Budget from your own invoices and required workflows. This article does not establish a representative software-spend range for founders.
This is an illustrative SaaS architecture, not the cheapest possible production configuration. Eligibility, features, usage and operational requirements determine the actual cost.
The stack
Frontend and hosting: Vercel, eligible plan required
Vercel is a hosting candidate for a Next.js trial. Vercel Hobby terms restrict Hobby to non-commercial personal use. Quote an eligible commercial plan and the resources needed before taking customers; traffic alone does not determine eligibility. My originally reported use of a free tier is a historical account, not evidence that it meets today’s commercial terms.
Backend and database: Supabase (free)
For Supabase, trial the data model, account isolation, auth recovery and backup requirements. Pro starts at $25 USD/month and free inactive projects can pause; storage and user counts do not establish production suitability by themselves.
Payments: Stripe (pay as you go)
For a Stripe integration, calculate costs from the current seller-region pricing and the products you enable. Processing, recurring billing, invoicing and tax services can have separate charges. See the source-checked Stripe profile and official product pricing; a headline card rate does not establish a complete bill.
Email: Resend (free)
Resend’s transactional Free allowance is 3,000 emails/month with a 100/day limit. Trial domain authentication, bounces, retries and recovery emails. Marketing charges and overages are separate; the monthly count alone does not establish delivery quality or the right plan.
Analytics: PostHog (free)
For PostHog, define the events, recording consent, access and retention required. Quote each product you will enable; a free event allowance is not a complete production analytics budget.
Error tracking: Sentry (free)
Sentry's free developer plan gives you 5,000 errors per month with full stack traces, breadcrumbs, and issue tracking. When something breaks in production (and it will), you need to know immediately. Sentry catches errors you would never find on your own and gives you the context to fix them fast.
Domain and DNS: Cloudflare (free) + domain (~10 pounds/year)
For a domain and DNS configuration, quote the actual registration and renewal plus any paid services. Trial DNS changes and certificate renewal; no domain price or comparison with company spending was renewed here.
Version control and CI/CD: GitHub (free)
GitHub free gives you unlimited private repos, 2,000 GitHub Actions minutes per month, and project boards. Your entire development workflow lives here for free. The Actions minutes are enough to run tests, lint code, and deploy automatically on every push.
Project management: Linear (free) or Notion (free)
Linear Free listed 250 issues and two teams in the 9 October observation. Check required collaboration and exports in Notion or Linear before choosing. A free allowance does not establish adequate coverage for every project.
The total cost breakdown
- Hosting: verify commercial eligibility and quote the required Vercel configuration; do not budget Hobby as commercial hosting.
- Database + Auth + Storage (Supabase): Free
- Payments (Stripe): 0 until first sale, then percentage of revenue
- Email (Resend): Free (3,000/month)
- Analytics (PostHog): Free (1M events/month)
- Error tracking (Sentry): Free (5K errors/month)
- DNS + CDN (Cloudflare): Free
- Code hosting (GitHub): Free
- Project management (Linear/Notion): Free
- Original illustration; verify before use: Domain: ~10 pounds/year (~0.83/month)
The original zero-cost total is withdrawn as a production quote. Commercial hosting eligibility, separate services, usage, fees and maintenance must be budgeted for the actual configuration.
What about AI tools?
Cursor Individual Pro was $20 USD/month in the 9 October public default selection. Usage is limited and optional on-demand use can add cost. Trial a bounded coding task and inspect its result; no payback period is established.
Where people waste money
The biggest money pits I see for early-stage founders:
- For hosting, choose an eligible plan before commercial use. Vercel Hobby terms restrict free Hobby hosting to non-commercial personal use, regardless of initial traffic.
- For a database, check data isolation, required features, backups, recovery and operating responsibilities. A free allowance does not establish the appropriate production choice.
- Buying premium themes or templates. Start with Tailwind CSS and a free component library. Premium templates look good in the demo but always need heavy customisation anyway.
- Running multiple analytics tools. PostHog does what most founders need. You do not also need Mixpanel, Amplitude, and Hotjar.
- Paying for customer support software before having customers. An email inbox handles support for your first 100 customers. Intercom can wait.
When to start paying
Upgrade when a required feature, eligibility condition or usage limit calls for it. Check those conditions before taking on customers, rather than waiting only for traffic to grow.
Pay when a required feature, eligibility condition or usage limit justifies the plan. Quote the actual workload and include operating work; there is no universal order in which tools should become paid.
Use a calculator with actual quotes, seats and expected usage to estimate scenarios. Plan can help define a small release; neither tool establishes an exact future bill.