How much does it cost to build an MVP?
It's the first question every founder asks, and the honest answer is: it depends on the scope. But "it depends" doesn't help you build a budget, so let's put some structure behind it.
An MVP is not your full product: it's the smallest version that lets you check whether anyone actually wants it. That distinction is the one that saves the most money. Anything that doesn't help validate the core hypothesis (secondary dashboards, advanced roles, integrations nobody has asked for) can wait for version two.
What sets the price
Three variables: which profiles are needed, how many hours they put in and for how many months. In our case, development is billed by the hour, hiring monthly dedication with a delivery every two weeks. Two things are fixed: a single hourly rate, the same for every profile, and a minimum commitment of one delivery a month (40 hours of work). Both are published on our rates page, so with those two numbers you can do the math yourself: what the minimum month costs, what doubling the pace costs, and what each extra month adds.
With that reference, these are the usual ranges we see: a simple internal tool or an automation is usually solved in one or two months of partial dedication. A SaaS-type MVP (user accounts, one core feature done well, dashboard and payments) typically lands between two and four months, with one developer full time plus CTO, UX and QA hours at the key moments. A custom ERP for a specific sector, somewhat more, due to the weight of data modeling.
And a warning about those ranges: they are references that come from knowing each case, not promises that can be made before studying it. If someone gives you the date before asking the questions, pay attention: beware of anyone selling an MVP in six weeks.
Where the cost blows up (and how to avoid it)
MVPs don't get expensive because the coding is expensive: they get expensive because they get rebuilt. A product that starts without sound architecture gets rebuilt within a year, and that doubles the real cost. The second source of overruns is scope that grows quietly: every "while we're at it" is hours.
Our recipe against both: a CTO decides the architecture on day one, we work with deliveries of working software every two weeks, and the scope is reprioritized with you at every delivery, not at the end, when it's already expensive.
And if the budget doesn't stretch
Two paths we use often. The first is to start smaller: a fixed-price landing page that measures real interest before anything gets built. The second is to fund part of the development from outside, and there the timing matters as much as the money: what fits depends on the stage your product is in, and it's worth looking at before you start building, not after. We cover it in when to raise funding for your product.
If you're running the numbers for your case, tell us about it: in a 30-minute call we'll give you an honest range.