MVP Cost Calculator · Free, no email
How much will your MVP cost? Scope it properly, then find out.
Five short steps, the same ones I walk through on a scoping call: what the product is and who uses it, where it ships, what the first version needs and how complex each part is, what it has to integrate with (Stripe, social login, maps, AI models), and the design, documentation, deployment, and quality work around the build. Then an approximate cost range and a timeline.
I'm Kunal Vohra, a fractional CTO and six-time technical co-founder. Every other MVP cost estimator is a form that collects your email before a discovery call designed to find your budget. This one makes you think about the scope, because that is what actually decides the price.
What kind of product is it?
How many types of users?
Count each role that sees different screens or has different permissions: for example customer, vendor, and admin is three. Every extra role adds its own views and its own permission logic.
How the estimate is built
MVP cost is effort. Effort is screens, complexity, roles, and integrations.
Every MVP quote you will ever get is secretly an effort estimate dressed up as a day rate or a gut feel. This calculator makes the effort visible. A simple screen is the base unit; a standard screen with real logic is about one and a half units; a complex one with states, rules, and edge cases is about two and a half. Each user role beyond the first adds its own views and its permission layer. Each integration carries its own effort whether or not it adds a screen: Stripe, Razorpay, in-app purchases, SSO, maps, push, LLMs, real-time.
Around the build sit the things agencies quietly leave out and bill later: user flows and wireframes, a visual design system if you are selling to consumers, API and user documentation, cloud setup and CI/CD, App Store and Play Store submission with the review cycles and rejections that come with them, automated tests, and a security review. Each is a line you can switch on or off and see the effect.
The base unit is priced at my published rate of $30, held down from the standard $80 until I join a new venture full time, so the arithmetic is still transparent. What changes is that the price follows the work. The MVP development page covers how the build runs week to week, and the MVP cost guide has the full market comparison.
One honest caveat: building is not validating. If nobody has told you they want the product yet, the right number is zero, and I will say so on the scoping call.
Questions
About the estimate
How accurate is this MVP cost calculator?
It is an estimate built the way I scope real builds: every screen weighted by complexity, every user role, every integration, plus the design, documentation, deployment, and quality work you select. It comes back as a range because rough scope in means rough number out. The scoping call is where the range becomes a fixed quote, and if the scope holds, the number holds.
Why is the price not a flat rate per screen?
Because a login form and a payments dashboard are not the same amount of work, and pretending they are is how quotes go wrong. The calculator measures effort: a simple screen is the base unit, a complex one is roughly two and a half times that, an extra user role adds its own views and permission logic, and integrations like Stripe carry their own effort regardless of screens. The base unit is priced at my published rate, so the arithmetic is still transparent.
How much does adding Stripe or another payment provider add?
More than founders expect. Stripe is subscriptions, webhooks, failed-payment handling, refunds, tax, and a customer portal, not a checkout button. Marketplace payouts through Stripe Connect add seller onboarding and KYC states on top. In-app purchases through Apple and Google add receipt validation, restore flows, and sandbox testing. Each is a separate line in the estimate so you can see what it costs to include, or to leave for version two.
Why does the number of user types matter?
Each role that sees different screens or has different permissions, such as customer, vendor, and admin, adds role-specific views and a permission layer that has to be right everywhere. A two-role product is not twice a one-role product, but it is meaningfully more than one, and the estimate accounts for that rather than discovering it in week six.
What counts as a screen, and what about design?
A screen is a distinct view a user can land on: a list, a detail page, a form, a settings page, a checkout step. Modals and small states inside a screen do not count separately. Design is scoped on its own: user flows and wireframes come first on every build, and a custom visual design system, a clickable prototype, or brand basics are added when the product needs them.
Is App Store and Play Store deployment included?
If you pick a mobile platform, the calculator adds App Store and Play Store submission and store listing assets to the launch step automatically, because certificates, review cycles, rejections, and screenshots are real work that lands in the last two weeks. Cloud setup, CI/CD, monitoring, domain and DNS are part of every build.
What is not included in the estimate?
Third-party costs you pay directly: cloud infrastructure (typically $100 to $500 a month early on), app store developer accounts, domain and email, paid APIs such as LLM usage or SMS, and legal review. Everything on the build side is included: scoping, design as selected, full-stack development, integrations, documentation, deployment, and two weeks of post-launch support.
How does this compare to agency quotes?
Across the market a comparable MVP runs $5,000 to $30,000 from freelancers, $15,000 to $50,000 from offshore agencies, and $50,000 to $150,000 or more from US and Western European agencies. The difference here is that you can see where the effort goes before anyone asks for your budget, and you get one accountable senior technical person rather than a project manager between you and the code.
Got a number? Let's check it against the real scope.
Thirty minutes: walk me through the product and I'll tell you which screens you actually need, which you don't, and whether the number the calculator gave you is the number you'll pay.
Book a scoping callSend me a message