Web app and SaaS development, from MVP to product
Custom SaaS development means building a multi-user application delivered in the browser and billed by subscription. Budget €12,000 to €30,000 for an MVP delivered in eight to twelve weeks, then €2,000 to €6,000 a month for iterations. Scope is agreed in writing before we start. Firm quote within 24 hours.
MVP, V1, product: what are we actually building?
A web application is software delivered through the browser: accounts, roles, persistent data, business logic. A SaaS product is the same thing sold by subscription to several customers at once, which adds tenancy, billing and a support burden. The technical distance between the two is smaller than people expect; the commercial distance is not.
An MVP is not a cheap version of the product. It is the smallest thing that lets real users complete the main job end to end, so you find out whether they will. That means one core journey done properly rather than six half-built ones, and it means deciding in advance what you are prepared to leave out.
The most common failure we see is not technical. It is a scope that grows through the build because nobody wrote down what was excluded. We write that list during scoping and refer back to it, which is unglamorous and saves more money than any technology choice.
What we build
Every project starts from a written specification with an explicit out-of-scope list. You own the code and the repositories on delivery.
SaaS MVP
Sign-up, the main user journey, subscription billing and an admin view. Enough to put in front of paying users in eight to twelve weeks.
Multi-tenant products
Workspace isolation, per-organisation roles and permissions, invitations, usage limits and plan enforcement.
Client portals and extranets
Authenticated areas for your customers: case tracking, documents, dashboards, notifications, audit trail.
Billing and subscriptions
Stripe integration: plans, trials, proration, dunning, invoices and VAT handling. The part that is always underestimated.
APIs and integrations
Documented REST or GraphQL APIs, webhooks, and connections to the tools your customers already use.
Iteration after launch
A monthly budget to keep building on real usage data rather than on assumptions made before anyone had used the product.
How much does a SaaS product cost to build?
Price follows the number of user roles, integrations and business rules, not the number of screens. These are our real ranges, set against French market rates, in euros excluding tax.
| Service | French agency | French freelancer | Externalize |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web app / SaaS (MVP) | 30 000 – 80 000 € | 15 000 – 40 000 € | 12 000 – 30 000 € |
| Internal tool / automation | 10 000 – 40 000 € | 5 000 – 20 000 € | 4 000 – 15 000 € |
| Developer day rate | 500 – 900 €/day | 350 – 650 €/day | 180 – 320 €/day |
| Monthly maintenance | 300 – 1 500 €/month | 150 – 600 €/month | 90 – 400 €/month |
A complete V1 with several roles and integrations typically lands between €30,000 and €60,000. Plan €2,000 to €6,000 per month afterwards to keep moving. Request a firm quote within 24 hours.
Our five-step process
- 1
Product scoping
One or two workshops to identify the single job the product must do, who does it, and what can wait. The deliverable is a costed scope with an explicit exclusion list.
- 2
Journeys and interface
Wireframes then Figma mockups of the main flows, desktop and mobile. Approved screen by screen before development, because changing a mockup costs hours and changing a built product costs days.
- 3
Build in two-week sprints
Working software at the end of every sprint on a staging environment you can use. Priorities are re-agreed between sprints rather than fixed six months ahead.
- 4
Hardening and launch
Load behaviour, access control verified server-side, secrets out of the codebase, dependency updates, backups and a security review before production.
- 5
Post-launch iteration
Instrumentation so you can see what users actually do, then a monthly cycle of changes driven by that data. Handover to an internal team whenever you are ready.
Technologies we use
Widely used technologies with deep talent pools, so hiring developers to take the product in-house later is straightforward.
Why a team in Madagascar?
Building a product is a long conversation, not a handover. Our team is in Antananarivo, one to two hours ahead of Western Europe, working in French and English. Daily contact is possible without anyone taking a call at an unreasonable hour, which matters far more on a product than on a one-off website.
Local costs let us charge 50 to 70 percent less than a Western European studio at the same seniority. For a company funding an MVP out of its own revenue, that difference often decides whether the product gets built at all.
We work on your repositories with code reviewed by a second developer and pushed daily, so you can see progress without asking for a demo, and so a replacement does not stall the project. A permanent handover comes with two weeks of overlap at our cost.
Frequently asked questions
What does an MVP really cost?
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How long until we can put it in front of users?
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Who owns the code and the infrastructure?
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How do you handle security and GDPR?
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Can you take over an existing product?
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What happens when we hire our own developers?
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Ready to outsource your next software project?
Web app, internal tool or website — tell us about your project and get a free quote within 24 hours. Offshore rates, senior-level quality, no commitment.