SaaS Development Services | Scalable Cloud Solutions

SaaS development is a rapidly growing market. As companies accelerate their digital transformation and move to cloud-first operations, SaaS has become the dominant model for delivering scalable, cost-effective software. There is a high chance that by 2032, it will exceed one trillion U.S. dollars, with an annual growth rate of 18% to 20%.

Increasing numbers of companies are choosing SaaS services thanks to their cost-cutting benefits, scalability, and security. If you are curious about how to build a SaaS product, read on.

We’ll cover everything you need to know to turn your SaaS idea into a scalable, profitable business.

• There are several advantages to using SaaS over traditional software, and now is a good time to get started
• What types of SaaS products are available and which models are most appropriate for your business
• A step-by-step guide to building a stable SaaS product, from concept validation to launch
• Factors to consider when developing SaaS applications, including choosing the right tech stack and structuring the team
• A guide to estimating and managing SaaS costs in order to maximize return on investment

Let’s start with a definition of SaaS.

What is a SaaS product?

SaaS, or software as a service, is a model for hosting software applications on the Internet rather than on an organization’s own servers. SaaS software is accessed via a web browser or a dedicated application through a regular subscription fee.

A primary advantage of this approach over traditional on-premise software is that users can access the application from any device that has an internet connection, without installing anything. Subscriptions can be canceled at any time, so customers can start or stop using the product at their convenience.

SaaS application development reduces costs for businesses by eliminating the need for IT infrastructure. It also simplifies software updates, allowing developers to work on improvements while users remain unaffected. This ensures that software usage continues uninterrupted and that revenue is not lost during the process of updating.

It is common for modern products to be built using SaaS application development platforms, which provide the tools and infrastructure required for SaaS app development with minimal overhead.

How does SaaS work?

Software as a Service is delivered over the Internet instead of being installed on a computer. This software can be accessed through a web browser or via an app and runs on powerful cloud servers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Software updates, scaling, and management are easier for users and providers alike with this setup.

In many cases, SaaS application development platforms are used to create these solutions, which allows teams to build SaaS apps efficiently and quickly.

The majority of SaaS companies build their software using either a multi-tenant architecture or a single-tenant architecture.

Multi-tenant architecture

It is cost-effective and easy to manage. It allows updates and new features to reach all customers at the same time. Multitenant software allows many users to share one version of the software. Everyone uses the same application, but their data is kept private.

A multi-tenant architecture allows startups and fast-growing applications to scale rapidly while keeping costs low.

Single-tenant architecture

The main benefit of a single-tenant system is that each customer has their own database and version of the software. This allows for much more control, higher data security, and easier customization, but it also costs more.

As a result, single-tenant architectures are commonly chosen by companies with special requirements, such as strict compliance or enhanced data security.

Benefits of SaaS development

Recurring income: The subscription-based model of SaaS products allows businesses to plan ahead and invest in growth by ensuring a steady revenue stream.

Low initial costs: This simplifies SaaS adoption for customers and reduces entry barriers since SaaS development does not require hefty investments in hardware and software infrastructure.

Scalability on demand: It is particularly beneficial for startups and expanding companies to use SaaS since they can scale easily to accommodate a growing user base without having to invest in a lot of infrastructure.

Global customer reach: Cloud computing allows businesses to reach a broader market because they can access SaaS software from anywhere with an internet connection.

Automatic updates: Updates and improvements are rolled out automatically to all users, ensuring your product remains up-to-date with all of the latest features, security fixes, and bug fixes.

Security: SaaS products are centrally hosted with regular security updates, reducing the risk of piracy and hacking. Additionally, subscription-based access discourages unauthorized copying.

Benefits of SaaS development

Recurring income

The subscription pricing model for SaaS products generates predictable, recurring revenue, which supports better business planning and allows for longer-term growth. SaaS also makes businesses more valuable, making it appealing to investors and founders seeking steady income without having to rely on one-time software sales.

Low initial costs

The SaaS application development model reduces upfront costs by eliminating the need for physical infrastructure and software licenses. As a result, customers can begin using the product with little investment, which lowers entry barriers and accelerates adoption. Businesses will benefit from faster go-to-market times and improved accessibility.

Scalability on demand

Scaling your SaaS app is simple. Cloud infrastructure allows your app to grow seamlessly as user demand increases – you don’t have to rework servers or hardware. Startups and fast-growing businesses can take advantage of SaaS by taking advantage of flexible resources without having to invest in large infrastructure.

Global customer reach

This global reach allows companies to expand internationally and support a global client base without having to deal with physical distribution, allowing them to expand internationally and support a worldwide customer base via SaaS apps.

Automatic updates

The SaaS platform allows providers to deliver updates, new features, and security patches to users automatically. It minimizes bugs and vulnerabilities, without the need for manual installations or IT involvement, while reducing maintenance for customers.

Security

Centralized management of SaaS products enables strict security standards to be enforced, threats to be monitored, and updates to be applied effectively. This prevents piracy and unauthorized distribution, especially important for protecting intellectual property and user data, which are tied to user accounts rather than physical copies of software.

Types of SaaS applications 

Find out what type of SaaS is currently available on the market in order to develop a product that resonates with your target audience.

• CRM, or customer relationship management software, is a SaaS app that helps businesses build customer relationships and improve their marketing. Hubspot is a famous example of CRM software.
• SaaS content management systems (CMS) give you the power to manage and publish content. WordPress.com is an example of such a service.
• ERP software is used by large organizations to manage a variety of business processes, such as manufacturing, commerce, reporting, sales, supply chain, and human resources. Among the most widely known examples are Oracle Netsuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and SAP Business One.
• Zoho is one of the first SaaS billing tools that come to mind when thinking of accounting solutions. They simplify and automate accounting and financial processes across your organization, often including billing and invoicing.
• Trello and Jira are examples of project management software that assist businesses in managing workflow and engaging team members in a shared workspace by handling task assignments, resource allocation, and project tracking.
• There are vertical SaaS tools that are designed for a particular industry or might be created to optimize specific business processes. For example, Veeva is for pharmaceutical management, BioIQ is for medtech, and Guidewire is for insurance.
• A software system used by online retailers for managing products, inventory, shipping, and taxes. Two of the most popular software systems are BigCommerce and Shopify.
• SaaS marketing tools help organizations implement their marketing strategies, track their campaigns, and measure their results. Among them are analytics tools (Google Analytics), social media management platforms (HootSuite), and search engine optimization tools (SEMrush).
• Online collaboration SaaS tools. This product category includes a wide range of products like Google Drive for cloud storage, Harvest for time tracking, Slack for online chats, and Google Hangouts for video conferencing.

Common SaaS use cases

Customer support & self-service portals

In support platforms, SaaS is ideal because it allows businesses to scale service without increasing their staff. Teams can manage tickets, chats, and knowledge bases from any location with consolidated updates, integrations, and real-time access. In the background, robust APIs make these connections possible, enabling seamless data exchange between systems. 

Discover how Devomni customizes APIs to create user-friendly, scalable support systems.

B2B workflow automation

The SaaS platform automates manual workflows, reduces errors, and improves transparency by automating HR onboarding, procurement approvals, and compliance tracking.

Devomni’s enterprise software development services focus on these kinds of internal tools, which are tailored to meet the needs of growing and complex organizations.

Inventory & Order Management

Sync stock levels, automate reorders, and connect sales channels with SaaS inventory tools for growing e-commerce businesses. With real-time access and centralized control, fulfillment errors are reduced and stockouts are minimized. It is possible to integrate with third-party platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, and shipping providers using the SaaS model, which allows continuous updates and scalability. 

A key component of Devomni’s online marketplace development services is the ability to support scalable, high-performance commerce operations.

How to build a SaaS product: Main steps

If you’re wondering how to build a SaaS product for your business, let’s talk about specific steps you should take.

1. Verify the viability of your idea
2. Conceptualize and plan the product
3. Prepare a business plan
4. Build the SaaS platform based on the requirements
5. Choose a technology stack
6. Set up a development team for SaaS
7. Developing a SaaS application and maintaining it after launch

A cloud-based product idea should be validated to ensure that it meets real needs and has a market. This will save you time and money, as you will not have to invest in something that no one will pay for.

To validate your idea properly, follow these steps:

Find out the latest trends in SaaS application development, identify any gaps in the market that you can fill with your SaaS product and gauge demand. Analyze the findings to uncover the latest SaaS application development trends and identify any gaps in the market that your SaaS product can meet.

Establish who your product is intended to serve. Understand their needs, pain points, and preferences. Conduct interviews and surveys to determine if the problem you intend to solve with your product is actually a real issue.

Analyze existing SaaS products and assess their strengths and weaknesses in order to create a SaaS product that can disrupt your specific industry.

As soon as you complete these steps, you can start developing your product concept, which will serve as a blueprint for development, marketing, and execution. It should include the following features:

• Problem statement: Provide a brief explanation of how the product solves the problem.
• Value proposition: Describe the unique features and benefits of your SaaS product.
• Target market description: You should include demographics, job titles, industries, and any other relevant information about your target audience.

Step 2. Select features of the SaaS product

You must provide users with features that distinguish your SaaS solution from similar products if you want to excel in the SaaS business. Analyze the market before diving into SaaS application development to identify what customers want, increasing your chances of becoming a market leader. 

The following steps will help you identify and prioritize features:

• Establish your business goals;
• Find out what users need;
• Create opportunity statements;
• Come up with ideas for features;
• Establish a feature priority list.

It is important to prioritize features based on customer needs, their impact on the core value proposition, and their feasibility. List all the features you wish to include in your SaaS product and then use the MoSCoW, RICE, or Kano model to identify what’s critical, what’s performant, and what’s delightful. Focus on delivering the most value early on.

The essential functionality of a SaaS app will vary depending on the type. However, there are a few must-haves:

• A user’s authentication
• Security measures (including password policies, data masking, access controls, etc.)
• User interface that is intuitive (e.g. quick actions, mobile gestures, etc.)
• In-app messaging, knowledge base, chatbot and other customer support options are available.

As a starting point, deliver the core functionality of your SaaS application to create version 1.0. This will allow you to test the feasibility of your business idea and determine how to build an efficient and cost-effective SaaS product. 

Step 3. Choose a monetization model

Choosing the right pricing model can be tricky for SaaS products. You have to ensure your product is competitive and your company is sustainable at the same time.

To help you choose a pricing model, here are some examples:

• Per-user pricing. It implies charging customers based on how many employees use the solution. This model is common for team-based products such as CRMs and project management tools.
• Tiered pricing. If your cloud solution serves multiple purposes, you can offer different packages with different features and prices, so you can increase your revenue by appealing to a variety of buyer personas. Moreover, customers are able to select the most appropriate solution based on the model.
• Per storage pricing. A simple model like this is where customers pay based on how much space they need. You may offer a certain amount of free storage and paid packages for those who have reached their limit.
• Feature-based pricing. Your cloud-based application’s price is determined by the features your customers have access to. This option motivates the customers to upgrade so they can access the additional functionality they desire.
• Pay as you go. It is important here to remember that the price of your product will fluctuate based on the frequency of its usage. The more popular your SaaS product is, the higher your revenue will be.
• Subscription. A product with a limited set of features at a fixed price is the most transparent model.
• Freemium. Customer’s receive some basic functionality for free, but advanced features require a paid subscription.
• Ads-supported pricing. The pricing model is similar to the previous one, but advertisements are used to generate revenue instead of paid features.

Helpful metrics

SaaS applications that help you grow your cloud business should focus on two success metrics. These are customer acquisition costs (CAC) and customer lifetime values (CLV). 

CLV should be higher than CAC for the purpose of increasing your business. With proper pricing, CAC will be lower thanks to better positioning, while lifetime value is increased due to better customer retention.

Step 4. Choose the right technology stack

Building a SaaS product, handling growth, and keeping things running smoothly as your user base grows is easier when you choose the right tech early on.

It is a priority for Devomni to prioritize the project discovery process. This includes carefully selecting the technologies that will enable the SaaS application development team to develop a dependable, scalable, and secure solution as quickly as possible.

For modern SaaS product development, we use the following web development technologies:

• The back-end technologies include programming languages, frameworks, libraries, and other tools that are used at the server end to create a SaaS application. A great choice for a fast, flexible SaaS application is Ruby on Rails, Django, or Node.js.
• The front-end of a SaaS application consists of buttons, menus, links, graphics, and other elements that users interact with. Devomni uses advanced technologies like Angular.js, React.js, and Vue.js to build applications.
• A PostgreSQL database is our primary data store for all cloud-based solutions that we deliver, as well as MySQL and Redis, an in-memory data structure store.
• The cloud hosting providers we choose are Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Digital Ocean. Both of these providers allow our software developers to deploy and scale software-as-a-service applications across multiple devices simultaneously. The SaaS developers at our company use Azure, Heroku, and Google Cloud Platform, among others.
• When you want to go cross-platform, you can develop SaaS apps using Swift or Objective-C for Android, Java or Kotlin for iOS, and Flutter or React Native for Flutter.

Tech stack	Strengths	Weaknesses
LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl)	Well-established and widely used;Cost-effective, with many open-source tools available;Good for content-heavy applications	Isn’t as scalable as newer stacks;Performance can be a concern for high-demand applications
MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js)	Simplified development due to full-stack JavaScript;Scalable and efficient for real-time applications;Popular for dynamic web apps	Not ideal for CPU-bound tasks
MERN (MongoDB, Express.js, React, Node.js)	Excellent for single-page applications (SPAs);Simplified development thanks to JavaScript throughout;High developer productivity	Not ideal for features like real-time data synchronization
Ruby on Rails (RoR)	Rapid development and developer-friendly syntax;Good for startups and prototyping;Improved quality due to focus on convention over configuration (CoC)	Performance issues with very high loads;Not the best choice for computationally intensive tasks
Serverless (AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions)	Clean and readable code;Excellent for complex and data-driven applications;Robust ecosystem and active community	Limited to certain use cases;Vendor lock-in concerns

Step 5. Create a product roadmap

The next step is to estimate the scope of the project and start building a roadmap once you’ve established your product vision and prioritized features. It will help you ensure alignment with your vision and the needs of your users when building a SaaS product.

• Set milestones for SaaS application development, including release dates for Minimum Viable Products (MVP) and subsequent releases. Clarify your overall objectives for the SaaS application.
• It is typically necessary to identify key phases, such as ideation, MVP development, beta testing, feature enhancements, scalability improvements, and ongoing maintenance.
• Estimate the duration of each milestone, taking into account factors such as the complexity of the tasks, availability of resources, and dependencies between milestones.
• Using Gantt charts, spreadsheets, or specialized roadmap software, create a visual roadmap that shows the timeline and key milestones for the project.
• Provide a roadmap of future releases and iterations beyond the MVP. Describe the features and enhancements included in each release.
• Your roadmap should be reviewed and adjusted as you learn more about your product and market.

​​Step 6. Develop a business plan

You’ll want to include the following components in your business plan in order to stay focused, win support, and convince investors that you know exactly where you’re going:

• The executive summary of your SaaS business should include product details, target markets, value propositions, and financial objectives.
• Your company’s mission, vision, and core values. Describe what makes your company unique in the SaaS industry.
• An analysis of industry trends, competitor analysis, and the needs and preferences of your target audience.
• An overview of the product, including its unique features and how it addresses users’ specific pain points.
• The sales and marketing strategy includes details on customer acquisition, lead generation, content marketing, search engine optimization, paid advertising, and sales channels.
• Develop an evolution plan for your SaaS app along with an explanation of how you plan to develop it.
• Provide your financial projections, including profitability estimates and funding requirements. Indicate whether you are seeking external funding and how you plan to use it.
• Describe each team member’s role, qualifications, and expertise. If you are missing some key players, explain how you intend to fill those positions.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should be monitored to track the progress of your business. These could include churn rates, revenue targets, and user acquisition goals.
• Identifying risks and mitigating them with contingency plans.

Step 7. Choose the right SaaS product development team

A SaaS product can be built using three types of software development specialists:

1. Hiring freelancers

In this case, you will make the most of your money by partnering with individual freelancers who have experience building SaaS products. However, you should be aware that the quality of service provided by individual freelancers can vary widely. If you hire a specialist whose work doesn’t meet your expectations, you will likely end up spending additional money and time on revisions.

2. In-house development team

If you hire an in-house team, you have full control over the SaaS development process, but you will also incur big costs. Think salaries, hardware, software licenses, and more.

3. Outsourcing your SaaS project to a software development company

It can be beneficial to outsource SaaS software development to avoid the operating expenses mentioned earlier. In exchange, you will receive a team of highly qualified software developers, UX/UI designers, quality assurance engineers, and project managers. They will make sure your cloud solution adheres to industry standards and can be customized based on your business requirements.

Step 8. Build your SaaS product

It is common to break down the SaaS development process into the following stages:

• The discovery session helps your development partner understand your project and business, which is essential to defining the scope of the project and estimating its cost and time.
• The UX/UI design process involves drawing wireframes and creating clickable prototypes of your product to visualize it.
• Developing the code of an application may be done differently by your SaaS development team, but Agile approaches are highly recommended for startups or projects with some uncertainty.
• The purpose of quality assurance is to ensure that all product features function correctly and the system is error-free.
• It is important to make sure your solution is deployed and launched in a way that makes it accessible to both search engines and actual users.

You should monitor your product’s performance after it goes live, fix bugs and issues immediately, and collect feedback from your users through surveys, customer support interactions, and analytics.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is SaaS popular?Arrow right

There are a number of reasons why SaaS products are becoming more popular, including the fact that they save costs by eliminating the need for in-house infrastructure and maintenance teams. SaaS can also be accessed from any device with an internet connection anywhere in the world. Furthermore, they can be scaled easily and automatically updated, making them a great choice for individuals and businesses.

What is the difference between SaaS and traditional software?Arrow right

It is much easier to distribute, maintain, and update SaaS applications than they are with traditional software, as they run in the cloud and are accessible right through your web browser. Furthermore, SaaS products are rented rather than owned, so users pay monthly for them rather than own them outright. However, as they are only compatible with other cloud-based applications, SaaS products may offer limited customization options.

Why does the SaaS business model work?Arrow right

Firstly, SaaS application development services save organizations money on hardware and software. Secondly, organizations no longer need to worry about software updates. They will always have the latest software version provided by the SaaS provider. SaaS development also allows customers to access applications from anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection. The same goes for devices: users can switch gadgets without any problems assessing the application. A third benefit of SaaS platform development is enhanced security. Cloud computing service providers implement the latest security practices to protect their customers’ sensitive information.