Software SaaS — hobby stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Web Hosting for SaaS (Frontend)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Hobby $0: 100GB BW, 6000 exec hrs, 1000 GB-hrs edge. Pro $20/seat/mo + $40/100GB overage. Netlify Free 100GB BW, Pro $19/mo 1TB BW $55/100GB over. Cloudflare Pages Free unlimited BW, 500 builds/mo, Pro $5/mo. Amplify $0.023/GB served + Fargate $0.04048/vCPU-hr, $0.004445/GB-hr
Backend / API Hosting & Compute
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsRender Free 750 hrs/mo (sleep), Starter $7/mo 0.5CPU 512MB, Standard $25/mo. Fly.io Free allowance 3x shared-cpu VMs 160GB egress, $0.0435/vCPU-hr after. Railway Trial $5 credit, Hobby $5/mo + $0.000463/vCPU-min + $0.000231/GB-min. Cloud Run Free 2M req/mo, 180k vCPU-sec, 360k GiB-sec, $0.000024/vCPU-sec, $0.08/M req over
Database for SaaS Multi-Tenant (Postgres)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free 500MB DB, 1GB files, 50k MAU auth, 50k monthly active users. Pro $25/mo 8GB DB $0.125/GB over $0.021/GB egress. Neon Free 0.5GB storage, 3 projects, 190 CU-hrs. Pro $19/mo 10GB incl, $0.15/GB over + $0.16/CU-hr compute. PlanetScale Free 5GB, 1B row reads/mo, Scaler $29/mo 10GB + $0.15/GB. RDS db.t3.micro $0.017/hr ~ $12.5/mo + $0.115/GB-mo gp3
Auth for SaaS (Multi-Tenant User Management)
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsClerk Free 10k MAU, 3 social connections, Pro $25/mo + $0.02/MAU over 10k, SSO $100/mo addon. Supabase Auth Free included 50k MAU. Auth0 Free 7.5k MAU, 1k M2M tokens, Essentials $35/mo 1k MAU $0.13/MAU over. WorkOS SSO $99/mo per product, Directory Sync $199/mo, free dev 1M MAU
File Storage for SaaS (Object Storage)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free 10GB-mo storage, 10M Class A ops, 10M Class B, ZERO egress fees, $0.015/GB-mo after $4.50/M Class A over, $0.36/M B. S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo first 50TB, $0.09/GB egress first 10TB, $0.005/1k PUT $0.0004/1k GET. Supabase Free 1GB, Pro 100GB $0.021/GB BW $0.021/GB egress over
Billing & Subscription Management for SaaS
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsStripe Billing Free built-in dashboard, 0.5% of recurring rev (first $1M free under Startup), payments 2.9% + 30c. Paddle 5% + 50c per txn inclusive MoR/tax. Lemon Squeezy 5% + 50c MoR Free tier. Chargebee Free 100 subs, Growth $299/mo up to 500 subs $0.25/sub over + $0.39/invoice overage
Transactional Email for SaaS
Sending transactional email (receipts, resets, alerts) and sometimes marketing mail. Deliverability matters more than features here.Pricing & free-tier limitsResend Free 3k/mo, 1 domain, Pro $20/mo 50k incl $0.0004/email over $1/1000. SendGrid Free 100/day forever, Essentials $19.95/mo 50k contacts + $0.00045 over. SES $0.10 per 1k emails, Free 3k/mo for 12mo from EC2 free, $0.12/GB attach. Postmark $15/mo 10k, $0.00125/email over
Monitoring & Error Tracking for SaaS
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Free 5k errors/mo, 10k replays, Team $26/mo 50k errors $0.00029/error over, 100k spans. Grafana Cloud Free 50GB logs 50GB traces 10k metrics. Datadog APM $15/host/mo Pro $31/host, logs $0.10/GB ingest, custom metrics $5/100. RUM $1.50/1k sessions
Secrets Management & Env Config
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsDoppler Free 5 users, 100 secrets, 1 project limit? Actually unlimited? Pro $10/user/mo 200 projects, Team $24/user/mo SSO. Infisical Free self-hosted unlimited, Cloud Free 3 projects, Starter $19/mo/seat $0.25/secret over. HCP Vault Dev $0.03/hr/cluster $25/mo, Standard $0.32/hr ~ $230/mo + 1k transact
Domain & DNS for SaaS
Your human-readable address on the web plus the DNS records that point it at your servers. Skipping this is not an option — users need a domain to reach you.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Registrar at-cost .com $10.18/yr (no markup), Free DNS unlimited queries, Pro $20/mo WAF rules. Porkbun .com $10.73/yr free WHOIS + free SSL. Route53 $0.50/hosted zone/mo + $0.40/M queries, domain .com $12/yr $0.50/zone + transfer fees
CDN / Edge Delivery for SaaS
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free unlimited BW, unlimited DDoS, Pro $20/mo 20 page rules. CloudFront Free 1TB transfer + 10M req/mo for 12mo, $0.085/GB next 10TB $0.01/10k HTTP req over. Fastly dev free $50 credit $0.12/GB $0.012/10k req
How this hobby software saas checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby software saas build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.