Last to last weekend i had an idea for a SaaS popped into my head. Pretty straightforward: a service that helps developers write better documentation, giving readability scores and improving the content.
Pretty basic concept. Clear problem. There is market demand.
Ordinarily, the first couple weeks would go into just setting things up. This time I took a different route. I leveraged the power of Kostra a production-ready Next.js SaaS boilerplate and had everything live within 48 hours.
Here's how that went down:
Hour 0: The turning point
All the SaaSes I've developed over the years followed the exact same pattern: excitement on day one, followed by weeks wasted handling Stripe, authentication, and initial configuration with no real product development happening.
With this project, I decided not to reinvent the wheel. For some time already I have been following Kostra a Next.js template with authentication, Stripe payments, file uploads, email capabilities, admin panel and even a blog all prebuilt and ready to use.
Hours 1-2: Initial Setup
Fork the project. Create environment variables. Connect Stripe and the database. Deploy on Vercel.
Completed.
In two hours, I achieved:
OAuth & password authentication
Stripe subscriptions setup
Admin dashboard live
Resend for email
Production URL
No need for debugging any authentication flow. No need to struggle with Stripe documentation.
Hours 3 to 8: Building the product
After taking care of the foundations, I started working on the actual product.
It required three main components:
Input text UI
Built using Kostra's atomic component library within less than an hour.
API endpoint for analyzing text
This was fairly easy due to Kostra’s repo/service architecture; one single-file service was sufficient.
Results UI
Scores, suggestions, and rephrased text. Again, this was built quickly using ready-made components.
In less than eight hours, I had the product up and running. Text input > analysis results – that's it!
Hours 9 to 16: Billing
Here's where many projects fail to deliver on time. Billing via Stripe might take days.
Given that Kostra has Stripe integration out-of-the-box, I only needed to:
Create two tiers of subscriptions: free plan (five uses per month) and pro plan ($19 monthly).
Use the credit system of Kostra for tracking usage.
Gate the API endpoint with usage limits.
Set up a pricing page with Stripe Checkout.
No need to configure the billing dashboard from scratch.
Total effort: six hours instead of several days.
Hours 17-24: Auth customizations, user setup, email
The auth part was done, so I just worked on:
Onboarding form: Added use case and team size field
Welcome email: Duplicated one of the templates and customized it (45 min)
Limits on usage: Automated through credits system
Nothing too strenuous here.
Hours 25-36: Polishing
This is when you get to do things that make it feel like an actual product:
Error states for API requests
Loading states
Empty state for new accounts
Mobile responsiveness (this is mostly done by now)
Landing page (very simple)
Used the in-built blog for the launch post.
Hours 37-48: Testing & Launch
Kostra has jests and CI/CD included. I tested the following:
Text processing
Subscription gates
Tested everything and all passed.
After that, did a soft launch into a few communities.
In those first 48 hours, I had:
Live SaaS on a real domain
3 subscribers ($19/mo)
17 free users
No infra problems
Here’s what 48 hours really looked like:
Hours 1-2: Initial Setup
Hours 3-8: Core Product Development
Hours 9-16: Billing Integration
Hours 17-24: User Onboarding + Email Integration
Hours 25-36: Finalization
Hours 37-48: Testing + Launch
What didn’t I have to build
OAuth/Authentication, one time password generation, JWT auth etc.
Stripe integration checkout, subscriptions
Billing portal
Credit/usage system
Admin portal
Email system
Files upload capability
Each of these tasks takes several days to complete. In total, this is many weeks of effort that I didn’t have to spend.
Trade-offs
Kostra has a cost $150 upfront.
It’s opinionated, too. You’re building on its patterns (services, components, architecture). This is usually helpful, but sometimes constraining.
If you want to build an entirely custom architecture, you may find this frustrating.
However, if you’re building the typical SaaS application (authentication, billing, users, email), it’s an excellent trade-off.
Would I use it again?
Absolutely.
I’ve probably saved three weeks at minimum. Even more importantly, it allowed me to focus on the real application and not worry about recreating infrastructure that I’ve built many times before.
If you’re trying to get something done quickly, rather than reinventing the wheel, Kostra makes sense.
Would I Use It Again?
Yes. Without hesitation.
The production-ready Next.js boilerplate saved me at minimum three weeks of setup work. At my hourly rate that is worth far more than $150. But more importantly, it kept me focused on the problem I was actually trying to solve instead of infrastructure I have solved before.
If you are building a SaaS product and want to skip straight to the product, Kostra is the nextjs saas starter I would recommend. It is the foundation I wish I had on every project I built before this one.
You can check out kostra at : https://kostra.io/
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