SaaS is a wonderful business model for new and experienced entrepreneurs alike. The primary reason for starting a SaaS business is to ensure a recurring income or a stable stream of revenues. However, developing a SaaS application might incur significant initial expenditures. While a SaaS firm does not need the same level of investment in equipment and technologies as ordinary businesses, creating and deploying a SaaS-based offering is far from being inexpensive.
There are, nevertheless, certain techniques to save costs without losing product or service quality, such as by first developing an MVP and working with a third-party service provider or a white label service provider.
In today’s post, we will discuss the cost outlay of building a SaaS-based project and suggest the possible options to reduce your initial SaaS startup costs.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop an App Like Uber?
The cost of building an application like Uber may range anywhere between $67,000 and $150,000 for one or two user apps (for iOS and Android), respectively. You would also need to include the price of an admin panel development. which could start at $14,000.
Independents and Agencies
Generally speaking, a software/SaaS application developer will charge roughly $60 per hour, assuming that your SaaS project takes three months to fully develop into a final product, which equates to 480 hours of work (approximately 40 hours per week). This indicates that developing the first edition of your SaaS app will cost you somewhere around $30,000. Moreover, you will almost certainly have to employ a designer to create the product’s graphical interface – which will mean incurring additional costs.
While SaaS application development agencies are often more expensive than engaging individual programmers in-house, they provide several benefits over hiring an independent developer. To begin, agencies often have more and better expertise in the field simply because they have completed a greater number of applications (particularly SaaS-focused firms) and have, therefore, more experience handling complex projects.
Also, you will discover that agencies can self-manage the projects, which means you will be less active in the many project development phases. This scenario is ideal for entrepreneurs on the go and business owners who cannot lead or afford a team of developers in-house.
How Much Does it Cost for a Contractor to Build a SaaS Application like Uber?
Keeping in mind the same three months for development and a $60/hour hourly rate, it will often cost a lot more to hire an agency on a contractual basis. This is because development agencies sometimes assign many developers or a project coordinator to your project, which means that the cost can quickly quadruple or even exceed $100,000.
If you want a more seamless engineering experience for your SaaS project and have the cash, I strongly suggest working with a SaaS software company. This will save you from many hassles later.
Create the MVP
If you are familiar with SaaS, you are definitely familiar with the term MVP, or minimum viable product. This entails constructing the first functioning iteration of your SaaS product with just the basic functionality needed to launch it. MVP minimizes the time required for development and enables you to create your SaaS at a much-reduced cost.
In the case of the Uber app features, this would be a simple ride booking. We strongly encourage all SaaS firms to explore this strategy further. Additionally, implementing just the main features enables you to launch and generate income more quickly. The earnings can then be utilized to fund the development of your SaaS product’s next iteration.
Process Breakdown for SaaS-based Application
Trend Analysis and Concept Development
Costs: Nothing if you do all of the work yourself!
If you employ a business analyst, on the other hand, you should expect to spend around $80 per hour in the United States. In this situation, a week’s work may cost between $1,600 and $3,200, but the overall cost would depend on the time spent by the expert or experts on the assignment.
To begin, identify a potential market need and devise a practical strategy for meeting that need. It might be a straightforward SaaS tool that handles one or two tasks, such as sending invoices, optimizing ad serving, or generating basic logos.
Alternatively, you may picture a much larger SaaS platform dedicated to optimizing multiple company processes, such as transportation logistics (Uber’s core app feature), enterprise systems, or property maintenance systems.
Product Research and Development
Costs: Typically, product discovery takes between one and three weeks. A rough ballpark of this stage at $1,600-$4,800 can be arrived at by calculating 40-120 hours against the hourly rate of one expert, which averages approximately $40/hour.
Entrepreneurs working on their first SaaS applications often start small, with a minimal viable product (MVP). It essentially consists of the core SaaS components and potentially one more functional tool. Regardless of their limitations, every app feature should provide value and satisfy consumers’ expectations in the most precise and efficient manner possible.
Uber System Design, Development, Testing, and Debugging
For SaaS applications, all these processes are priced at a $35 hourly rate, from which a simple computation yields a minimum figure of $34,000.
At this level, UX/UI professionals are responsible for developing straightforward, uncomplicated navigation and interaction designs for SaaS websites. An exceptional user experience/user interface Uber systems design will be at the forefront of your SaaS-based service platform. A big part of figuring out how much it costs to build an app like Uber is to know how to create an interface just as great as Uber.
The complicated architecture of the SaaS system is implemented using a variety of models, modules, and developer tools. SaaS components can be deployed by utilizing a third-party technology solution, in-house development, or a mix of the two.
This is also true for Uber’s systems design. Most SaaS enterprises outsource their product hosting and maintenance to third-party vendors. Since each provider uses a unique computer language, your systems engineering team must determine the ideal mix for your project.
Initialization, Maintenance, and Enhancements
Costs: The upkeep and enhancements will begin at $10,000 per month for engaging a team of developers, designers, and quality assurance professionals. Additionally, hosting services can cost anywhere between $1,000 and $10,000.
During the first few quarters, you will need to undertake user testing, resolve problems and bottlenecks, maintain key performance metrics and benchmarks, gather customer feedback, deploy modifications, and test innovative solutions swiftly. Stabilizing the income stream and anticipating client behavior can significantly help in fine-tuning the SaaS model you have adopted for your product or service offerings.
It is critical to continually renew, upgrade, and enhance the service. Developers must release updates in a non-disruptive manner to assure continuous availability and prevent any part of the user base from still using an older version.
The Bottom Line
A SaaS-based application offers substantial benefits and savings for startups today while also serving as a potential product or service offering to scale business growth. The demand for SaaS solutions continues to rise, and this could be an excellent time for you to launch your own SaaS application like Uber.
In this blog, we explained the various factors, including cost estimates, that could have a profound impact on the overall SaaS development process. We hope this discussion has helped you get a good idea of how much it costs to build a SaaS application like Uber.
However, you should bear in mind that these are, at best, estimated price ranges and not absolute numbers. If you are ready to go beyond calculations, we can help you build and deploy high-quality, user-friendly, and scalable SaaS applications that will help you boom in 2022.
Our reliable and secure SaaS development solutions cover end-to-end product development, faster time-to-market, and enhanced operational agility to reduce SaaS development costs by 50%. Contact us today, and let’s explore your concept together!
