How much does it really cost to build a SaaS in 2026?
Agencies quoting €50,000, freelancers at €5,000, no-code 'for free': SaaS development prices vary by absurd proportions. Here's what's really behind those numbers.
TL;DR
- A serious SaaS costs between €5,000 and €30,000 depending on complexity and who builds it.
- An agency charges between €40,000 and €100,000 for a complete SaaS.
- A senior freelancer: €500 to €800 excl. VAT/day, meaning €10,000 to €25,000 for a 3 to 6-week project.
- No-code and AI tools are free... until they aren't.
- The hidden costs: infrastructure (€20 to €100/month typically) and post-launch iterations.
Why prices vary so much
You asked for quotes. One freelancer proposes €8,000. An agency replies €65,000. Another freelancer quotes €3,500.
Same project. Three prices with nothing in common.
This isn't a market anomaly. It's structural.
What you're actually buying
When you pay to build a SaaS, you're not buying "code". You're buying thinking time (architecture, technical decisions, anticipating future problems), experience (a senior dev who has built 10 SaaS products doesn't make the same mistakes as a junior), and reliability (will the application still be maintainable in 2 years?).
The problem with quotes that are too low is exactly that: you're buying code, not a product.
Daily rates in 2026
| Profile | Daily rate excl. VAT |
|---|---|
| Junior developer | €300 – €450 / day |
| Mid-level developer | €450 – €600 / day |
| Senior developer | €600 – €800 / day |
A well-scoped SaaS requires between 15 and 40 development days depending on complexity. The real range for a senior freelancer: €10,000 to €30,000.
The 4 options for building your SaaS
The web agency
Real range: €40,000 to €100,000 for a complete SaaS.
What few agencies explain clearly: in their quote, you're not just paying for development. On a €30,000 budget, there's often only €8,000 to €10,000 of actual development. The rest is offices, project managers, sales people, and overhead.
That's not a scam — it's their business model. But it's not suited for early-stage startups that want to test an idea quickly.
One founder I met was receiving quotes between €10,000 and €40,000 for the same features. The other problem with agencies: founders often spend more time managing the agency than moving their product forward. Which completely defeats the purpose of delegating.
Typical timeline: 3 to 6 months.
The freelancer
Real range: €5,000 to €30,000 depending on experience and scope.
It's the most flexible option. You work directly with the person writing the code. No middleman, direct communication, fast adjustments.
The risk: quality varies enormously. Some freelancers disappear mid-project. I've personally worked with a freelancer who vanished after two days. It happens more often than people think.
A freelancer at €300/day and one at €700/day don't produce the same result. Not because one is lazy, but because experience changes everything: architecture decisions, technical debt management, ability to anticipate problems.
Typical timeline: 2 to 8 weeks.
No-code (Bubble, Webflow, etc.)
Apparent cost: low. Real cost: variable, sometimes more expensive than custom dev.
Let's be honest: you can build a lot with no-code today. Viable, profitable SaaS products run on Bubble. It's not just a tool for throwing together a landing page.
Three real problems to watch out for:
Costs scale up fast. Monthly plans, addons, paid plugins: as your app grows and traffic increases, the bill can easily exceed the cost of custom development over time.
Vendor lock-in. The day you want to migrate to code, everything has to be rebuilt. Nothing is portable. You're stuck on the platform.
It's not accessible to everyone. Anyone can build basic things, but it gets technical fast: workflows, conditional logic, data structures, debugging. You need to be willing to get your hands dirty. A lot of founders underestimate the learning curve.
AI tools (Lovable, v0, Cursor)
Apparent cost: very low. Real cost: fine for an MVP, unstable beyond that.
These tools are good accelerators for validating an idea quickly. You can ship a working MVP in a few weeks, put it in front of early users, and see if it resonates. For testing a market and confirming there's demand, that can absolutely be enough.
The problem hits when you try to scale. The generated code is still too unstable to support real users over time: complex business logic, security, database migrations, multi-tenancy. At that stage, you often have to rebuild things properly, which wipes out part of the initial time savings.
What actually drives the cost of a SaaS
Price isn't proportional to the number of pages or features. It's proportional to hidden technical complexity.
Project setup: repo configuration, CI/CD, dev/prod environments, database, code structure, deployment. That alone easily eats up around 20 hours. That's why serious developers start from a solid boilerplate instead of rebuilding from scratch every time. I've built my own battle-tested boilerplate that I reuse on every project, which lets me skip this phase and jump straight into the business features that actually bring value to your product.
Authentication and role management: seems simple. It's not. Session management, OAuth, 2FA, roles and permissions, team invitations. Budget 3 to 7 days.
Payments and subscriptions: basic Stripe integration takes a day. To properly handle subscriptions, upgrades/downgrades, trials, refunds, and failed payment webhooks, budget 2 to 3 days in total.
Multi-tenancy: if your SaaS needs to isolate each customer's data (which is the case for 90% of B2B SaaS), the architecture must be designed from day one. Adding multi-tenancy after the fact is often a partial rewrite.
Recurring costs people always forget: infrastructure (€20 to €100/month typically, more if you have a lot of users), third-party tools (Stripe, email, monitoring), and post-launch iterations. Your first users will ask for changes.
About maintenance specifically: unlike a WordPress site where you have to constantly monitor updates, a well-built SaaS — when it runs, it runs. A maintenance session once or twice a year to fix a few bugs or address security alerts is usually enough. You don't need a full-time developer on the project, just someone to jump in occasionally when needed.
Classic traps
The quote that's too low. A €3,000 quote for a complete SaaS means either someone who didn't understand the scope, a junior who will learn on your project, or someone who will disappear halfway through. A senior developer at €700/day can't deliver a serious SaaS in 4 days.
The quote that's too high. Conversely, an €80,000 quote for a SaaS with 5 features is often unnecessary over-engineering. For a V1, you don't need architecture designed for 1 million users.
"We'll figure it out along the way." No clear spec = uncontrolled budget. Every "I forgot to mention that" during development costs money.
Offshore at low cost. The language barrier creates misunderstandings about scope and priorities. When the spec is already vague (which is often the case at early stage), it amplifies the problem. When a critical bug hits, the time zone difference makes everything harder.
Realistic price ranges by project type
| Project type | Senior freelancer | Agency |
|---|---|---|
| Simple SaaS (auth, CRUD, basic payments) | €5,000 – €15,000 | €40,000 – €60,000 |
| B2B SaaS with multi-tenant + dashboard | €15,000 – €30,000 | €60,000 – €100,000 |
| Marketplace (buyers + sellers + payments) | €20,000 – €40,000 | €80,000 – €150,000 |
| Complex business application | €25,000 – €50,000 | €100,000 + |
These ranges cover initial development. Not maintenance, infrastructure, or post-launch iterations.
How to evaluate a quote (and the developer behind it)
Questions about the quote
"What's not included?" A good provider can answer precisely. If the answer is vague, that's a red flag.
"How many development days are budgeted?" Divide the total by the stated daily rate. If it comes out to 3 days for a complete SaaS, something's wrong.
"Have you delivered a similar project before?" Ask for references — not logos on a website, but contacts you can actually call.
"Who will write the code?" At an agency, your project can be outsourced to a junior. Ask explicitly who will be on the code.
Questions about the developer
To evaluate a freelancer when you're not technical, you don't need to understand code. These questions reveal how they think:
"Can you show me projects you built solo?" You'll see their design level and whether their style could suit your project.
"Why did you choose this tech stack?" What matters: do they reason based on your constraints (maintenance cost, how easy it is for another developer to take over)? If they can't justify their choices simply, be careful.
"Have you ever advised a client not to build something?" A product-minded dev will challenge your scope. A purely execution-focused dev will build everything without questioning — and bill you for it.
"If after 3 months we need to pivot, can you quickly rebuild a key feature?" In a startup environment, there are almost always pivots. If the developer isn't confident in their ability to adapt, they're not suited for this context.
"Do you code with AI?" If they say no in 2026, move on. A developer who doesn't use AI tools moves slowly and costs more — it's simply not viable for a startup.
What I offer
I'm Manuel Coffin, freelance web developer. 10+ years of experience, CTO of Tobalgo, 30+ projects in production.
If you have a SaaS project, I work in two ways:
Startup Express: a complete SaaS in 10 calendar days, €7,000 fixed price, payment on delivery. Authentication, Stripe payments, multi-tenancy, dashboard, business features. Not cheap because it's cut-rate — because there's no management layer between you and the developer writing the code.
Custom development: for projects that don't fit in 10 days. We define the scope, timeline, and budget together. Starting from €10,000.
In both cases: you work directly with me, not a salesperson who outsources.
FAQ
How much does a SaaS cost in 2026?
Between €5,000 and €30,000 with a senior freelancer, depending on complexity. Startup Express (complete SaaS in 10 days): fixed price of €7,000. Custom projects: starting from €10,000.
How long does it take to build a SaaS?
A well-scoped SaaS in 10 days with Startup Express, or 4 to 12 weeks for larger projects. Timeline depends mainly on scope and the number of iterations.
Is no-code a real alternative?
For validating an idea or building a demo, yes. For a B2B SaaS with multi-tenancy, complex payments, or API integrations, no. The limit isn't price — it's technical feasibility.
Should I budget for maintenance?
Less than you'd think. Infrastructure runs between €20 and €100 per month depending on traffic. For maintenance itself, a well-built SaaS doesn't need constant monitoring like a WordPress site: one or two sessions per year to fix a few bugs or address security concerns are usually enough.
Manuel Coffin
Freelance web developer, I build MVPs and web apps for early-stage startups.