How to start a SaaS service with 0 costs - my way

Hey guys,

Let me share my way of developing and deploying a fully functioning SaaS product without any costs, hopefully you will find at least some parts of it useful.

Frontend:
Use Next.js, it is really amazing and just keeps getting better over the years. Built in static site generation, built in image optimization are both improving page speed and SEO + I really enjoy working with react (I know I'm not alone).

Backend:
Use Next.js API routes. You could say creating a monolith, bundling backend and frontend together is not ideal - and you would be right. However in the early stages I think it is more important to move fast and find product-market fit. Later you can always improve resilience, stability, security, but don't waste too much time on them early on.

Database:
Heroku offers a free PostgreSQL addon, which honestly has been satisfying all my needs. It has a limit of 10.000 rows, but it should be enough to start off. You create the database in a couple clicks, you get a database URI, and you are good to go.
Pro tip: Use Prisma as an ORM. It is really blooming, and honestly I love it. Extra points for being type-safe.

Git:
I have been using Gitlab because it allowed free private repositories before Github did + has great integration with our hosting.

Hosting:
Vercel is an easy-choice here, as they are the creators of Next.js. You can connect your GitLab project with a few clicks, and whenever you push some changes to your project it gets automatically deployed. You can set up custom domains for free, otherwise it uses a vercel subdomain.

Storage:
Amazon S3 offers a generous free tier for storing files - 5 GB. For my needs it was enough since I was just storing some images.

Mailing:
Mailgun offers 5000 free emails/month, I never even came close to it, but that's on me. You just need to set some DNS settings in your domain dashboard, and you are ready to go.

Users:
Magic.link is my current favorite. You log in/create account with only an email. Easy to integrate, and has a free tier up to 1000 monthly users. You can check it out in action in one of my latest projects.

Payment:
Many of you are already familiar with Stripe. Easy integration, and they only take cuts when you are already making money.

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With this setup the only thing you have to pay for is the domain - haven't found a way around that yet. :)

Let me know what you think,
Cheers 🍻