In short
At providers based in Germany, a SaaS MVP (minimum viable product) costs €8,000–90,000 up front. The medians of their lower and upper figures are €20,000 and €55,000. Running costs add about €25–165 a month excl. VAT for servers, a database and backups. Two providers put maintenance at a further 15–20% of development costs a year. As of November 2026.
Key takeaways
- Nine providers based in Germany quote €8,000–90,000 for a SaaS MVP. The medians of their lower and upper figures are €20,000 and €55,000.
- What an MVP includes varies widely: three providers include tenant isolation, while two only price it for a later stage.
- Servers, a database and backups cost about €25–165 a month excl. VAT on European price lists. Maintenance usually costs more.
- Stripe and Mollie charge 1.5–2.9% plus €0.25 per card payment. At Stripe, SEPA Direct Debit costs €0.35 and subscription management 0.7%.
- By our calculation, a typical SaaS MVP costs about €29,900–93,900 over three years, including operations and maintenance.
What do providers charge for a SaaS MVP?
Nine providers based in Germany quote €8,000–90,000 for a SaaS MVP. The lower figures of their ranges have a median of €20,000, and the upper figures a median of €55,000. The median is the middle value: half the figures are lower, and half are higher.
| Provider | Source | As of | Price given | Included, according to the provider |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provider A | pricing page | undated | from €8,000 | login with roles, payment provider, admin area, deployment setup, 2 weeks of bug fixes; hosting not included |
| Provider B | two cost guides | 2026 | €10,000–30,000 | one core feature, login, a simple subscription, a simple dashboard; the two pages give €10,000–25,000 and €15,000–30,000 |
| Provider C | cost guide | July 2026 | €15,000–50,000 | one core feature, login and subscription system |
| Provider D | package price, excl. VAT | undated | €20,000 | one main workflow, up to 6 views, 2 roles per customer company, tenant isolation with tests, one subscription plan on request |
| Provider E | cost guide | November 2026 | €20,000–40,000 | basic features; each integration costs extra |
| Provider F | cost guide | May 2026 | €25,000–60,000 | from €35,000 with multi-tenancy, several workflows and integrations |
| Provider G | cost guide | October 2026 | €40,000–80,000 | a focused MVP; multi-tenant platforms at €80,000–150,000 |
| Provider H | cost guide | June 2026 | €45,000–90,000 | login, one core feature, simple billing; a fully multi-tenant version 1 at €120,000–250,000 |
| Provider I | service page | undated | €50,000–75,000 | multi-tenancy, subscriptions, dashboard, API |
Source: our own survey, · pricing pages and cost guides of nine providers; one quotes prices excl. VAT, one says it charges no VAT, seven don’t say
How to read the table: We haven’t found any official or independent price statistics for SaaS MVPs, so the figures come from our own survey. On November 7, 2026, we opened the pricing pages and cost guides of software providers that are based in Germany according to their legal notice (Impressum) and give a euro amount for a SaaS MVP. We found them through web searches for SaaS and MVP costs and through our competitor research from October 2026. For each provider, we count its figure for a SaaS MVP. If a provider gives different figures on several pages, we take the lowest of its lower figures and the highest of its upper figures. We don’t name competitors as a matter of principle, so you can’t check the individual figures directly here.
The range is wide because providers mean different things by an MVP. Eric Ries defines a minimum viable product (MVP) as the version of a new product that lets a team collect “the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort” (Startup Lessons Learned, Aug 3, 2009 (external site)). For a SaaS product, most providers in the table take that to mean one core feature, a login and a way to pay. They differ widely, however, on whether several customer companies can work separately in the same app. The section on multi-tenancy covers this.
Our guide What is SaaS? explains what makes a product SaaS and how an MVP grows into a full product.
What drives the price of a SaaS MVP?
The price of a SaaS MVP depends mainly on the number of core features and roles, tenant isolation, subscription billing and integrations with other systems. Individual providers quote €3,000–20,000 for each of these components. Settle the scope before you request quotes, because only then can you compare the prices.
| Component | What it includes | Published figure |
|---|---|---|
| Planning and prototype | core feature, user flows, clickable prototype, architecture | preliminary review €1,500, credited toward the package (Provider D); clickable prototype €3,000 (Provider I); planning from €2,500, UI and UX design from €2,000 (another provider) |
| Login and users | sign-up, login, roles, teams | €5,000–15,000 (Provider B) |
| Tenant isolation | several customer companies in one app, cleanly separated | 15–25% more than an app for a single customer (Provider B) |
| Subscription billing | plans, payment provider, invoices | €5,000–20,000 (Provider B) |
| Admin area | customer management, analytics, feature flags | 10–15% of the budget (Provider B) |
| Integrations | connections to a CRM, an ERP system or payment services | €3,000–10,000 per integration (Provider B); €5,000–15,000 per integration (Provider E) |
| Testing and security | tests, security review, penetration test | 5–8% of the budget (Provider H); for platforms in general, an extra €10,000–50,000 for data protection, security and audits (Provider E) |
| Setting up operations | deployment, monitoring, backups | 8–10% of the budget (Provider H) |
Source: our own survey, · cost guides and pricing pages of Providers B, D, E, H and I and one other provider based in Germany
The core feature has the biggest effect on the price. Provider B puts it at 40–50% of development costs. Provider H splits the budget of a SaaS project like this:
- 10–15% for planning and UX design
- 25–30% for the backend and database
- 20–25% for the user interface
- 15–20% for billing, login and admin
- 8–10% for operations and monitoring
- 5–8% for testing and security
Hold each quote up against this breakdown. If an item is missing, it may not be included.
Also ask what’s explicitly excluded. Provider A’s price doesn’t include ongoing hosting costs or content, and Provider D’s package includes a single subscription plan with monthly or yearly billing on request. Both explicitly advertise AI-assisted development. If a provider does, find out who reviews the code and who will maintain it later.
How much more does a multi-tenant MVP cost?
Multi-tenant means that several customer companies use the same app, and each one sees only its own data. One provider puts the extra development cost at 15–25%. Once the app is running, a shared database for all customer companies is usually the cheapest model, according to Microsoft, while a separate database for each one can cost more.
Three of the nine providers include tenant isolation in the MVP: Provider D in its €20,000 package, Provider F from €35,000 and Provider I at €50,000–75,000. Provider G quotes €80,000–150,000 for multi-tenant platforms, and Provider H €120,000–250,000 for a fully multi-tenant version 1. So before you compare quotes, check whether each one includes tenant isolation.
Running costs depend on the isolation model. According to the Azure Architecture Center, the more customer companies share the same infrastructure, the lower the cost. If each customer company gets its own database, you pay at least the smallest plan for each one. For 20 customer companies, 20 managed PostgreSQL databases on Scaleway’s smallest plan cost €227.80 a month excluding value-added tax (VAT). At OVHcloud, they cost €1,089.20. A single shared database costs €11.39 and €54.46 respectively. If it grows, a larger Scaleway plan with 8 GB of RAM costs €80.30 a month excl. VAT. That’s still less than 20 small ones. Scaleway charges for storage separately.
Source: Microsoft, Azure Architecture Center (external site),
Source: Scaleway (external site), · Managed PostgreSQL price list, Paris region, 730 hours a month, excl. storage and VAT
Source: OVHcloud (external site), · Managed PostgreSQL price list, excl. VAT
Tenant isolation needs tests. If someone can retrieve another customer company’s data, access control is broken. This class of vulnerability ranks first in the OWASP Top 10:2025 (external site), and every application tested for it had some form of broken access control. Provider D explicitly lists tests against access across company boundaries in its package. If a quote doesn’t mention such tests, ask about them.
Our explainer What is a multi-tenant SaaS architecture? covers the basic isolation models and when each one fits. Our SaaS development page explains how we separate your customers’ data.
From our work: what do three SaaS MVPs cost over three years?
By our calculation, a lean MVP costs about €12,500–37,900 over three years, a typical SaaS MVP about €29,900–93,900 and a typical one with an integration about €34,300–117,900. The calculations are ours, and the figures come from our survey and from price lists as of November 7, 2026. They aren’t Datafalke prices or quotes.
| Example | One-time | Monthly | First year | Three years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lean MVP: one core feature, login, one subscription plan | €8,000–20,000 | €125–498 | about €9,500–26,000 | about €12,500–37,900 |
| Typical SaaS MVP: core feature, login, subscription billing, admin area, with tenant isolation at some providers | €20,000–55,000 | €275–1,082 | about €23,300–68,000 | about €29,900–93,900 |
| Typical SaaS MVP with one integration to an ERP or accounting system | €23,000–70,000 | €313–1,332 | about €26,800–86,000 | about €34,300–117,900 |
Source: our own calculation based on our survey and the price lists,
Here’s how we calculate, so you can do the same with your own quotes:
- One-time: For the lean MVP, we use the lowest published price (€8,000, Provider A) and the median of the lower figures (€20,000). For the typical SaaS MVP, we use the medians of the lower and upper figures (€20,000–55,000). For the integration, we add €3,000–15,000. These are the lowest and highest figures from Providers B and E.
- Maintenance: 15–20% of development costs a year, as Provider B and one other German provider estimate it. For the low end, we take 15% of the low price; for the high end, 20% of the high price.
- Servers, database and backups: €25.36–165.03 a month excl. VAT, from the price lists in the section on ongoing costs. Low end: the smallest cloud server, the smallest managed database with 10 GB of storage, and object storage for backups. High end: a server with 2 vCPUs and 4 GB of RAM, a two-node database with an availability SLA, and object storage.
- First year: one-time price plus 12 months of ongoing costs. Three years: one-time price plus 36 months.
We use the providers’ figures as they publish them; most don’t say whether they include VAT. Payment fees, email sending, further development, contracts and legal documents, your own time and VAT aren’t included. By this calculation, maintenance over three years comes to 45–60% of the development price. If you calculate your quotes the same way, you’ll see what a low entry price costs over the full term.
How realistic are the prices for a SaaS MVP?
The ranges are in line with other overviews: three other German software providers give €10,000–60,000 for an MVP or a simple web app. At the average rate of €91 an hour for freelancers in software and web development, €20,000 equals about 220 hours of work, and €55,000 about 600 hours.
| Source | Figure | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Our survey, nine providers based in Germany | SaaS MVP €8,000–90,000, with medians of €20,000 for the lower and €55,000 for the upper figures | Nov 7, 2026 |
| Cost guide by a German software provider | MVP or simple web app €15,000–50,000 | Jun 9, 2026 |
| Cost guide by a German software provider | MVP or simple web application €20,000–60,000 | September 2026 |
| Website of a German software provider | MVP usually €10,000–25,000, such as a mobile app or an internal tool | undated |
| Pricing page of a provider based in Austria | MVP €8,000–35,000; the upper figure is for a SaaS MVP with user accounts, payment logic and an admin area | undated |
| Cost guide by a provider based in the Netherlands | SaaS MVP from €15,000, complete platform €30,000–80,000 | Oct 17, 2026 |
| Cost guide by a provider based in Austria | simple app €18,000–35,000 at a traditional agency, €8,000–15,000 with an experienced developer using AI tools | March 2026 |
Source: our own survey, · cost guides and pricing pages of six other providers; dates as shown in the table
All the overviews in the table come from providers that sell software themselves. The same goes for this article; our own services are in the next section. The providers in Austria and the Netherlands aren’t part of our survey, which only covers providers based in Germany. Their ranges are of the same order of magnitude.
Many English-language guides to SaaS costs give ranges in US dollars. We left those out, because they come from other markets and can’t be compared directly with euro prices from Germany.
An hourly rate helps put these figures in context. According to the Freelancer-Kompass 2026 from freelancermap, freelancers in software and web development charge an average of €91 an hour. So €20,000 equals about 220 hours, or roughly five and a half weeks of full-time work for one person. At €55,000, it’s about 600 hours, or 15 weeks. One German software provider quotes €110–150 an hour for senior developers. At those rates, the same budget buys fewer hours. Our cost guide How much does custom software development cost? compares typical hourly rates.
Source: freelancermap (in German) (external site), · Freelancer-Kompass 2026, software and web development
Prices for software development have barely risen recently. According to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), producer prices for software development and programming in the second quarter of 2026 were 0.8% higher than a year earlier. So general price trends hardly explain differences between figures from spring and fall 2026.
Source: Destatis (in German) (external site), · press release no. 329, producer price index for services
How much does Datafalke charge for a SaaS MVP?
At Datafalke, we quote the fixed price for your MVP after the discovery sprint, once the core feature, roles and integrations are defined. The intro call is free, and you know the price before development starts.
Building your MVP with us takes two steps. Our SaaS development page covers scope and process.
- Discovery sprint: user flows, a clickable prototype, architecture, a data model, a risk list and a fixed-price quote for the MVP. The sprint is a paid entry offer with its own deliverable, and we tell you its price before you place an order.
- SaaS MVP: multi-tenant, with roles, subscription billing, data export, an admin area, documentation and a software bill of materials (SBOM).
For operations afterward, software care S covers updates, monitoring and two hours of work a month, for at least three months. The repository (where your source code lives) and the cloud account are in your name from day one. So you pay the cloud provider of your choice directly for servers and the database.
We work exclusively with businesses and self-employed professionals. All offers exclude VAT.
What does a SaaS MVP cost to run?
The main ongoing cost is maintenance: two providers put it at 15–20% of development costs a year. According to the price lists of European cloud providers, servers, a database and backups for a small MVP cost about €25–165 a month excl. VAT. Payment fees are extra: at Stripe and Mollie, card payments cost 1.5–2.9% plus €0.25 each.
| Item | Market figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud server, 1 vCPU with 1 GB to 2 vCPUs with 4 GB of RAM | €6.49–19.99 a month excl. VAT | Hetzner |
| Managed PostgreSQL database, smallest plan | €11.39 a month excl. VAT at 730 hours, excl. storage; €54.46 excl. VAT with 1 node and no availability SLA | Scaleway, Paris region; OVHcloud |
| Database with 2 nodes, failover and a 99.95% availability SLA | €138.55 a month excl. VAT | OVHcloud, 2 nodes at €69.277 each |
| Object storage for backups, 1 TB | €6.49 a month excl. VAT | Hetzner |
| Email sending | up to 6,000 emails a month free, at most 200 a day; 8,000 emails for €8 excl. VAT | Mailjet |
| Card payments | 1.5% + €0.25 for standard cards from the European Economic Area (EEA); 1.8% + €0.25 for consumer cards and 2.9% + €0.25 for commercial cards from the EEA | Stripe; Mollie |
| SEPA Direct Debit | €0.35 per payment | Stripe |
| Subscription management | 0.7% of billing volume with Stripe Billing; recurring payments at no extra cost with Mollie | Stripe; Mollie |
| Maintenance, updates, monitoring | 15–20% of development costs a year; packages with 2–24 hours for €260–3,120 a month | two software providers; one other provider |
Source: Hetzner Online (external site), · Regular Performance cloud server price list, CPX02 and CPX22 plans; Object Storage
Source: Scaleway (external site), · price list, excl. VAT
Source: OVHcloud (external site), · Managed PostgreSQL price list
Source: Mailjet (external site), · euro prices via the currency selector, excl. VAT
Source: Stripe (external site), · prices for Germany; Billing: stripe.com/en-de/billing/pricing
Source: Mollie (external site), · online payments
Source: our own survey, · cost guides of two software providers, pricing page of one other provider
With a managed database, according to OVHcloud, the provider takes care of patches, backups and scaling. The price of a two-node database also covers failover. The providers in the table are examples of published prices. You decide during the project which services your product will use.
A worked example for payments: 30 customer companies each pay €99 a month by standard card. At Stripe, payment processing and subscription management then cost €72.84 a month in total. That’s about 2.5% of revenue. With SEPA Direct Debit, it’s €31.29. At Mollie, 30 payments by consumer card cost €60.96, and by commercial card €93.63.
Providers quote €200–2,000 a month for running an MVP, because they include different things. Provider B gives €200–500 in fixed costs for an MVP with a few hundred users. Provider H budgets €600–1,200 for hosting, database, email, login and monitoring. Provider E quotes €500–2,000 for small SaaS products with up to 100 customer companies, including monitoring, backups and updates. Provider F suggests budgeting €1,000–2,000, including maintenance. As the price lists show, servers and the database are the smaller part. One other provider puts the infrastructure for a customer portal at €20–50 a month, or €150–400 with high availability. So ask how many hours of work the monthly price includes.
Source: our own survey, · cost guides and service pages of Providers B, E, F and H and one other provider
Frequently asked questions
Can you get a SaaS MVP for under €10,000?
Yes, a few providers quote entry prices below that. In our survey, Provider A starts at €8,000 and advertises an introductory offer from €4,800. That includes login with roles, a payment provider and an admin area, but not hosting. A provider based in Austria quotes €8,000–15,000 for a simple app built with AI tools. At prices like these, check whether tenant isolation, tests and data export are included.
Source: our own survey, · Provider A’s pricing page, cost guide by a provider based in Austria
How can I keep the cost of a SaaS MVP down?
With a tight scope and ready-made services for everything except your core feature. Provider H advises cutting every feature that isn’t tied to your pricing model and using ready-made services for payments and email. As long as no one requires strict isolation, it recommends a single multi-tenant app rather than a separate installation for each customer. Provider G lists building every standard service yourself among the typical mistakes.
Source: our own survey, · cost guides of Providers G and H
Are the prices with or without VAT?
Most providers don’t say, so make sure you compare on the same basis. For the MVP prices in our survey, only one of the nine providers explicitly says “excl. VAT.” One says it charges no VAT, and the other seven don’t say either way. On a service subject to standard German VAT, €20,000 excl. VAT comes to €23,800 with 19% VAT. A provider using the small business VAT exemption charges no VAT. Nothing gets added to its price, so it isn’t an “excl. VAT” price in the usual sense. For business customers abroad, the tax treatment can differ. If a quote doesn’t say, ask before you compare it with another.
Source: our own survey, · pricing pages, cost guides and legal notices of the nine providers
What does it cost to make an MVP multi-tenant later?
We haven’t found a reliable figure for this. Provider B writes, without citing a source, that retrofitting costs three to five times as much. Provider G advises building the separation of customer companies into the data model from the start. So decide at the planning stage whether your product should serve several customer companies, even if you start with one. Our explainer What is a multi-tenant SaaS architecture? covers what multi-tenancy means technically.
Source: our own survey, · cost guides of Providers B and G
How do I compare two MVP quotes?
Compare scope and total cost over three years; the entry price alone tells you little. Specify the same components for every quote: core feature, roles, tenant isolation, subscription billing, admin area, integrations, data export and tests. Add operations and maintenance, and find out who owns the code, cloud account and domain.