How much does it cost to build a SaaS, and what actually drives the price

You ask what a SaaS costs and you get "it depends". That is annoying, and it is partly legitimate: two products described in the same sentence can cost five times more than each other depending on what sits behind them.

But "it depends" is only an honest answer if you say what it depends on. The rest of the time it is a way of keeping control of the negotiation: as long as you do not know what drives the price, you cannot arbitrate, so you accept the quote or you walk.

We will not give a market average here, because an average mixes a three-screen internal tool with a marketplace handling split payments. We give the items that drive the price, then one public, verifiable reference point.

Every SaaS quote comes down to these five lines, whatever the provider. Knowing them lets you discuss scope rather than the amount.

Rather than an unverifiable range, here is a grid published openly, which you can read and compare. These are our prices, and they should be read as such: a reference point, not a market benchmark.

The SaaS format, at €19,990 excluding VAT, covers up to fifteen screens, standard roles and permissions, and three integrations including payments. That is a scope, not an unlimited promise: beyond it the price moves, and it is written down before starting rather than discovered along the way.

Overruns rarely come from the development itself. They come from four places, and all four are avoidable.

The fourth is the most expensive and the most common. A delivered SaaS is not a finished SaaS: you have to fix what the first users reveal, and that load starts on launch day, not six months later.

This is also why the distinction between an MVP and a V1 decides a good part of the budget before money is even mentioned.

The same product can be funded in three ways, and that choice weighs more on the outcome than the gap between two providers' rates.

None is better in the abstract. Fixed price suits a scope you can describe in full. A subscription suits a product that will learn from its users. Time and materials rarely suits someone with no technical team to steer it.

Before sending your specification to five providers, answer this one: what is the smallest version of this product that somebody would agree to pay for?

That question does more for your budget than any negotiation. It removes screens, roles and integrations, and it brings forward the date on which you find out whether anyone wants the product. A SaaS at twenty thousand euros that finds its customers beats one at sixty thousand that is still looking.

Once that scope is written down, ask for prices. You will find the spread between providers narrows sharply as soon as the request is precise, because part of the initial spread was simply uncertainty being priced in.

The price of a SaaS is not a mystery, it is the sum of decisions you make, often without realising. Screens, integrations, permissions, compliance, real time: five lines, four of which can be negotiated by trimming the first version.

Ask for published prices rather than quotes on qualification, demand the breakdown rather than the total, and get compliance priced before anything else. You will already be better armed than most people who sign.

“A quote you cannot break down is not a price, it is a take-it-or-leave-it proposal.”

Two articles to go further: why fixed-price quotes stop working and the unlimited development subscription.