Ask for MVP quotes and you’ll get numbers from $3,000 to $120,000 for what sounds like the same product. The variance isn’t mostly dishonesty. It’s that “MVP” hides four completely different purchases. Here’s what each price band actually buys.
The four things people call an MVP
$30k-$120k+: the US/UK agency build. Senior product people, polished process, local timezone, and rates of $100-200/hour. The build is usually excellent. The problem is arithmetic. If you’re pre-revenue, this is most of a pre-seed round spent before your first user shows up, and part of what you’re paying for is the agency’s office, sales team and brand.
$25k-$40k: the offshore project agency. Eastern European and Indian firms with strong portfolios. Good ones deliver real quality at half the US price. The risks are the fixed-scope contract and the handover cliff. Change your mind mid-build (you will, learning is the point of an MVP) and change orders start arriving. Then the team disbands at delivery, and bug fixes become a new negotiation.
$10k-$30k: the senior freelancer. Can be outstanding value. It’s also a single point of failure: one person’s availability, health, and motivation standing between you and launch. Continuity is the real cost. When they move on, your next developer inherits an undocumented codebase.
$2k-$10k: no-code and templates. Genuinely the right answer for validating demand. A Bubble app or a template landing page tests willingness-to-pay in weeks. The ceiling arrives fast, though: scaling limits, integration walls, and technical investors who discount no-code builds because they know a rewrite is coming. Validate with no-code; don’t build your company on it.
The question under every quote
Every band is answering the same question: how much certainty are you buying, and when do you pay for it? Agencies front-load cost and lock scope early. That’s maximum certainty at the worst possible timing, given that an MVP exists precisely because you don’t know the final scope yet. No-code minimises cost but caps the upside.
The subscription alternative
The model we run at the Studio restructures the timing: a flat monthly fee ($749-$1,499/month), an MVP live in 8-12 weeks, then continuous shipping, one active request at a time, pause or cancel anytime. Over a 4-month build that’s $3,000-$6,000 total. Freelancer money for an agency-style team, with no $60k cheque before you’ve learned anything.
The catch, stated plainly: at the equity tier, the cash price is low because we take a 5-15% stake, vesting monthly, in the companies we build. That’s not a discount. It’s a different deal, closer to a technical co-founder than a vendor, and we’re selective about it because we only make money if the product wins. We’ve written up how the equity model works, including the cap-table questions your lawyer will ask.
Whatever you choose, insist on these
- Repo in your GitHub org from day one. Not delivered at the end. Day one.
- A deployed preview URL by week two, updated continuously. Progress you can click, not screenshots.
- Boring technology (TypeScript, PostgreSQL, standard frameworks) that your future hires already know.
- Weekly demos in plain English, not sprint jargon.
- A written answer to “what happens when we stop?” Handover docs, IP assignment, transition support.
Any builder, us included, should agree to all five in writing without flinching. The ones who flinch just answered your real question.