How I Built a SaaS Template Marketplace with Next.js 14, Groq AI, and Stripe

Dev.to Article — Technical Tutorial

Title: How I Built a SaaS Template Marketplace with Next.js 14, Groq AI, and Stripe

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I spent the last 2 weeks building AI Empire — a marketplace of production-ready Next.js 14 templates for SaaS products. Here's what I learned and the technical decisions I made.

The Problem

Every SaaS project starts the same way:

1. Set up Next.js
2. Add authentication
3. Integrate payments
4. Build a dashboard
5. Add email
6. Deploy

This takes 2-4 weeks. By the time you're done, you've lost momentum on your actual product idea.

The Solution

I built 10 templates that handle all of this:

# Clone a template
git clone https://github.com/ai-empire/neurastore
cd neurastore

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Add your API keys
cp .env.example .env.local

# Deploy
vercel deploy

Each template includes:

• Auth: Login, register, password reset
• Payments: Stripe subscriptions + one-time
• AI: Groq API integration (free tier)
• Dashboard: Admin panel with analytics
• Email: Transactional emails via Resend
• i18n: 10 languages out of the box

Tech Decisions

Why Groq over OpenAI?

Groq offers free inference with no API key restrictions. For a template marketplace, this means:

• Users can try the AI API immediately
• No upfront costs
• Fast inference (~500 tokens/sec)

Why Stripe?

Stripe is the industry standard for SaaS billing. I integrated:

• Checkout sessions for one-time purchases
• Customer portal for subscription management
• Webhooks for order fulfillment

Why Prisma?

Prisma gives you type-safe database queries:

const templates = await prisma.template.findMany({
  where: { featured: true },
  orderBy: { price: 'asc' },
});

What's Next?

I'm working on:

• More templates (chatbot, admin panel, marketplace)
• Better documentation
• Community features

If you're building a SaaS and want to skip boilerplate, check it out: https://ai-empire-steel.vercel.app

What features would you want in a SaaS template?