Most SaaS products don’t fail at scale — they fail before they get there. Here’s what we ship into v1 of every SaaS development engagement to make scale boring instead of scary.
Architecture that survives PMF
- Multi-tenant from day one
- Background jobs for anything > 200ms
- Read replicas for analytics
- Feature flags before A/B tests
- A clean API & automation layer between product and integrations
Expert Insight
Expert Insight
The cheapest scale-up is the one you designed for. Multi-tenant later is a six-month rewrite. Multi-tenant in week one is a Saturday.
Billing decisions
Stripe Billing covers 90% of SaaS pricing models. Use metered usage, not seat-counting, when in doubt. Budget for billing as part of the broader custom software scope — it’s never a weekend bolt-on.
Warning
Warning
Never invoice off your own counters without reconciling to Stripe nightly. You will drift. You will refund.
Growth tactics for v1
Onboarding under 3 minutes
Empty-state CTAs that ship value
Weekly product email
Public changelog
Companion surfaces matter too — a polished marketing site via website development and a native mobile app for power users both compound retention.
Frequently asked questions
How long to ship a SaaS MVP?
Eight to fourteen weeks with a tight scope and a senior team.
Stripe or Paddle?
Stripe for flexibility, Paddle if you want VAT and merchant-of-record handled for you.
