MVP cost calculator
Estimate what your minimum viable product will actually cost to build, a web app, mobile app, or SaaS productthe way agencies quote it: development hours by a blended hourly rate. Pick your app type, tick the features you need at launch, and get a defensible price range and timeline in seconds.
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.
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.