Apex IT Solutions engineers SaaS platforms from MVP through USD 10M+ ARR scale. The patterns are well-trodden — multi-tenant Postgres with row-level security, Stripe billing, Auth0 or Clerk for identity, AWS or GCP infrastructure, Sentry + Datadog observability — but the execution determines whether your SaaS reaches escape velocity or stalls. We've shipped SaaS products for clients in the US, UK, UAE, and Pakistan across HR tech, fintech, edtech, and B2B operations.
What SaaS builds typically need
- Multi-tenant architecture. Postgres with row-level security is our default; schema-per-tenant for compliance-heavy use cases.
- Billing and metering. Stripe for billing UI; usage metering via a custom service writing to a time-series store (TimescaleDB or InfluxDB).
- Auth and SSO. Clerk or Auth0 for the auth UI; WorkOS for enterprise SSO when you need SAML and SCIM.
- Admin and customer dashboards. Internal admin tools are typically 30% of total dev effort and the most under-budgeted part of every SaaS.
- Observability. Sentry for errors, Datadog or Grafana Cloud for logs/metrics/traces, Vercel Analytics or PostHog for product analytics.
- Compliance roadmap. SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA — designed in from day one if it's relevant to your buyer; retrofit is 2-3x more expensive.
The MVP-to-launch stack we ship
For 80% of SaaS MVPs we ship the same stack with confidence: Next.js 15 + Postgres (Neon or AWS RDS) + Stripe + Clerk + Vercel + Sentry + PostHog. This stack handles up to ~USD 2-5M ARR before any major architectural change is needed. Most pivots happen earlier than scale problems do, so over-engineering early is wasteful.
When the SaaS crosses USD 1-2M ARR or onboards enterprise customers, we typically introduce: dedicated read replicas, EKS or ECS instead of Vercel serverless for parts of the stack, WorkOS for enterprise SSO, dedicated security review/audit cycle.
How long, how much
- SaaS MVP (single core feature, billing, auth, basic admin): 12-20 weeks, USD 40K-100K
- SaaS V1 (multiple features, integrations, polished UX): 20-32 weeks, USD 80K-250K
- Scale-up engineering (after MVP, ongoing feature dev + ops): retainer USD 8K-30K/month
- Enterprise readiness sprint (SOC 2 + SSO + audit logs + DPA): 6-12 weeks, USD 40K-90K
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you help me decide between multi-tenant and single-tenant?
Yes. The decision usually comes down to (a) regulatory: HIPAA / PCI-DSS / data residency may force single-tenant, (b) buyer expectations: large enterprise procurement sometimes mandates single-tenant, and (c) operational economics: multi-tenant is cheaper to run, single-tenant is easier to scale per-customer. Most SaaS startups should start multi-tenant with strict row-level security.
Do you ship SOC 2 / GDPR / HIPAA-ready builds?
Yes. We design for these compliance frameworks from day one when relevant. Apex doesn't issue the SOC 2 audit itself — you'll need a third-party auditor (Vanta, Drata, or direct firms like A-LIGN) — but we ship the technical controls auditors require.
What's the typical SaaS team you assign?
Standard team: 1 product manager / PM (part-time), 1-2 senior full-stack engineers, 1 designer (part-time on V1), 1 QA engineer (from V1 onward). DevOps support is on-call from a separate team.
Can you help with go-to-market, or just engineering?
Engineering is our primary focus. Our digital-marketing team supports SEO, paid acquisition, and content for SaaS clients — but for full GTM strategy, we partner with sales/growth specialists. Happy to make introductions.
Ready to talk? Get a free consultation with an Apex IT Solutions engineer.