The AI SaaS Budget Calculator
“AI can build my SaaS over a weekend, right?” Let’s find out. Pick the kind of product, tick what it has to do, set a budget, then take the six-question reality check. AI makes good engineers faster. It does not make billing, security and operations go away. Runs entirely in your browser.
More calculators: Website · Web automation · Business process automation
Six things that go wrong in real projects. Answer honestly, the AI will not see your answers.
How the numbers work
Short version: it is a rough model, not a quote.
Where do the hours come from?
Each kind of product and each feature has a typical effort for an experienced team, based on the products we build and run. Extra screens, plus 15% for testing, QA and project management, are added on top.
How much does AI save?
It depends on the work. Screens, forms and standard create-read-update-delete code get much faster, so we take 28 to 35% off those. Billing, multi-tenancy, single sign-on, integrations and infrastructure save far less (10 to 15%), because the hard part is getting the behaviour right in every edge case, not typing the code.
Why is the MVP so much more than a prototype?
A prototype shows the idea. An MVP has real accounts, real data, error handling, emails that arrive and a way to deploy and roll back. That difference is most of the work, and it is the part a demo hides.
How is the DIY estimate calculated?
Your quiz score sets a skill level. The less you know, the longer the same work takes (up to four times the specialist’s AI-assisted time), and the more likely something breaks in production. It is a joke with maths in it, not a prediction.
Is this a price quote?
No. Real products depend on details no calculator can see, and the estimate uses whichever hourly rate you pick. For a real quote, tell us about your product.
Building a SaaS product?
We have built and run our own SaaS since 2008, and we build them for clients. Tell us what you have in mind and we will give you an honest plan and estimate.