How accurate is this MVP cost calculator?

Cost ranges are computed from 40 anonymised engagements across SaaS, DTC, marketplace, directory, content, and consulting verticals in UK, US, EU, and India, modelled from 400+ real Social Animal builds since 2012. You get a median with 15th–85th percentile range, sample size shown explicitly. Not AI-invented.

What is included in the MVP cost estimate?

Build cost (discovery, architecture, frontend, CMS, integrations, QA, launch), year-one infrastructure (Vercel Pro, Supabase, domain, email, AI APIs), and region-specific regulatory line items where applicable (UK Responsible Person, Delaware C-Corp, trademark, KYC/KYB).

Do you really ship MVPs at these prices?

Yes. 400+ engagements since 2012, Lighthouse 95+ on every build, and £540/year post-launch hosting benchmark on Next.js + Supabase + Vercel. The calculator surfaces the same ranges we quote in discovery calls.

What if my project does not match your verticals?

Pick the closest vertical and "Other" region if needed, the engine falls back to adjacent buckets. For very bespoke work, book a discovery call via /contact/ and we will give you a custom estimate based on scope.

How long does an MVP take to build?

Simple marketing sites: 2–3 weeks. Standard SaaS or DTC MVPs: 6–9 weeks. Complex marketplaces or multi-tenant platforms: 12–18 weeks. The calculator returns a weeks estimate tuned by your complexity, scope, and timeline pressure.

Do you charge surge for compressed timelines?

Yes. Standard timeline = baseline. Compressed (4-week) = +25% for parallel team sizing. Fixed hard deadline = +50% for team expansion and weekend work. The calculator applies this automatically.

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Built by Melody Sellers · Reviewed quarterly · Last data refresh April 2026

How much does your MVP actually cost?

60 seconds, 3 steps. We return a range based on 400+ real Social Animal builds since 2012, not industry averages, not AI-invented numbers, not vendor pitches. You'll see the sample size, the median, and the named vendors we'd recommend for your region.

400+ engagements since 2012

95+ Lighthouse on every build

£540/yr post-launch hosting benchmark

0 rankings lost on migrations

Step 1 of 3

What are you building?

Where are you based?

How much does an MVP cost in 2026?

A production-grade MVP in 2026 costs £9,500 – £125,000 depending on vertical, region, and complexity. For a standard SaaS or DTC brand at medium complexity, expect £22,000 – £42,000 over 6–10 weeks, plus £540–£2,800 per year in infrastructure. The calculator above returns your specific range from 400+ real engagements.

What counts as an MVP?

An MVP is the smallest version of a product that lets real users pay or sign up. For a DTC brand, that's a live ecommerce site with 3–8 SKUs, payment processing, email capture, and fulfilment hooks. For a SaaS, it's auth + billing + the core feature, nothing more. Everything beyond that is scope creep.

What determines the cost?

Vertical, SaaS, DTC, marketplace, directory, content, consulting. Each has different integration surface, regulatory weight, and build complexity.
Region, UK, US, EU, India. Sets currency, developer rates, and regulatory requirements (UK Responsible Person for cosmetics, Delaware C-Corp for US SaaS, etc.).
Complexity, 1 (marketing site) to 5 (multi-tenant platform with RLS and billing).
Scope, number of unique page templates, from 3 (brochure) to 60+ (complex app).
Integrations, Stripe, Supabase Auth, Clerk, Algolia, PostHog, Klaviyo, etc. Each adds 1–3% to build cost beyond the first three.
Timeline pressure, standard, compressed 4 weeks (+25%), fixed hard deadline (+50%).

Why this calculator is different

Generic AI cost calculators pull from blog posts. This one pulls from 40 anonymised engagements across our 400+ build history, real invoice data from cosmetics launches, SaaS MVPs, marketplace platforms, and consulting sites we've shipped since 2012. The median you see is the 50th percentile of comparable actual quotes. The range is 15th–85th percentile. Sample size is shown explicitly on your result page.

For regulatory line items, we name the specific UK Responsible Person firm (TramaTM, Biorius UK), the CPSR assessor (Delphic HSE, Cosmetic Safety Consultants), the trademark service (TramaTM, Trademark.io), or the Delaware C-Corp formation agent (Stripe Atlas, Clerky) that we'd recommend. Generic AI can't name these because it doesn't have the engagement history.

Our guarantee

100% green Core Web Vitals on launch day, or we keep working for free. Written into every engagement. LCP, CLS, and INP must pass Google's thresholds before we sign off.

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