Built by the Social Animal team · Modelled data last updated April 2026

How much does your MVP actually cost?

60 seconds, 3 steps. We return a range based on 40 modelled project scenarios, not industry averages or vendor pitches. You'll see the sample size, the median and example regional vendor references.

40 modelled scenarios in the dataset
95+ Lighthouse performance target
£540/yr post-launch hosting benchmark
SEO migration planning built in
Step 1 of 3

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 40 modelled project scenarios.

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 uses 40 modelled project scenarios covering cosmetics launches, SaaS MVPs, marketplace platforms and consulting sites, built from published project ranges and vendor list-price benchmarks. The median you see is the 50th percentile of comparable scenarios. The range is 15th–85th percentile. Sample size is shown explicitly on your result page.

For regulatory line items, we show example UK Responsible Person firms, CPSR assessors, trademark services and Delaware C-Corp formation agents. Treat these as planning references and evaluate each provider independently.

Our standard

Passing Core Web Vitals is the performance target. LCP, CLS and INP are tested under the conditions agreed for the project.

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