Developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) product can be a costly endeavor, with the expenses for creating even a basic Minimum Viable Product (MVP) averaging between $25,000 to $50,000 in 2024. In an effort to minimize these development costs, many development teams are turning to SaaS development platforms. These platforms offer not just significant cost savings but also enable teams to quickly turn their ideas into working prototypes, ensuring both consistent styling and functionality.
Today, the market is flooded with a myriad of SaaS development platforms, ranging from low-code solutions that simplify the development process to comprehensive SaaS boilerplates that provide a solid foundation for building complex applications. In this article, we'll explore the best options available in 2024, helping you find the ideal platform to kickstart your next SaaS development project.
- Why use a SaaS platform to build your product MVP?
- Key considerations when choosing a SaaS development platform
- Top 10 SaaS app development platforms to build a product MVP
- Low-code platforms
- SaaS development boilerplates
- Specialized development platforms
- SaaS application development with SoftKraft
- Conclusion
Why use a SaaS platform to build your product MVP?
Using a SaaS software development platform to build your product minimum viable product (MVP) can offer numerous benefits, especially for startups and businesses looking to test their concepts with minimal upfront investment in time and resources. Some of the key reasons why SaaS platforms are an attractive option during the MVP development process:
- Speed to market: SaaS platforms are equipped with pre-built functionalities and integrations, facilitating a swift MVP launch. This enables businesses to quickly test their ideas in the SaaS market, stay ahead of competition, and iterate based on user feedback, ensuring a more responsive and adaptive development process.
- Cost efficiency: By leveraging a SaaS platform, companies can drastically reduce the upfront investments typically required for custom development and infrastructure setup. This cost-saving approach allows startups to allocate their limited resources more effectively.
- Focus on core product value: SaaS platforms liberate businesses from the complexities of backend infrastructure and technical details, allowing them to zero in on refining their product's value proposition. This concentrated effort on core functionalities and user experience can significantly improve the product-market fit and appeal to the target audience more effectively.
- Scalability: The reuse of these components allows for easier expansion and adaptation of your service, without the necessity of custom development for every new feature or growth phase. This approach not only speeds up the scaling process but also maintains consistency and reliability across your product, facilitating a smoother growth trajectory as your user base expands.
- Risk reduction: SaaS platforms offer a tested and reliable foundation that significantly lowers the risks of scalability and technical issues in app development. By leveraging these platforms, businesses can avoid common pitfalls such as project delays and technical debt, ensuring a smoother and faster path to market.
Read More: Top 36 SaaS Technology Stacks: Pros & Cons + Product Examples
Key considerations when choosing a SaaS development platform
As we'll explore in more detail shortly, the landscape of SaaS application development platforms is vast and varied. These platforms span from intuitive low-code, drag-and-drop interfaces to highly customizable boilerplate platforms, catering to a wide spectrum of development needs and expertise levels. When embarking on the search for the ideal platform for your project, it's crucial to assess your specific project requirements. Here are some key considerations to guide your evaluation:
- Business goals: The choice between low-code SaaS software platforms for quick prototyping and more comprehensive solutions for scalability often hinges on whether the immediate aim is to validate a business idea, scale a product, or overhaul an existing application all together.
- Technical skills and resources: SaaS development platforms vary in their technical demands. Those with user-friendly interfaces, extensive documentation, and strong support are preferable for teams with limited development expertise, ensuring the platform's full potential is leveraged without technical hindrances.
- Scope and complexity: The complexity of the intended product influences software as a service platform selection. Platforms capable of supporting detailed SaaS apps with custom integrations and advanced user experience customization are essential for more complex projects.
- Budget constraints: Initial and ongoing costs of platform use are crucial considerations. The economic viability of a platform is determined by its alignment with financial projections and the cost implications of scaling.
- Time to market: Platforms offering rapid development tools, such as drag-and-drop interfaces, can significantly reduce time to market. The balance between development speed and the inclusion of essential features is critical to the MVP's quality.
- Scale up or rebuild: The future trajectory of the project, whether it involves scaling up on the same SaaS platform development tool or rebuilding for expansion, influences the choice of platform. The selected platform should accommodate the long-term vision for the product, facilitating growth or adaptation as required.
Top 10 SaaS app development platforms to build a product MVP
With these considerations in mind, let’s dive into the top 10 SaaS app development platforms available in 2024. There are three main categories of platforms you could consider. We’ll start with low-code platforms.
Low-code platforms
Low-code platforms provide an environment where developing SaaS applications can be done with minimal coding, relying instead on graphical user interfaces for design and development. These platforms typically offer drag-and-drop features, pre-built templates, and integration capabilities, making it easier to create functional applications quickly.
Bubble
A low-code platform that streamlines the SaaS development process and allows you to build custom internal tools, admin panels, and frontends for databases and APIs efficiently without extensive coding.
What you need to know:
- Empowers non-technical users to create web applications without extensive coding. It’s perfect for rapid prototyping and MVP development.
- With a drag-and-drop interface, you design your app visually, connecting elements like building blocks. No need to write complex code.
- While great for early-stage startups, consider its scalability limitations for large-scale applications.
Retool
A low-code development platform that combines code, debugging, review, and deployment in one single interface.
What you need to know:
- Specializes in building internal tools, SaaS dashboards, and admin panels.
- Offers a variety of pre-built components and integrations, allowing for the rapid assembly of UIs and connection to databases and APIs.
- SaaS developers can add custom logic using JavaScript, while non-technical users benefit from pre-built components.
- Supports integrations with workflow and project management software to enhance sprint management.
SaaS development boilerplates
SaaS development boilerplates are pre-configured codebases designed to kickstart the development of SaaS applications. They include common functionalities such as authentication, subscription management, ready-to-use UI components, and API integrations, reducing the need to build these features from scratch.
Next.js: Shipfast
Boilerplate for building modern web applications that combines React with server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG), resulting in fast-loading pages and excellent SEO performance.
What you need to know:
- Designed to help teams ship high-quality code faster.
- Comes with all you need to run an online business: a payment system, a database, login, a blog, UI components, and much more.
- Provides step-by-step tutorials for every feature and component.
Remix: SaaS UI
A full-stack web framework and SaaS starter kit built on React, designed to help teams focus on the UI of a website instead of the backend.
What you need to know:
- Fully serverless stack - No need to manage any server with Firebase/Supabase.
- Includes Authentication, Multi-Tenancy, Settings, Stripe Payments, Blogging, Documentation and Marketing pages, and even customer support AI chatbot to your SaaS.
- Provides access to open-source projects and libraries and works with any React library
- More “low-level” than Next.js, suitable teams who want more control.
- Can eliminate nearly every loading state by loading data in parallel on the server and sending a fully formed HTML document.
Laravel: Jetstream
A powerful PHP framework for building web applications, including SaaS products.
What you need to know:
- Jetstream is built on Laravel, a robust PHP framework. It streamlines web app development, including SaaS products.
- Jetstream provides essential features like user authentication and team management.
- Ideal for startups seeking a solid foundation without extensive setup.
Ruby on Rails: Bullettrain
A SaaS-in-a-Box template that provides a fully functional starting point for SaaS businesses.
What you need to know:
- Super Scaffolding allows you to generate production-ready views and resource controllers.
- Uses CanCanCan to ensure users can only access the resources and features they're supposed to.
- Includes pre-baked workflows to allow your users sign up with or integrate after sign-up with Facebook, Twitter, Stripe, and over a hundred other third-party OAuth provider platforms.
- Comes with a professionally designed UI theme, implemented withTailwind CSS.
Python/Django: SaaS Pegasus
A Django-based SaaS boilerplate that jumpstarts your project with user authentication, billing, and other common SaaS functionalities.
What you need to know:
- You choose the technologies and features you want included, and Pegasus generates a unique codebase for your project.
- Provides OpenAI examples built on ChatGPT and DALL-E to help kickstart your AI product.
- Supports multi-tenant applications with an optional teams/organizations model, invitation workflow, and role-based access control framework.
- Native support for subscription models via recurring Stripe payments
Specialized development platforms
Catering to niche or industry-specific needs, these platforms provide tailored tools and environments. They support the development of applications with specific functionalities or compliance requirements, offering a blend of customization and specialization.
Sharetribe (marketplace apps)
No-code, headless platform for creating marketplace apps and websites.
What you need to know:
- Headless platform allows developers to connect it to any backend.
- Has out-of-the-box support for rental, service, and product marketplaces.
- No-code marketplace builder comes with essential features like profiles, listings, payments, monetization, admin tools, and security.
- Whether you’re building a local services marketplace or a global e-commerce platform, Sharetribe simplifies the process.
Teachable (eLearning apps)
Platform designed specifically to help business owners build eLearning apps, websites, and platforms fast.
What you need to know:
- Enables creators to design and sell online courses through a robust set of features like course management, student enrollment and payment processing.
- Allows admins to manage course content, student progress, and assessments seamlessly.
- Integrated payment processing ensures smooth enrollment and revenue collection.
Shopify (eCommerce apps)
A popular eCommerce platform that simplifies setting up online stores.
What you need to know:
- Provides customizable themes, product management, and a streamlined checkout process.
- From small boutiques to large enterprises, Shopify scales to meet diverse business needs.
- Perfect for non-technical users who want to sell products online.
SaaS application development with SoftKraft
If you’re looking for SaaS development services to help bring your vision to life, we’d love to help. Our SaaS application development company will help you select the right SaaS development platform, plan development, and build a great software solution without the headache. Want some inspiration? Check out what we’ve built for other business clients or reach out to get a personalized quote.
Conclusion
Navigating the array of SaaS development platforms is crucial, but selecting the right one can significantly accelerate MVP development and future growth. As SaaS platforms continue to redefine digital product development, embracing their potential is key to transforming visionary ideas into market-ready solutions. Choosing wisely positions your product for success in a competitive digital landscape.
