers dependency updates, OS and browser compatibility, security fixes, app store requirements, bug fixes, monitoring and small improvements; prepaid hour blocks are available when needs vary.
- Separately: cloud hosting, third-party subscriptions, AI API usage, new features and significant enhancements, and the marketing that was supposed to start on launch day.
Founders consistently underestimate the last group. A good product can still run out of runway if the team keeps polishing after launch.
8. AI-built prototype or production MVP?
If you built a prototype in Lovable, Bolt or a similar tool, it is not wasted; it is the clearest specification a founder can hand an engineering team. What production adds is what the tool skipped: authentication that holds, a database with permissions, payments that reconcile, monitoring, backups and a deployment someone can repeat. The work falls into one of three shapes. A review tells you what is safe to keep. A repair keeps the prototype and hardens it. A rebuild keeps the design and the learning and replaces the code. Which one applies depends on what survives a security and architecture review. In 2026 CES Academy built a second version of its audit platform in Lovable and engaged us to review, test, deploy and manage it; the story is in the CES Academy case study, and the method is in taking a Lovable prototype into production.
9. Code ownership and handover
Ownership is set by the contract, so read it before the first invoice. [OWNERSHIP SENTENCE, EXACTLY AS DEC-25 RULES, covering the commissioned code, pre-existing tools and know-how, third-party and open-source components, and when ownership transfers.]
Whoever builds it, ask for the following, and ask early:
- The source repositories, cloud and hosting accounts, domains, app store accounts and signing credentials in your name, with the vendor as a collaborator you can remove.
- Working software at each milestone, deployed to an environment you control.
- A written architecture overview, a local setup guide, the real deployment procedure, a ledger of known issues and deliberate shortcuts, a dependency inventory, and recorded walkthroughs.
[CONFIRM WITH VINEET which of these Logic Square supplies as standard; until confirmed the list is a buyer checklist, not our promise.] Our guide to switching development teams after the MVP has the long version. A platform your own engineers cannot run later is not an asset, which is also what a technical investor will check. Grouped is a useful example of the reverse situation: an earlier build had stalled, we took over the inherited codebase, kept the little that was usable and launched on schedule six weeks later; Grouped later announced a $2.5 million seed round (Grouped case study).
10. How to request a quote you can compare
Send any vendor the same short brief: who the users are and which roles they have; the three features version one cannot launch without; the platforms (web, iOS, Android); the systems it must connect to; any data you are bringing; the security or compliance requirements someone will check; your target launch window; and a budget range. With that, a serious team can return an initial range, the assumptions behind it and the questions that would firm it up. A firm fixed price needs a short discovery after that, not a one-page brief.
On this page
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to build an MVP in 2026?
In our published examples, focused MVPs cost $13,000 to $24,000 and fuller products with web and mobile apps $40,000 to $93,000. Published market ranges run from $5,000 to $500,000 because they cover everything from demos to enterprise platforms. Your number depends on roles, platforms, payments, integrations and compliance.
What does a production-ready SaaS MVP cost?
More than a validation MVP, because multi-tenant accounts, roles, billing, security and admin tooling are in version one rather than later. Our closest examples are the $40,000 and $93,000 full products above. Scope it with the quote checklist before comparing prices.
Why do MVP quotes for the same idea differ so much?
Because they include different things. Accounts and roles, payments, integrations, QA depth, security and the first year after launch are where most of the difference sits. Ask each vendor to mark the checklist in section 3.
Is fixed price or time and materials better for an MVP?
Fixed price when scope, acceptance criteria and change control are defined well enough to price; time and materials when requirements are genuinely evolving, with reporting and budget controls. Unpriced ambiguity is the problem in either model.
How much does an MVP cost to maintain?
Our model is 20 percent of the build cost a year, or 6 percent a quarter. Hosting, third-party subscriptions, AI usage and new features are budgeted separately.
How much does it cost to turn a Lovable app into production software?
It depends on whether the result of a security and architecture review is a repair or a rebuild. The prototype becomes the specification either way.
Do we own the code?
Under the contract terms in section 9. Make sure your repositories and accounts are in your name from the start, whoever you hire.
Have a scope you want checked against these numbers? Tell us what version one has to do, and we will come back with an initial range, the assumptions behind it, and an honest view on whether to build it now: discuss your MVP scope.
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