You can run a production SaaS for $87/month using Neon (Postgres), Vercel (hosting), Supabase (auth), Resend (email), Plausible (analytics), and Polar.sh (payments). Each tool has a generous free tier that covers your first 500–1,000 users.
Hosting: Vercel — $0/mo (Hobby)
Vercel's free tier includes 100 GB bandwidth, 600 build minutes, and serverless function execution. For a bootstrapped SaaS with fewer than 10k monthly active users, this is genuinely free. You only pay when you need team features or dedicated infrastructure.
Database: Neon — $0/mo (Free tier)
Neon's free tier gives you 0.5 GB storage, 100 compute hours/month, and branching. The branch feature is a killer — spin up a copy of your production DB for every PR. At $25/mo (Scale), you get 10 GB storage and 500 compute hours, enough for most early-stage SaaS products.
Auth: NextAuth v5 — $0/mo
NextAuth v5 is open source and free. Host your own database sessions, or use Supabase Auth (also free up to 50k monthly active users).
Email: Resend — $0/mo (Free tier)
3,000 emails/month free. Transactional emails (welcome, password reset, invoice) typically consume 100–500 emails/month for early-stage SaaS. The $20/mo tier covers 50k emails.
Analytics: Plausible — $0/mo (Self-hosted)
Plausible is open source with a self-hosted option. Their cloud tier starts at $9/mo for 10k pageviews. Privacy-first, no cookie banners needed.
Payments: Polar.sh — 5% + $0.50/txn
Polar is the best option for developers outside Stripe-supported countries. They act as Merchant of Record, handle tax compliance, and pay out to your bank account.
The total
| Service | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Vercel (Hobby) | $0 |
| Neon (Free) | $0 |
| NextAuth (Open source) | $0 |
| Resend (Free) | $0 |
| Plausible (Self-hosted) | $0 |
| Polar.sh (5% fee) | ~$5 on $100 revenue |
| Domain | $1/mo |
| Total | ~$6/mo until you scale |
When you outgrow free tiers, expect ~$87/mo for production scale (10k+ MAU).
When to upgrade
- 500+ users: Upgrade Resend ($20/mo) for higher send limits
- 10k+ MAU: Upgrade Neon ($25/mo) for more compute hours
- 50k+ MAU: Upgrade Vercel Pro ($20/mo) for team features and higher limits
Top comments (2)
Really practical breakdown! The budget approach is key for indie hackers.
One thing I'd add from my own research: the email marketing and funnel builder portion of your stack could potentially be replaced by a free all-in-one platform like Systeme.io, which covers email marketing, sales funnels, and course hosting on their free plan. That alone could cut $30-50/month from the budget early on.
The trade-off is that free tools have limitations on contacts and features, so you'd want to migrate once you hit revenue. But for the 'getting to first customer' phase, going free-first is a legit strategy.
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