The Hidden Costs After MVP Launch: Budget for the First Year
You budgeted $40,000 for MVP development. You got exactly what you paid for: working software launched to production. Then the first month's AWS bill arrives: $340. Then a critical bug needs fixing: $2,500. Then users request features that unlock...
January 8, 2025 11 min read
You budgeted $40,000 for MVP development. You got exactly what you paid for: working software launched to production. Then the first month's AWS bill arrives: $340. Then a critical bug needs fixing: $2,500. Then users request features that unlock revenue: $8,000.
Within six months, you've spent another $25,000 on top of the original budget. Nobody told you this part.
Here's what running a product actually costs after the champagne from launch day goes flat.
Infrastructure and Hosting Costs
The servers don't turn off when your MVP launches. They run 24/7, and someone has to pay for them.
Monthly Hosting for Typical MVPs
Minimal viable infrastructure ($50-150/month): Single region hosting, small database, basic CDN. Works for 0-1,000 users. Typically Vercel Pro plan ($20), Convex or Supabase starter ($25), basic monitoring, domain, and email sending. This is what you should budget for first 6 months unless you have traction.
Growing product infrastructure ($150-500/month): Multi-region hosting, scaled database, more bandwidth, better caching. Handles 1,000-10,000 users. You'll hit this tier when usage grows and performance degrades. Includes staging environments, error monitoring (Sentry), uptime monitoring, and backup solutions.
Scaling infrastructure ($500-2,000+/month): Multiple regions, CDN with edge caching, database replicas, job queues, file storage. Needed for 10,000+ users or data-intensive applications. Includes advanced monitoring, logging, security scanning, and redundancy.
Where founders get surprised:
Database costs scaling with data. Storage is cheap. Queries are not. When you hit millions of records, database costs jump. Budget 3-5x initial costs if traction happens.
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Bandwidth overages. CDNs charge for data transfer. If your MVP includes images, video, or file uploads, bandwidth costs scale with usage. One viral post can add $200 to your monthly bill.
Third-party service costs. Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. Email sending costs money per message (SendGrid, Postmark). SMS verification adds up fast (Twilio). Auth services have usage tiers (Clerk, WorkOS). Add 5-10% of revenue to cover transaction fees and services.
First Year Hosting Budget Framework
Months 0-3 (finding product-market fit): Budget $100-200/month. Minimal users, testing, iterating. Optimize for flexibility, not scale.
Months 4-6 (early traction): Budget $200-500/month. Users growing, performance matters, staging environments needed. Invest in monitoring and backups.
Months 7-12 (scaling or failure): Budget $500-1,500/month if growing, or cut back to $100/month if pivoting. By month 12, you should know if the product has legs. Scale infrastructure only when revenue or traction justifies it.
Total first-year infrastructure: $3,000-6,000 for most MVPs, assuming moderate growth.
Software breaks. Users find edge cases you never tested. Third-party APIs change. Maintenance isn't optional.
What Breaks and How Often
Critical bugs (immediate fix required): 1-3 in first three months. These break core functionality, prevent signups, or expose security holes. Examples: authentication failing, payment processing errors, data loss bugs. Cost to fix: $1,000-3,000 per incident if you're paying an agency. Budget $3,000-8,000 for critical fixes in first six months.
Non-critical bugs (fix within days/weeks): 5-15 in first six months. UI glitches, poor mobile responsiveness, broken edge cases. Individually small, collectively death by a thousand cuts. Cost to fix: $500-2,000 per bug depending on complexity. Budget $5,000-10,000 for bug fixes in first year.
Dependency updates: Node packages, framework versions, security patches. Quarterly updates prevent major version hell later. Cost: $1,000-2,000 per quarter. Budget $4,000-8,000 annually.
Third-party API changes: Stripe updates their API. Clerk changes authentication flow. Your email service deprecates endpoints. Happens 2-4 times per year across all your integrations. Cost: $500-2,500 per breaking change. Budget $3,000-6,000 annually.
Retainer vs. Ad-Hoc Maintenance
Ad-hoc (pay per fix): You contact a developer when something breaks. They quote a price, you approve, they fix it. Pros: only pay for what you need. Cons: slow response time, higher hourly rates, no relationship continuity.
Monthly retainer (10-20 hours/month): Developer reserves time for your bug fixes, updates, and small improvements. Typical cost: $2,000-4,000/month for 10-20 hours at $150-200/hour. Pros: fast response, relationship continuity, predictable costs. Cons: you pay whether you use it or not.
Quarterly maintenance blocks: Purchase 20-40 hours every quarter for bundled maintenance, updates, and minor improvements. Typical cost: $3,000-8,000 per quarter. Pros: less commitment than monthly, still gets regular attention. Cons: less responsive than monthly retainer.
Recommendation: Start with ad-hoc for the first 3 months. Switch to quarterly blocks once you have traction and recurring maintenance needs. Upgrade to monthly retainer once you have revenue and need fast response times.
Launching an MVP doesn't mean you're done building. The product evolves based on user feedback.
Post-Launch Development Patterns
Most successful MVPs follow this pattern:
Months 1-3: Rapid iteration based on early user feedback. You learn what users actually need vs. what you thought they needed. Small features, UX improvements, workflow changes. Budget $8,000-15,000 for iteration in first quarter.
Months 4-6: Bigger features to unlock revenue or retention. Integrations users demand. Pricing/subscription features. Analytics or reporting. These are revenue-enabling, not just nice-to-haves. Budget $10,000-25,000 for feature additions.
Months 7-12: Scaling features and optimization. Performance improvements. Mobile apps. Advanced features for power users. This is when you invest in growth, assuming traction exists. Budget $15,000-40,000 if growing, or $0-5,000 if pivoting.
Total first-year iteration budget: $30,000-80,000 depending on traction and product complexity.
The Iteration Budget Framework
Here's how to think about feature development budgets post-launch.
Keep 40% of your original MVP budget in reserve. If you spent $40K on the MVP, reserve $16K for iteration. If you spent $60K, reserve $24K. This covers the learning curve from real users.
Allocate based on traction. If retention is strong and users are asking for features, invest in development. If retention is weak and users are confused, invest in user research and UX, not features.
Revenue-first features only. Post-launch features should unlock revenue, improve retention, or reduce churn. "Nice to have" features come after profitability, not before.
Users email you. Slack messages arrive. Support tickets pile up. Someone has to respond.
The Time Cost of Support
Founding team handling support (months 0-6): You're answering emails, hopping on calls, troubleshooting user issues. This is valuable product feedback, but it's not free. Cost: your time. Budget 5-10 hours/week for first six months.
When to hire support help: Once you're spending 15+ hours/week on support, or when support interrupts core product work. For most MVPs, this is around 500-1,000 active users.
Support tooling costs:
Help desk software: Zendesk, Intercom, Help Scout. $50-200/month depending on volume.
Live chat: Intercom, Crisp, Drift. $0-100/month for low volume. Converts better than email but requires fast response.
Knowledge base: Notion, GitBook, Help Scout Docs. $0-50/month. Reduces support load once you document common questions.
First-year support budget: $1,000-3,000 for tooling plus founder time.
The Hidden Cost: Support-Driven Features
Users request features through support channels. Some are critical. Some are edge cases. Deciding which to build takes time.
Pattern: 30% of support tickets reveal actual product gaps. 70% are user education problems solvable with better UX or documentation.
Smart approach: Track support requests in a spreadsheet. Look for patterns. If 15 different users request the same thing, it's a real product gap. If one power user requests something complex, it's probably edge case.
Budget impact: Budget $3,000-8,000 for support-driven product improvements in first year. These come from your iteration budget, but track them separately.
Security isn't a one-time checkbox. It's ongoing vigilance.
Routine Security Costs
Dependency updates for security patches: Monthly review of security vulnerabilities in packages. Quarterly updates to patch critical issues. Cost: $500-1,000 per quarter. Budget $2,000-4,000 annually.
SSL certificate renewal: Usually handled by hosting (Vercel, Netlify auto-renew). If self-hosted, budget $100-300 annually.
Penetration testing (if needed): For fintech, healthtech, or B2B SaaS selling to enterprises. One pen test per year: $3,000-10,000. Required for SOC 2 compliance.
Compliance Costs (If Applicable)
SOC 2 compliance: If selling B2B SaaS to enterprises, you'll need this eventually. Year one prep: $5,000-15,000. Annual audit: $15,000-30,000. Don't pursue until enterprise sales require it.
HIPAA compliance (healthtech): Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with all vendors. HIPAA-compliant hosting. Security training. Year one: $3,000-8,000. Annual: $2,000-5,000 for ongoing compliance.
PCI compliance (fintech): If handling payment card data (most don't—Stripe handles this). SAQ-A self-assessment is free but requires quarterly scans ($1,000/year). Full PCI certification for storing card data: $15,000-50,000 annually.
Recommendation: Don't pay for compliance you don't need yet. When your first enterprise customer asks for SOC 2, that's when you pursue it.
You need to know what users are doing, where they drop off, and when things break.
Essential Tool Stack
Product analytics: Mixpanel, PostHog, or Amplitude. Track user behavior, conversion funnels, retention. Free tiers exist but max out at 10,000 monthly users. Paid plans: $0-200/month for early-stage products.
Error monitoring: Sentry, Rollbar, or Bugsnag. Catch frontend and backend errors before users report them. Free tier is generous. Paid: $26-80/month for most MVPs.
Uptime monitoring: UptimeRobot, Better Uptime, or Pingdom. Alerts when site goes down. Free tier works fine. Paid: $10-50/month if you want SMS alerts and advanced monitoring.
Session recording: Hotjar, LogRocket, or PostHog session replay. See exactly what users do. Invaluable for debugging UX issues. Free tier covers low traffic. Paid: $0-100/month.
Total monthly analytics costs: $50-300/month depending on traffic and depth of analysis.
First-year budget: $600-3,600 for analytics and monitoring tools.
The mistake founders make: buying every tool. Start with free tiers. Upgrade only when you hit limits or need features. Most MVPs run fine on $50/month of analytics for the first year.
The Total First-Year Cost Breakdown
Here's the full picture for what running an MVP actually costs after launch.
Rule of thumb: Budget 50-100% of your original MVP development cost for the first year of operations. If you spent $40K on the MVP, budget $20K-40K for year one. If you have traction, lean toward the high end.
The Monthly Burn Rate Framework
Convert annual costs to monthly burn rate for budgeting.
First 6 months: $1,500-3,500/month (mostly iteration and bug fixes).
If you're about to launch or just launched, here's how to prepare financially.
Calculate your 6-month runway. Take current cash, subtract these operational costs, subtract your living expenses. What's left? That's how long you have to find revenue or funding.
Set up infrastructure monitoring. Before costs surprise you, set budget alerts on AWS, Vercel, and other services. Get email alerts when spending exceeds thresholds.
Create a maintenance relationship. Find a developer or agency you trust for ongoing work. Negotiate retainer terms or ad-hoc rates before you're in crisis mode.
Budget iteration based on traction. If users are engaged and retention is strong, allocate iteration budget. If not, conserve cash and focus on validation.
Track everything in a spreadsheet. Every tool subscription, every development hour, every support ticket. You can't optimize what you don't measure.
Planning to launch your MVP? See NextBuild's transparent pricing for development, plus our retainer options for ongoing maintenance and iteration after launch.
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