I built a free SaaS Cost Calculator here is what a basic MVP actually costs to build in 2026.

Hey IH, I made a thing and figured I'd share it here.

If you've ever had that painful "how long will this take / how much will this cost" conversation before starting a project, I built a calculator for that. It's free, no signup, no email gate. Just use it.

What it does: You pick the features your SaaS needs across 15 categories (auth, payments, admin panel, AI integration, etc.), choose your region's dev rate, set your team size, and it spits out estimated hours + cost.

There's also an AI-assisted toggle that shows how much faster things go if you're using Cursor/Copilot vs. doing everything manually. At least now there's a baseline to work from instead of just guessing.

Some numbers that surprised me while building the data for this:

• A basic SaaS with just auth + payments + dashboard + landing page comes out to ~100 hours manual, or ~60ish with AI tooling.

• At North American rates ($130/hr), that's already $12k–$15k before you've written a single line of actual business logic.

• The gap between AI-assisted and manual development is massive on the frontend, but surprisingly smaller on backend/infra setup.

Link: omnikit.dev/tools/saas-cost-calculator (No tricks, no paywall).

Why I actually built this: Seeing that $15k / 100-hour baseline is exactly why I’ve spent the last few months building OmniKit, a Next.js 16 SaaS boilerplate.

It takes all those baseline features in the calculator (Auth, Stripe, Admin, Emails, Analytics) and wires them together so you skip the $15k setup phase entirely.

One thing I'm incredibly intentional about with OmniKit is the engineering standard. I’ve seen too many "starter kits" where you inherit a codebase with zero test coverage, and three months in, you're terrified to change a single component. I didn't want that. OmniKit follows strict TDD and BDD from the ground up. Tests aren't an afterthought bolted on later; they're part of the foundation.

• Pro Tier: $149 one-time, lifetime access, full source code.

• Starter Tier: $79 (Launching March 15th if you just need the basics).

But mainly, I just wanted to share the calculator and get some eyes on it. Curious if you guys find it useful or if my hour estimates feel off to you, happy to adjust the algorithm based on feedback. Let me know what your stack comes out to!