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21 Comments

Would you pay for a SaaS kit?

Hey everyone, it’s the founders of Pory.io here.

Since we started web development in 2018, we’ve competed in numerous hackathons winning a total of $10,827 in cash prizes (odd number because of US to AUD conversions 😉). That’s over $900 a month... go figure!

In 2020, we started Pory which gained a lot of traction worldwide and allowed us to quit our jobs to pursue it.

One thing we started noticing was how repetitive starting a new project could be, we would spend ages gluing together the same components over and over again from old projects.

You know… user accounts, subscription payments, transactional emails...

We're thinking about combining all of our favourite tools in JS into a Kit for building SaaS products. Serious question, would you part ways with $399 for a single use license and $700 for an unlimited license? Comes with lifetime updates.

Would you pay for a SaaS kit for $399?
  1. Yes
  2. No
Vote
  1. 3

    This is a tricky question, and I think that your audience is important. You've asked this under the 'Developer' group, and I am thinking that most developers like myself would be "Nah, I can build all that myself". However, if you asked in a group of non technical founders who want to get their idea off the ground, the answer could very well be "Shut up and take my money!!".

    But then, you might need to make it more non-developer friendly so that any non-technical people can make changes without having to dive too deep into coding. Probably more like what Outseta does as far as a startup framework that automates the tedious parts of a SaaS such as support ticketing, payments, and email campaigns.

    1. 3

      The most common customer for a boilerplate is someone who has enough technical experience to know they want to use code, but not enough to build everything in the boilerplate themselves (on any reasonable time scale). I.e. a junior dev. Or a semi-technical business founder.

      The second most common customer is someone who has so much experience, that they realize a well-maintained boilerplate is a great deal even if they could build it all themselves. I.e. a senior dev, or a seasoned technical founder.

      Some devs will always scoff at the idea of starting with someone else's code, but there are plenty across the experience spectrum that are willing to use them for different reasons.

      Source: I sell a boilerplate.

  2. 2

    The idea of membership portails around AirTable is very good. There is demand.

    Here's an ideal "customer" app - just a database table under a paywall: https://hypetrace.com/

  3. 2

    As someone operating in this market, my advice would be to build one for another stack that is underserved. There are several well established Javascript boilerplates on the market, so what are you going to offer that's different?

    1. 1

      I think it would be UI/State management/Side effects boilerplate, analytic, transaction handling, customer support, and other useful stuff. @shooting_unicorns

      1. 1

        These are de facto features included in almost every boilerplate, not a USP.

  4. 2

    I paid for gravity boilerplate (https://usegravity.app) and MERNkit (https://mernkit.com). I think gravity was something like 700$ (now is more expensive), and the MERNkit was a monthly subscription of like 10$ (I kept it for a couple months and decided not to follow through with that project).

    Hope it helps!

  5. 1

    I've just launched my first SaaS product last week and built everything some scratch. It took me 5 months to build it. I was expecting to built it in 1 month, I've definitively overestimate myself by making this huge mistake: not using a boilerplate template.

    After this tedious process, I launch a NextJS SaaS Boilerplate myself.

    I think a lot of developers don't realize how hard is to build a SaaS products (including myself).

  6. 1

    Possibly. Being developer I am picky about technology. My go-to-stack is ReactJs, TailwindCSS and Headless CMS in back.

    I am sure other seasoned developer will prefer to use tools of her choice.
    The technology permutations are just too many to create one perfect sellable product.

    Having said that - if I find a boiler plate that is within my technology stack - I will give it a try - $400 is on higher end.

  7. 1

    Wow thanks for all the replies! Lots to think about and my conclusion is it will mostly be a miss unless we can really sell why it's better than what's out there :)

    I'll continue focusing on my no-code platform Pory ✌️

  8. 1

    Definitely yes. But I think you should choose a tech stack(React.js, Node.js) and include specific features for this type of SaaS. I think it would be interesting.

  9. 1

    As someone who maintains a product in this space, and has paid a lot of attention to the landscape across different tech stacks, I can say with confidence that it's definitely possible to get people to pay at this price point. In fact my product has almost the exact pricing scheme you listed and people buy it every month (Python/Django, not JS, but that doesn't really matter).

    That said, boilerplates are becoming a crowded space as more and more Indie Hackers see people me and @kylegawley having modest success with them. And as Kyle pointed out already this is doubly true in the JavaScript world.

    IMO, there is room in the market, but you should be able to articulate why your product will be better/different than others out there, or you need to have a unique marketing advantage. If you're just trying to jump into the market because you've built a few SaaS products and it seems easy, I can assure you that you're going to be unlikely to beat out the incumbents who have built substantial technology and marketing moats already.

    Hope that helps!

  10. 1

    I think, currently no code tools are solving this problem end to end.

    1. 3

      They are solving similar problems, but I view a boilerplate as the step after nocode, and a better fit for anyone starting out who already knows how to code.

      No code is great to experiment with an idea, but it's very easy to run into the edges of what is possible/reasonable to do in no code quickly. And the tooling just can't compete (no source control, no IDE support, no unit testing, etc.). Anyone who's done any substantial dev before will move faster and be better positioned to grow and scale if they start with code over no code for the foreseeable future.

      1. 1

        Yeah. I agree. "No code" tools have some limitations, and they won't give you the possibility to scale faster.

  11. 1

    Hi! The idea seems good because I have a similar problem and looking at existing products like jumpstartrails such products are needed. I would love to know if there are people who want to make a similar set but for ruby and rails :)

    1. 2

      Awesome to hear. Why aren't you using jumpstartrails for your next project?

      1. 1

        Once used, but I miss the more modular approach, not necessarily the whole scaffold

    2. 1

      Yo Watek!
      Actually I've built a course on how to build a SaaS app like jumpstartpro
      Ruby on Rails 6: Learn to Build a B2B SaaS Multitenancy MVP 2020.

      What do you think?

      1. 1

        For someone who is learning rails, this is a great idea. However, for me the price is too high. Some of these things are available on gorails for 20$/mo

        1. 1

          The Gorails SaaS template is $249/year, and here you get the template + you get to learn to build it step by step ;)

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