# Best SaaS Boilerplates for Indie Hackers (2026 Prices)

> Best SaaS boilerplates for indie hackers in 2026: ShipFast from $199, Makerkit $349, Supastarter $349, Pegasus $649, plus free MIT starters. Licences compared.

- Canonical: https://zeroraised.com/blog/best-saas-boilerplates-for-indie-hackers
- Published: 2026-11-10T09:30:00Z
- Author: ZeroRaised Team (https://zeroraised.com/blog/authors/zeroraised)
- Publisher: ZeroRaised (https://zeroraised.com/)
- Section: Building
- Tags: developer-tools, saas, comparison, nextjs

**Short answer:** For a solo B2C SaaS on Next.js, ShipFast is the cheapest paid boilerplate with unlimited projects ($199 one-time when we checked). For a B2B SaaS where customers invite teammates, Makerkit or Supastarter at $349 give you organisations, roles and billing out of the box. With no budget, start with Open SaaS, which is MIT-licensed and was still being updated this month.

Every price, licence term and date below comes from each vendor's own page or GitHub repo, checked on 10 Nov 2026. The recommendations are ours and are marked as such.

## TL;DR

- **Cheapest paid kit:** [ShipFast](https://shipfa.st/) Starter at $199 or All-in at $249, both "Pay once. Build unlimited projects!" The page also said "Updated 9 months ago."
- **Best for B2B teams:** [Makerkit](https://makerkit.dev/pricing) (Pro $349, Teams $649) or [Supastarter](https://supastarter.dev/) (Solo $349, Startup $799, Agency $1,499).
- **Best for Python:** [SaaS Pegasus](https://www.saaspegasus.com/pricing/), free open source edition or $649 for Unlimited.
- **Best for Laravel:** [Laravel Spark](https://spark.laravel.com/) for billing, $99 per project or $199 unlimited.
- **Best free picks:** [Open SaaS](https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas), [Next.js SaaS Starter](https://github.com/nextjs/saas-starter), [next-forge](https://github.com/vercel/next-forge) and [Bullet Train](https://bullettrain.co/) (Rails), all MIT.

**Disclosure:** ZeroRaised is a launch site for bootstrapped products. We have no affiliate deals with any vendor in this post and earn nothing if you buy one. Facts come from the linked sources as checked on 10 Nov 2026.

## SaaS boilerplate comparison table

| Boilerplate | Price (one-time) | Licence | Stack | Auth | Billing | Teams / multi-tenancy | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShipFast | $199 Starter, $249 All-in | Proprietary, unlimited projects | Next.js, MongoDB or Supabase | Google OAuth, magic links | Stripe or Lemon Squeezy | Not listed | Solo B2C on a budget |
| Makerkit | $349 Pro (1 user), $649 Teams (up to 5) | Proprietary, unlimited projects | Next.js 16, TanStack Start; Supabase, Drizzle or Prisma kits | Supabase Auth or Better Auth | "your payment provider" | Yes: personal and team accounts, roles | B2B SaaS |
| Supastarter | $349 Solo, $799 Startup, $1,499 Agency | Proprietary, unlimited projects | Next.js, Nuxt or TanStack Start; Prisma or Drizzle | Better Auth (passkeys, magic link, 2FA) | Stripe, Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Creem, Dodo Payments | Yes: organisations, seat billing, roles | B2B SaaS, agencies |
| SaaS Pegasus | Free (open source) or $649 Unlimited | Free edition open source; paid licence per codebase | Django, Celery, Docker | Email, social login, 2FA | Stripe | Unlimited only | Python founders |
| Laravel Spark | $99 single site, $199 unlimited | Per project or unlimited, 1 year of updates | Laravel, with Jetstream or Breeze | From your Laravel starter | Stripe or Paddle | Per-seat billing | Laravel founders |
| Open SaaS | Free | MIT | Wasp (React, Node, Prisma), Shadcn UI | Email, Google, GitHub, Slack, Microsoft | Stripe, Polar.sh, Lemon Squeezy | Not listed | Zero budget, full-featured |
| Next.js SaaS Starter | Free | MIT | Next.js, Postgres, Drizzle, shadcn/ui | Email and password, JWT cookies | Stripe | Basic: Owner and Member roles | Learning, small MVPs |
| next-forge | Free | MIT | Turborepo monorepo, Next.js, Prisma | Clerk | Stripe | Not listed | Larger apps, many services |
| Bullet Train | Free | MIT | Ruby on Rails | Devise | Stripe | Teams and invitations | Rails founders |

"Not listed" means the vendor's page did not mention it; we did not guess.

## The paid boilerplates, one by one

### ShipFast: cheapest paid kit for solo B2C

ShipFast is a Next.js boilerplate by Marc Lou. When we checked, Starter was $199 (list $299) and All-in was $249 (list $349), with a banner reading "$100 off for the first 8460 customers (13 left)", so expect the list price soon ([ShipFast](https://shipfa.st/)). A $299 bundle adds his CodeFast course.

Both tiers list the same features: "NextJS boilerplate", "Stripe / Lemon Squeezy", "MongoDB / Supabase", "Google Oauth & Magic Links", "Mailgun emails", "SEO & Blog" and "Lifetime updates".

The [licence](https://shipfa.st/license) lets you "Build unlimited projects as an individual" on the Personal licence, and bans you from doing this: "Resell or redistribute the ShipFast boilerplate as a standalone product." On refunds, the FAQ is blunt: "After you've got access to the repo, ShipFast is yours forever, so it can't be refunded."

Our read: hard to beat for a solo consumer product, but with "Updated 9 months ago" on the page, check dependency versions first. It does not advertise organisations, so skip it for B2B.

### Makerkit: B2B teams with a choice of data layer

Makerkit sells three kits at the same price: Supabase (Next.js 16, React Router 8 or TanStack Start), Drizzle with Better Auth, and Prisma 7 with Better Auth ([Makerkit pricing](https://makerkit.dev/pricing)). Its FAQ says "The Pro license is $349 and the Teams license is $649", both one-time. When we checked, the page was also showing a lower promotional price, so confirm at checkout. Pro is "Access to 1 user (only you)" and Teams is "Up to 5 collaborators".

Multi-tenancy is the reason to buy it: "Personal and team accounts, invitations, roles, and permissions, modeled in the database."

The [licence](https://makerkit.dev/license) allows "unlimited End Products for the Licensee's own use or business" but forbids "Creating a theme or template using the Download Files and making it available either for sale or for free". For client work, the [FAQ](https://makerkit.dev/faq) says "you will need each client to purchase a license". Refunds: "Due to the non-returnable nature of this product, we do not offer refunds."

### Supastarter: widest billing choice, agency tier

Supastarter offers Next.js, Nuxt or TanStack Start, with Prisma or Drizzle and Better Auth ([Supastarter](https://supastarter.dev/)). It lists five billing providers: Lemon Squeezy, Stripe, Polar, Creem and Dodo Payments. Organisations come with "Seat-based billing" and "Member roles".

Prices are one-time: Solo $349 (1 developer seat), Startup $799 (up to 5 seats) and Agency $1,499 (up to 10 seats, "Unlimited Client Projects"). The [licence](https://supastarter.dev/legal/license) says "You are not allowed to create a product that sells the codebase itself". We could not find a refund policy on its homepage, licence, terms or FAQ, so ask before paying.

Our read: if you want a merchant of record instead of Stripe, this is the most flexible paid kit here.

### SaaS Pegasus: the Django choice

[SaaS Pegasus](https://www.saaspegasus.com/pricing/) has a free open source edition ("No support", "Limited updates", no teams) and one paid tier, Unlimited, at $649 one-time with "Unlimited projects", "Teams, invitations & role-based access", "Stripe subscriptions", Celery, Docker and "1 year of updates".

The [licence](https://www.saaspegasus.com/license/) is clear on resale: asked whether you can sell your app's source code, it answers "No, unless you also include a unique, valid SaaS Pegasus license with each distribution." The pricing FAQ says "you can email us within 7 days for a full refund", while the [terms](https://www.saaspegasus.com/terms/) say "limited refunds on software within 7 days of purchase", so check which applies to you.

### Laravel Spark: billing for PHP founders

[Laravel Spark](https://spark.laravel.com/) is a billing layer rather than a full boilerplate: you pair it with Jetstream or Breeze. The single-site licence is $99 and "allows you to use Laravel Spark on a single deployed application", and the unlimited licence is $199. Both include "one year of updates". It supports Stripe and Paddle, and per-seat billing.

Laravel's own [starter kits](https://laravel.com/docs/starter-kits) (React, Svelte, Vue and Livewire) are free and handle auth, so Spark plus a starter kit is a cheap, first-party Laravel SaaS stack.

## The free, MIT-licensed starters

- **[Open SaaS](https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas)** calls itself "A 100% free modern JS SaaS boilerplate". It runs on the Wasp framework (React, Node, Prisma) with auth (email, Google, GitHub, Slack, Microsoft), Stripe, Polar.sh or Lemon Squeezy, email sending, S3 uploads and Playwright tests. Its [LICENSE](https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas/blob/main/LICENSE) is MIT, and the repo was last pushed on 6 Nov 2026.
- **[Next.js SaaS Starter](https://github.com/nextjs/saas-starter)** gives you Next.js, Postgres, Drizzle, Stripe and shadcn/ui, with email and password auth and "Basic RBAC with Owner and Member roles". Its README says it "is intentionally minimal and to be used as a learning resource". Last pushed 11 Dec 2025.
- **[next-forge](https://github.com/vercel/next-forge)** is a Turborepo monorepo with Clerk auth, Stripe, Resend, PostHog, Sentry and more. Its site says "Free and open source, forever" ([next-forge](https://www.next-forge.com/)). Last pushed 28 May 2026. Remember that each third-party service bills separately as you grow.
- **[Bullet Train](https://bullettrain.co/)** "is an MIT-licensed Rails-based framework" with Devise auth, teams and invitations, and Stripe billing.

## Our picks by situation

| Your situation | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Solo founder, B2C, Next.js | ShipFast ($199 when checked) | Lowest one-time price, unlimited projects |
| B2B SaaS with teams and roles | Makerkit Pro ($349) | Multi-tenancy modelled in the database, three data-layer choices |
| B2B SaaS, want a merchant of record | Supastarter Solo ($349) | Lemon Squeezy, Polar, Creem and Dodo Payments supported |
| Small team of up to 5 developers | Makerkit Teams ($649) | Cheaper than Supastarter Startup ($799) for the same seat count |
| You build SaaS for clients | Supastarter Agency ($1,499) | Explicitly covers client projects |
| Python | SaaS Pegasus (free, or $649 for teams) | Mature Django stack |
| Rails | Bullet Train (free) | MIT, teams built in |
| Laravel | Laravel starter kit + Spark ($99 or $199) | First-party, billing included |
| Zero budget | Open SaaS (free) | Most complete free option, updated this month |

For the rest of your stack (hosting, email, analytics), see our [SaaS tech stack for solo founders](https://zeroraised.com/blog/saas-tech-stack-for-solo-founders). If auth is the part you are unsure about, our [Clerk vs Supabase Auth comparison](https://zeroraised.com/blog/clerk-vs-supabase-auth-for-bootstrapped-saas) covers the trade-offs that apply inside these kits too.

## How to evaluate a boilerplate before you pay

Our checklist, in order:

1. **Last commit date.** Check the repo or changelog, not the marketing page. Stale kits ship old majors of Next.js, auth libraries and Stripe SDKs.
2. **Dependency versions.** Compare `package.json` (or `requirements.txt`, `Gemfile`, `composer.json`) with current majors. Upgrading a framework yourself eats the time you paid to save.
3. **Tests.** Are signup, checkout and webhooks covered end to end? Open SaaS ships Playwright tests; ask paid vendors.
4. **Docs.** Read the docs for one hard task, such as adding a plan or switching billing provider.
5. **Licence.** Count seats, check client work and check whether you can open-source your product later. Makerkit's licence, for example, says the files "may not be published, released, or distributed under any open-source license".
6. **Refund policy.** Assume no refund unless the vendor says otherwise in writing.
7. **Multi-tenancy.** If you will ever sell to teams, buy a kit that has it. Retrofitting organisations into a single-user schema is painful.

## When to skip a boilerplate

A paid kit is the wrong first purchase if you have not shown anyone will pay. If you are still testing whether the problem is real, a landing page, a payment link and one core feature are enough. Our guide to [building an MVP as a solo founder](https://zeroraised.com/blog/how-to-build-an-mvp-as-a-solo-founder) walks through that smaller first version.

Our read: AI coding tools make a blank app fast, but still get the risky parts subtly wrong: webhook idempotency, subscription state, cross-organisation permission checks. A good boilerplate has already debugged those. Start free, and buy a kit when paying users need teams or billing you do not want to write.

## Worked example: is $349 worth it?

This is our illustrative arithmetic, not data from any vendor.

Say you value your time at $50 an hour, and building auth, organisations with invitations, Stripe subscriptions with webhooks, transactional email and an admin view from scratch takes you 60 hours (an assumption; your number may be lower or higher).

- **Build it yourself:** 60 hours × $50 = $3,000 of your time, before any bugs.
- **Makerkit Pro:** $349 plus, say, 12 hours learning the codebase and customising it = $349 + $600 = $949.
- **Open SaaS:** $0 plus, say, 20 hours, since you also learn the Wasp framework = $1,000.

On those assumptions either kit saves roughly $2,000 of time. The gap opens with multi-tenancy: if you have to add organisations to a free kit yourself, it can cost more than the $349 one.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the best SaaS boilerplate for a solo indie hacker?

For a solo B2C product on Next.js, ShipFast is the cheapest paid option with unlimited projects ($199 Starter when we checked). For a B2B product with teams, pick Makerkit or Supastarter at $349. For a zero budget, Open SaaS is free under the MIT licence and was updated in November 2026.

### Is there a good free SaaS boilerplate?

Yes. Open SaaS (Wasp, React, Node, Prisma) is MIT-licensed and includes auth, Stripe, Polar.sh or Lemon Squeezy payments, email sending and S3 uploads. Vercel's Next.js SaaS Starter and next-forge are also MIT. Bullet Train is an MIT-licensed Rails framework. SaaS Pegasus has a free open source Django edition without teams.

### Can I use one boilerplate licence for multiple projects?

Usually yes for your own products. ShipFast, Makerkit, Supastarter and SaaS Pegasus Unlimited all allow unlimited projects. Laravel Spark sells a $99 single-site licence and a $199 unlimited one. Client work is different: Makerkit and Pegasus say each client needs its own licence, while Supastarter's Agency tier is built for client projects.

### Can I get a refund on a SaaS boilerplate?

It depends on the vendor. ShipFast says it cannot be refunded once you have repo access, and Makerkit's licence says it does not offer refunds. SaaS Pegasus offers refunds within 7 days of purchase. We could not find a refund policy for Supastarter, so ask before buying.

### Should I use a boilerplate or just build with AI coding tools?

If your product needs auth, billing, teams and transactional email, a boilerplate saves you wiring work that AI tools still get subtly wrong, especially webhooks and permissions. If you are testing an idea with a landing page and a single core feature, a free starter plus an AI coding tool is usually enough, and you can buy a kit once people pay.

## Ship it, then launch it

A boilerplate gets you to a working product faster; then people need to see it. ZeroRaised is a launch directory for products built without institutional VC: [submit your product](https://zeroraised.com/submit) for free, and [join the ZeroRaised newsletter](https://zeroraised.com/newsletter) for more guides on building without investors.

## Sources

- [ShipFast homepage and pricing](https://shipfa.st/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [ShipFast licence](https://shipfa.st/license), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Makerkit pricing](https://makerkit.dev/pricing), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Makerkit licence](https://makerkit.dev/license), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Makerkit FAQ](https://makerkit.dev/faq), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Supastarter homepage and pricing](https://supastarter.dev/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Supastarter licence](https://supastarter.dev/legal/license), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [SaaS Pegasus pricing](https://www.saaspegasus.com/pricing/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [SaaS Pegasus licence](https://www.saaspegasus.com/license/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [SaaS Pegasus terms](https://www.saaspegasus.com/terms/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Laravel Spark](https://spark.laravel.com/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Laravel starter kits documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/starter-kits), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Open SaaS on GitHub](https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas) and [licence](https://github.com/wasp-lang/open-saas/blob/main/LICENSE), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Next.js SaaS Starter on GitHub](https://github.com/nextjs/saas-starter), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [next-forge on GitHub](https://github.com/vercel/next-forge) and [next-forge.com](https://www.next-forge.com/), last checked 10 Nov 2026
- [Bullet Train](https://bullettrain.co/), last checked 10 Nov 2026

## Frequently asked questions

### What is the best SaaS boilerplate for a solo indie hacker?

For a solo B2C product on Next.js, ShipFast is the cheapest paid option with unlimited projects ($199 Starter when we checked). For a B2B product with teams, pick Makerkit or Supastarter at $349. For a zero budget, Open SaaS is free under the MIT licence and was updated in November 2026.

### Is there a good free SaaS boilerplate?

Yes. Open SaaS (Wasp, React, Node, Prisma) is MIT-licensed and includes auth, Stripe, Polar.sh or Lemon Squeezy payments, email sending and S3 uploads. Vercel's Next.js SaaS Starter and next-forge are also MIT. Bullet Train is an MIT-licensed Rails framework. SaaS Pegasus has a free open source Django edition without teams.

### Can I use one boilerplate licence for multiple projects?

Usually yes for your own products. ShipFast, Makerkit, Supastarter and SaaS Pegasus Unlimited all allow unlimited projects. Laravel Spark sells a $99 single-site licence and a $199 unlimited one. Client work is different: Makerkit and Pegasus say each client needs its own licence, while Supastarter's Agency tier is built for client projects.

### Can I get a refund on a SaaS boilerplate?

It depends on the vendor. ShipFast says it cannot be refunded once you have repo access, and Makerkit's licence says it does not offer refunds. SaaS Pegasus offers refunds within 7 days of purchase. We could not find a refund policy for Supastarter, so ask before buying.

### Should I use a boilerplate or just build with AI coding tools?

If your product needs auth, billing, teams and transactional email, a boilerplate saves you wiring work that AI tools still get subtly wrong, especially webhooks and permissions. If you are testing an idea with a landing page and a single core feature, a free starter plus an AI coding tool is usually enough, and you can buy a kit once people pay.