How to use the MVP Cost Calculator
This calculator estimates what a minimum viable product costs to build from three choices: the kind of app, the features it needs at launch and the hourly rate of the team. It adds the base hours for the app type to the hours for each feature, multiplies by the rate and shows a range 15% either side. It gives founders a planning number for comparing scope and team options before asking for quotes.
Step by step
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Choose what you are building
Under What are you building?, pick Web app (500 base hours), Mobile app (700) or SaaS product (850). Web app is selected when the page opens.
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Pick the launch features
Under Core features to ship at launch, click a feature to switch it on or off. User accounts & login (50 hours) and Admin dashboard (80) start switched on. The others add Payments / billing 70, Chat / messaging 90, Notifications 35, Photos / video 55, Booking / scheduling 60, Search & filters 40, Reports & analytics 55 and AI features 120 hours.
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Set the team rate
In Team & blended hourly rate, choose Offshore team, $35/hr, Blended / nearshore, $65/hr (the default) or US senior team, $150/hr.
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Read the estimate
The result updates on every click. Read the price range at the top, then the hours and the formula under it, the Development hours and Rough timeline cards, and the bars that split the core build from the selected features.
Reading the result
- The defaults give 500 core hours plus 130 feature hours, 630 hours in all. At $65 an hour that is $40,950, shown as a range from $35k to $47k, which is 15% below and above.
- The formula line shows the exact sum behind the range, for example 630 hrs × $65/hr = $40,950.
- Rough timeline divides the total hours by 110 hours a week and rounds up, with a minimum of 2 weeks. 630 hours gives about 6 weeks.
- The note under the formula prices the same hours at the lowest and highest rates: 630 hours costs $22,050 with the offshore team and $94,500 with the US senior team.
- The range is rounded to the nearest thousand dollars, so a small change in hours may not move it.
Tips and common mistakes
- Switching features off is the biggest lever. AI features alone add 120 hours, which is $7,800 at $65 an hour.
- Changing the rate changes only the price. The hours and the timeline stay the same, so compare teams on the same feature list.
- The hours are fixed planning figures, not a quote for your product. Integrations with other systems, compliance work and custom design are not in the feature list, so allow extra for them.
- The timeline assumes about 110 hours of work a week across the whole team, so a smaller team will take longer.
Privacy and limits
The estimate is calculated in your browser from fixed hour and rate figures written into this page. Nothing you select is sent anywhere or saved, so reloading the page puts the defaults back.
How it works
An MVP is priced from effort, not a flat sticker price. This calculator uses the same equation agencies quote from: a researched base-hours figure for your app type, plus the hours each launch feature adds, all multiplied by a blended hourly rate that averages every role on the team.
The base scope reflects real delivery bands, a browser-based web app around 500 hours, a native mobile app near 700, and a multi-tenant SaaS product around 850, since SaaS carries billing, tenancy, and an admin layer before the first paying customer arrives. Each feature you tick adds its own engineering hours on top: user accounts, payments, chat, notifications, and AI all cost different amounts of work, so ticking fewer features at launch is the single biggest lever on the number.
The rate is where offshore, blended, and US-senior teams land far apart on identical hours. A 600-hour build is 600 hours wherever it runs, so the same scope can differ several times over on paper depending only on who writes the code. If an Indian team is on your list, see the custom software development firms in India we ranked.
MVP cost = (base hours + selected feature hours) × blended hourly rate
Want a fuller estimate across MVP, growth and scale phases? Use the software development cost calculator, or weigh building against off-the-shelf tools with the build vs buy breakdown.
FAQs
How much does it cost to build an MVP?
A well-scoped MVP is development hours multiplied by a blended hourly rate. At a mid-market $65/hr, a lean web app of a few hundred hours lands in the low tens of thousands, while a feature-heavy SaaS MVP pushes higher. The number moves most when you add or remove launch features and when you change the team rate, so estimate your hours from scope first, then apply a rate you can defend.
How many hours does an MVP take to build?
It depends on the app type and feature set. A focused web-app MVP starts near 500 hours of build effort, a native mobile app near 700, and a multi-tenant SaaS product near 850, before you add features. Each feature you ship at launch, from login to payments to AI, adds its own hours on top, which is why scope discipline is the clearest way to keep the total down.
Why does the same MVP cost so much more with a US team?
Because the gap is in the rate, not the hours. The identical build takes the same hours whether it runs offshore, nearshore, or in the US, but the blended rate can swing from roughly $35 to $150 an hour. The tool shows both ends so you can compare the real cost of each team on your exact scope, rather than choosing on the sticker rate alone.
