DEV Community

Cover image for StackTab: whole-stack cost estimates, built on Next.js
kyisaiah47
kyisaiah47

Posted on Originally published at thecompound.tech

StackTab: whole-stack cost estimates, built on Next.js

stacktab.thecompound.tech

StackTab prices a database, an auth service, a payment provider and a host together, using a Next.js and React web console. Builders use it to compare a stack at 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 users.


The problem

Pricing pages usually answer for one vendor at a time. A builder choosing Neon, Clerk, Polar and Vercel has to open each page, translate different billing units, and add the results.

The missing rate creates a worse problem than a missing row. Firebase publishes a free quota and then defers to Google Cloud pricing, while Auth0 places higher usage behind a slider. StackTab records those cases as unknown instead of turning them into $0.

StackTab, The main console: THE STATEMENT · 10,000 USERS · RATES AS READ 12 OCT 2026 Neon, Clerk, Polar and Vercel come to $ a month at 10,000 users

How it works

StackTab keeps a catalogue of plans, meters, allowances, restrictions, source pages and verification dates. It calculates a bill from that catalogue and an explicit usage profile.

  1. The console accepts a stack made from database, auth, payment and hosting services. The selected services and user count are mirrored in the query string.

  2. readCatalogue reads the service catalogue and refresh run from Supabase through @supabase/supabase-js. The page and the JSON API use the same catalogue.

  3. profileForUsers turns the selected user count into usage assumptions. The profile includes database storage, file storage, egress, requests, transactions, seats and other meter quantities.

  4. blockersFor removes plans that cannot carry the usage. It excludes a plan when an allowance is exceeded and no overage meter exists. It also excludes plans marked as non-commercial.

  5. estimatePlan applies base fees, percentage charges, fixed transaction fees and tiered meters. If a required rate is unknown and usage exceeds the included amount, the estimate total becomes null.

  6. formatUsd renders that null as price not published. The React console then renders the statement with @number-flow/react, including the working behind each charge.

The catalogue is checked against literal strings from each vendor pricing page. A nightly re-read marks a plan as drifted when those strings disappear, and the verification date stops advancing. StackTab does not rewrite the price after a drift.

StackTab, Method: 5. The usage is an assumption, and it is always shown Rates are facts. How much database, egress and traffic a given num

A worked example

The default stack uses Neon, Clerk, Polar and Vercel at 10,000 users. StackTab calculates a $367 monthly total, with Neon at $77.38, Clerk at $0, Polar at $270 and Vercel at $20.

The result is a statement rather than a single unexplained total. Each service carries its selected plan, charge lines, source page, verification status and assumptions.

StackTab, Merchant of record for SaaS: Merchant of record for SaaS, priced against Stripe This page compares Paddle, Polar, Lemon Squeezy, Creem, Dodo Payments

How it compares

Amazon Web Services Pricing Calculator estimates AWS services by region and configuration. It is the better choice when the question is how much a specific AWS workload will cost, because its catalogue is AWS's own service catalogue.

Infracost parses Terraform, CloudFormation or CDK, retrieves prices from its Cloud Pricing API, and evaluates the cost of a code change. It is the better choice when the input is infrastructure code or a pull request.

StackTab takes a different input from both. It prices managed developer services across database, auth, payments and hosting categories from vendor pricing pages, without requiring a repository or a cloud account. Its output is withheld when a public rate cannot support a defensible calculation.

StackTab, Best auth for Next.js: The best auth for Next.js, priced Clerk, WorkOS, Better Auth, Kinde, Auth0, Stytch and PropelAuth compared for a Next.js

Limits

StackTab does not price an existing cloud bill, parse infrastructure code or apply an organisation's private discounts. AWS Pricing Calculator handles AWS workload estimates, and Infracost handles infrastructure-as-code cost changes.

StackTab also cannot resolve a vendor rate that the vendor does not publish. The product prints price not published and keeps the reason beside the unresolved line.

StackTab, Cloud cost calculators compared: What is the difference between a cloud cost calculator and a FinOps platform? A cloud cost calculator prices a stack you

Try it

Choose a database, auth service, payment provider and host, then set the user count in StackTab's calculator. The first result is the stack total with each service's plan and charge working.

Top comments (0)