Start here
So many ways to build.
Where do you start?
Every app needs the same few building blocks: somewhere to run, somewhere to keep data, a way to sign in, take money and communicate. Each role has a handful of tools competing for it, and AI builders will happily pick for you without saying why.
Where to begin
What are you making?
Pick the closest match. You’ll get the full build: the blocks, the steps and what it costs.
7 common starting points · See all builds
This week · w/c 19 Oct
Headline build
One build we think is worth your time this week. Chosen by Stackguide for you.
SaaS with payments
Ship a small paid SaaS: sign-up, a simple product surface, and UK card billing — with a clear monthly £ bill at launch, ~100 users, and ~1,000 users.
- Launch
- Free
- ~100 paying users
- £97.91
- ~1,000 paying users
- £688.98
Monthly total from vendor pricing pages, checked 16 Oct 2026. Excludes VAT and optional extras; the build lists everything it leaves out.
The stack
- SupabaseAuth + database
- Stripe (UK)Payments
- VercelHosting
- ResendTransactional email
- LovableOptional AI builder
- GitHubMonitoring and security
Everything on Stackguide
Explore the catalogue
Builds, comparisons, guides and blocks. Scroll sideways, or open the full list.
10 builds · See all
AI chatbot app over your own content
A deployed chat assistant that answers from your own docs, FAQ and product pages. It stores each user's history, runs moderation on input and has a spend cap on the AI API.
Auth-heavy B2B app (Neon + Clerk)
A B2B SaaS that keeps auth separate from the database, with organisations, MFA and no third-party branding.
Cheap AI agent team (Sonnet/Opus lead + Haiku subagents)
Run a coding or ops agent team on the Claude API. A lead model plans and reviews, and cheap Haiku subagents do the routine work, for about 68% less than an all-Sonnet team.
Digital products shop (downloads / courses): Stripe vs merchant of record
A storefront for a UK creator that takes payment and delivers the file or course access. VAT is handled either by you (Stripe) or by a merchant of record (Lemon Squeezy or Paddle).
Directory site with paid listings
A searchable, SEO-friendly niche directory where businesses pay by card to submit or feature a listing. It sends a confirmation email and puts each listing in an approval queue.
Internal dashboard
Stand up an internal dashboard your team can log into — tables, filters, and a safe data path — without overbuilding or guessing the monthly £ bill.
Mobile MVP (iOS + Android)
One codebase (Expo) for both app stores, plus Supabase for data and sign-in.
Pre-launch security pass for vibe-coded apps
Before you launch a vibe-coded Supabase + Vercel app: turn on RLS checks, secret/dependency scanning, hosting hygiene, and optional AI code review — with a clear £0–£22.61/mo add-on bill.
SaaS with payments
Ship a small paid SaaS: sign-up, a simple product surface, and UK card billing — with a clear monthly £ bill at launch, ~100 users, and ~1,000 users.
Waitlist / landing page
Launch a clean waitlist: landing page, signup capture, and confirmation email — on a £0 free-tier stack (or a small paid hosting upgrade if you need commercial Vercel).
See all 10 builds
Sorted by what you’re making
13 compare · See all
Lovable vs Bolt vs Replit for building an MVP
What does an AI app builder cost to get a first version built?
Resend vs Postmark for app emails
Which transactional email service costs less as your app grows?
Stripe vs Lemon Squeezy vs Paddle for selling digital products
Which payment option costs less for a UK creator selling downloads or courses?
Vercel vs Netlify vs Cloudflare for hosting a small commercial site
What does hosting cost when your site makes money?
Clerk vs Supabase Auth vs Auth0 for sign-in
What does sign-in cost as your user count grows?
OpenAI vs Claude vs Gemini APIs for a chat feature
What does an AI chat feature cost each month in API fees?
Render vs Railway vs Fly.io for hosting a small backend
What does a small always-on backend cost to host?
Supabase vs Firebase vs Neon for an app database
What does an app database cost, from first user to a busy little app?
PostHog vs Plausible vs Umami for analytics
What does it cost to see how people use your site?
Sentry vs Better Stack for error and uptime monitoring
What does it cost to know when your app breaks?
Supabase Storage vs Cloudflare R2 vs UploadThing for user uploads
What does it cost to store the files your users upload?
Brevo vs Loops vs Mailchimp for newsletters and product emails
What does it cost to email your list?
Cursor vs Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot for coding with AI
What does an AI coding assistant cost each month?
See all 13 compare
Sorted by the role they cover
38 blocks · See all
Supabase
A Postgres database with sign-in, file storage and row-level security in one project.
Good for: Getting a database and sign-in running in one place
Used in 7 builds, compared in 3
Neon
A serverless Postgres database, billed by how much it is used.
Good for: Apps with uneven traffic, where paying by usage beats a fixed plan
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Clerk
Sign-in and user management, including organisations for B2B apps.
Good for: B2B apps where customers sign in as a company with several users
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Vercel
Hosting for web apps, built around Next.js.
Good for: Next.js apps, which it runs with no setup
Used in 9 builds, compared in 1
Netlify
Hosting for websites and web apps.
Good for: Static sites and simple web apps on a tight budget
Used in 5 builds, compared in 1
Stripe
Card payments, subscriptions and tax tools. You are the seller.
Good for: Subscriptions and one-off payments where you are happy to be the seller
Used in 4 builds, compared in 1
Lemon Squeezy
Sells digital products as merchant of record, so it handles sales tax for you.
Good for: Selling downloads, software or courses without registering for tax abroad
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Paddle
Sells software and digital products as merchant of record.
Good for: Software and SaaS sold internationally
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Resend
Sends app emails, such as confirmations and receipts, from your own domain.
Good for: Early apps: the free plan covers 3,000 emails a month
Used in 4 builds, compared in 1
Postmark
Sends app emails, with a paid plan sized for growing apps.
Good for: Apps that have outgrown free email plans
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
OpenAI API
OpenAI's models, called from your server while the app runs.
Good for: Chatbots and AI features inside your own app
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Claude API
Anthropic's Claude models, called from your server while the app runs.
Good for: Running several AI agents together on coding or research tasks
Used in 1 build, compared in 1
Gemini API
Google's Gemini models, called from your server while the app runs.
Good for: Testing an AI feature for free before you pay
compared in 1
Auth0
Sign-in and user management, free for up to 25,000 monthly active users.
Good for: Apps that need social logins and a large free allowance
compared in 1
Render
Hosting for web services, workers and databases, priced per instance.
Good for: Simple, fixed prices per instance
compared in 1
Railway
Hosting for backends and workers, billed by the second for what they use.
Good for: Small services with light or uneven use
compared in 1
Fly.io
Runs your app on small virtual machines, billed by the second while they run.
Good for: The lowest price for a small always-on service
compared in 1
Cloudflare
Hosting for static sites and Workers, with free, unlimited static requests.
Good for: Static sites with lots of traffic
compared in 1
Bolt
An AI app builder that builds and hosts web apps from your prompts.
Good for: Trying an AI builder for free, with hosting included
compared in 1
Replit
Build and publish apps in the browser, with an AI agent that writes code.
Good for: A paid plan from $20 a month ($18 billed annually), with $20 of credits
compared in 1
Lovable
An AI app builder that turns a prompt into a first working version.
Good for: Getting a first version on screen quickly
Used in 3 builds, compared in 1
Expo
Builds iOS and Android apps from one codebase, with a hosted build service (EAS).
Good for: One app for both iPhone and Android
Used in 1 build
GitHub
Hosts your code; used here for secret and dependency checks.
Good for: Keeping your code safe and versioned
Used in 1 build
CodeRabbit
AI code review on pull requests.
Good for: Solo builders with no one else to review their code
Used in 1 build
Firebase
Google's app backend: a document database, sign-in, file storage and hosting under one roof.
Good for: Mobile apps that want sign-in and data in one place
compared in 1
PostHog
Product analytics, session recordings, feature flags and error tracking in one tool.
Good for: Understanding how people use your product, not just how many visit
compared in 1
Plausible
Simple, privacy-friendly website analytics on one clean dashboard.
Good for: Marketing sites, blogs and landing pages
compared in 1
Umami
Lightweight, privacy-focused analytics you can use in the cloud or host yourself.
Good for: Side projects that want free, simple stats
compared in 1
Sentry
Error and performance monitoring that shows exactly where your code broke.
Good for: Finding bugs your users hit but never report
compared in 1
Better Stack
Uptime checks, status pages, on-call alerts, logs and error tracking in one place.
Good for: Knowing your site is down before your users tell you
compared in 1
Cloudflare R2
Low-cost file storage with no download (egress) fees.
Good for: Lots of files, or files that get downloaded a lot
compared in 1
UploadThing
File uploads for JavaScript and Next.js apps, with storage included.
Good for: Adding uploads to a Next.js app quickly
compared in 1
Brevo
Email marketing, app emails and SMS, priced by how many emails you send.
Good for: Big lists you email now and then
compared in 1
Loops
Email for software products: newsletters, product updates and app emails in one place.
Good for: Onboarding and product-update emails for an app
compared in 1
Mailchimp
The best-known email marketing tool, priced by how many contacts you have.
Good for: People who want lots of templates and guides
compared in 1
Cursor
A code editor built around AI, now sold through The X Subscription.
Good for: Writing and changing code with AI in a full editor
compared in 1
Claude Code
Anthropic's coding agent for your terminal and editor, included with paid Claude plans.
Good for: Working through bigger changes across a whole project
compared in 1
GitHub Copilot
AI help inside the editor you already use, from GitHub.
Good for: Staying in the editor you already know
compared in 1
See all 38 blocks
Sorted by layer
6 guides · See all
Costs
Free plans that pause, sleep or ban commercial use
The small print on free tiers that catches people out on launch day.
Security
Keeping API keys out of your app
Where secret keys belong, how they leak, and three settings that help catch mistakes.
Payments
Merchant of record, explained
Who is legally selling when someone buys from your app, and why that decides who deals with VAT.
Costs
How to read a pricing page
Seats, users, usage, minimums and currencies: the six things that turn a headline price into a real monthly bill.
Security
Row-level security, and why your app needs it
The setting that decides whether anyone with your app's public key can read every row in your database.
Basics
What the heck is GitHub?
Git, repos, commits, branches and pull requests in plain English, and why your AI builder and your host both ask you to connect it.
See all 6 guides
Sorted by topic
How we check
- Every price has a source and a date.Each figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, with the plan, the date we checked it and the exchange rate used.
- We say how we know.Builds are priced from vendor pages: we read each vendor’s published plans, limits and fees, then add up the monthly bill for the whole build.
- Money never changes a ranking.Paid and affiliate links are always labelled, and we never sell or share your email.