The three build paths and what they cost
A solo founder using no-code tools or AI-assisted coding can ship a working product for $1,000 to $10,000, mostly tool subscriptions plus their own time. A competent freelancer builds a typical B2B SaaS MVP for $15,000 to $60,000 over 2 to 4 months. Agencies quote $50,000 to $250,000 for the same scope, with better project management and a much bigger invoice. The feature list drives the price far more than who builds it, so cut scope before you cut corners.
Ongoing costs after launch
Expect $100 to $1,000 per month once you have real users. Hosting on Vercel, Railway, or AWS runs $20 to $200 at small scale. Add a database at $25 and up, transactional email at $20 and up, AI API calls if you use them at $50 to $500 as the most volatile line, and payment processing at roughly 3 percent of revenue. Support is paid in your hours before it is paid in dollars.
The honest part: building is now the cheap half
Ten years ago the build was the barrier. AI-assisted development has since pushed build costs down 5 to 10x, which means everyone else's costs dropped too. The expensive part is distribution: getting anyone to find, try, and pay for the thing. Founders who spend $40,000 on development and nothing on learning a channel usually end up with polished software and no customers. Budget at least as much time for distribution as for code.
How to keep the first version under $5,000
Cut the MVP to one core workflow and delete everything else, including admin dashboards and settings pages. Use boring, proven stack choices with generous free tiers. Buy instead of build for auth, billing, and email. Validate demand with a landing page and 10 customer conversations before writing code, because the most expensive SaaS is the one nobody wanted at any build price.