Original research · Open data

MVP Research

What MVPs cost, measured from what companies publish. Every dataset is public, so any figure can be checked against the record it came from.

Reports

White paper · October 2026 · 13 pages

What an MVP Really Costs

The four lines in an MVP budget, what each one costs in public data, and why most of it is never written down.

What an MVP build costs at the agencies that publish a price, and why most do not
Why online cost guides disagree by ten times, and how few show their source
What it costs to keep an MVP running before you have users

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Datasets

One JSON file per study, named with the date it was read, with the definitions each count used and, where a script got something wrong, the correction a person made.

What MVP development agencies actually publish

53 of 66 publish no price, and 12 put neither an email nor a phone link on their home page.

69 agencies from 13 listicles, 66 reachable · read 23 September 2026

agency-transparency-2026-09-23.json

Published entry prices for an MVP build

The median entry price is $15,000, from $3,999 to $45,000.

8 agencies, 4 excluded with reasons · read 23 September 2026

agency-entry-prices-2026-09-23.json

How much the internet says an MVP costs

The median range is $15,000 to $150,000. Only 2 of 27 link to a source, and 21 are published by companies that sell MVP development.

27 articles from five US searches · read 23 September 2026

mvp-cost-claims-2026-09-23.json

What the standard SaaS MVP stack costs to run

All 14 start at $0 a month. The 8 flat first paid plans add up to $176 a month.

14 services named as the default stack · read 24 September 2026

saas-mvp-stack-pricing-2026-09-24.json

What fractional CTO pricing pages claim

13 of 14 monthly ranges span $8,000 to $15,000. The measured middle half of rates is $170 to $250 an hour.

20 pages from three searches, against one measured benchmark · read 28 September 2026

fractional-cto-rates-2026-09-28.json

What agencies publish about code ownership

7 of 66 state that the client owns the code, and 28 publish a terms document.

The same 66 agencies, every claim read by a person · read 24 September 2026

agency-code-ownership-2026-09-24.json

Code export across no-code and AI app builders

None of the 4 classic no-code builders lets you export your app's code; all 4 AI app builders do.

10 builders, from vendor documentation · read 23 September 2026

no-code-export-2026-09-23.json

How we measure

Samples come from search results and listicles, not from a list we picked, and MVP Development is measured by the same code as everyone else.
Every figure is read by a person against the sentence it came from. Where a script and a person disagreed, the person won and the reason is in the data.
Cite a figure to the report it appears in, or to its dataset: MVP Development, study title, date read, and the file’s URL.

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