Case study: InvoicePilot SaaS built with the SaaS Boilerplate
Second entry in the "Built with CheapStack" series: a working SaaS with authentication and live checkout, built with the SaaS Boilerplate ($59).
What we built
InvoicePilot is a billing SaaS where users create invoices and send them to clients. It needed: user accounts, a dashboard, and payment processing for subscriptions.
What the kit provided
- NextAuth v5 with GitHub, Google, and Discord login
- Dashboard with stats grid, revenue chart, and user management
- Stripe + Polar.sh webhook handlers
- Drizzle ORM schema (users, organizations, subscriptions)
- Admin panel with impersonation-ready structure
- Dark/light mode toggle
- Playwright E2E tests
What we changed
1. Added an invoices table to the Drizzle schema (30 minutes)
2. Built the invoice creation form using the kit's components (2 hours)
3. Wired Polar.sh checkout to the Pro plan button (45 minutes)
4. Ran the included Playwright tests to verify nothing broke (15 minutes)
Why the boilerplate mattered
The parts that usually eat days — auth setup, billing webhooks, database schema for subscriptions, admin dashboard — were already done. We spent our time on the invoice domain logic, which is the actual product.
Honest limitations
Multi-tenancy is included but we didn't use it for this single-tenant product. The admin panel needs real user data to be useful. The test suite covers the auth flow but not the invoice feature (we'd add those tests as we iterate).
About the author: Muhammad Akbar builds affordable developer tools at CheapStack and writes about bootstrapping products on realistic budgets.