·4 min read
MVP Budget Breakdown: Where Your Money Goes
You're quoted $5,000 or $15,000 for an MVP. But what exactly are you paying for? Here's the breakdown.
Typical Budget Allocation
| Category | % of Budget | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Development | 50-60% | Writing code, building features, integrations |
| Design | 15-20% | UI design, user experience, branding |
| Infrastructure | 5-10% | Hosting setup, database, third-party services |
| Testing | 10-15% | QA, bug fixes, device testing |
| Project Management | 5-10% | Communication, planning, handoff |
What Costs More Than Expected
- •Authentication: Social login, magic links, password reset flows
- •Payments: Stripe integration, subscriptions, invoicing
- •Email: Transactional emails, templates, deliverability
- •Admin panels: Usually as much work as user-facing features
- •Mobile responsiveness: Testing and fixing across devices
What Costs Less Than Expected
- •Landing pages: Especially with good templates
- •Basic CRUD features: Standard create/read/update/delete
- •Analytics integration: Drop-in solutions work well
- •Deployment: Modern platforms are nearly plug-and-play
Where to Spend More
- •Core user flow: This is your product. Make it great.
- •Payment integration: If you're charging, this must work perfectly.
- •Performance: Slow products kill conversions.
Where to Spend Less
- •Admin dashboards: Basic is fine for MVP
- •Edge cases: Handle the happy path first
- •Visual polish: Ship functional, iterate on design
- •Features beyond core: Save them for v2
50% of your budget should go toward the one thing that makes users pay. If you can't identify that one thing, you're not ready to build.