Total hours
104h
4 modules · mid scenario
Free tool · Boilerlykit
Next.js boilerplate build-vs-buy cost calculator
The honest case for buying a template is that 'I'll build it in a weekend' is almost never true once auth, billing, multi-tenant, and webhooks all need to coexist. This calculator turns that gut feeling into a number you can defend to a co-founder, and a number you can compare against a $59-$259 one-time purchase.
Calculator
Estimated cost to build
Total cost (build from scratch)
$7,800
104h × $75/hour
Best-fit SaaSForge template
SaaSForge Core
$199
Save $7,601 vs building from scratch
The math: cost = sum(selected_module_hours) × hourly_rate. Module hours are estimates from shipping the SaaSForge templates; your own pace will vary. The savings figure assumes the template covers every selected module — verify the per-template feature coverage on the product pages before relying on it.
Module hour estimates last reviewed 2026-04-29. They reflect shipping the SaaSForge templates plus talking to customers building equivalent surfaces — your own pace will vary.
Frequently asked
- Aren't these hour estimates marketing?
- They're estimates from actually shipping the SaaSForge templates and from talking to customers who have built equivalent surfaces. Pick the 'low' scenario if you're a senior engineer with prior art on every module; pick 'high' if it's your first time and you'll polish to launch standard. The 'mid' scenario is a realistic median.
- What about my time as a non-engineer founder?
- If you're a non-engineer outsourcing the build, plug in your contractor's rate. If you're learning to code while building, the low estimate undercounts time spent learning — bias toward 'high' or even doubling it. Either way, the calculator captures the rough magnitude of the build cost; precision is not the point.
- Can a template really replace 200+ hours of work?
- It replaces the hours you would otherwise spend on solved problems — auth flows, Stripe webhook idempotency, Postgres RLS for multi-tenant, RAG pipeline plumbing. It does not replace the hours you spend building your actual product on top of those primitives. Use the calculator to estimate the foundation cost, not the full project cost.
- How do I know which template covers which module?
- The 'best-fit template' card recomputes as you toggle modules — it picks the SaaSForge template whose feature set covers the most of what you selected. For exact per-template coverage, see /pricing or each product page (saasforge-starter, saasforge-ai, saasforge-core, saasforge-agency).
- Why isn't 'design' in the modules list?
- Design hours vary too much to estimate generically — a side project lives with shadcn defaults, a paid product needs a designer-collaborated theme. The templates ship with a polished oklch design system out of the box; if you'd be hiring a designer regardless, that cost is orthogonal to the build-vs-buy decision.
See the modules in context on the feature deep-dives or compare templates on the pricing page.
Build vs buy decided?
Pick the template. Skip the build.
Four SaaSForge templates from $59. One-time purchase. Lifetime updates. Polar Merchant-of-Record checkout.