What does an MVP cost?
For a real, production-grade MVP in 2026 we quote inside a single window: $5k–$17.5k, fixed price. The band splits into three tiers by build difficulty — Tier 1 ($5k–$8.5k) is a weekend-to-a-few-days build like Loft Conversion Quotes or Find Your Agent; Tier 2 ($8k–$12.5k) is a 1–2 week build with auth, a database and a couple of integrations, like Convert Driveways or HappyReplies; Tier 3 ($12k–$17.5k) is a 2–4 week build with multi-tenant data, embeddable widgets or a Chrome extension, like Send Feedback or Sanity Mode.
What pushes the price up?
Three things, in order: scope creep (a 'small' admin panel doubles the build), bespoke design systems (Figma-to-pixel-perfect adds weeks), and integrations with systems that don't have APIs. Everything else is rounding error. We won't quote past $17.5k for an MVP — if the scope needs more, we cut it together before we sign.
Where can you safely cut?
Skip the marketing site for v1 — one landing route is enough. Skip role hierarchies — one user type ships in days. Skip the mobile app — a good PWA covers 90% of cases. Skip the analytics dashboard — Plausible plus a weekly CSV does the job.
What you should never cut
Auth done properly. A real database with backups. HTTPS and a custom domain. Error tracking. These are 5% of the cost and 95% of whether the thing survives its first paying user.
How we quote
Fixed price, capped at $17.5k, scoped to a maximum of four weeks. Every quote is calibrated against a project we've already shipped so the number isn't a guess — it's a match. If a build can't fit inside that window, we say so and cut scope together.