How I built CheapStack: a solo developer's story : cheapstack

I'm a solo developer. When I started building SaaS products, I hit the same wall repeatedly: every boilerplate and starter kit on the market required Stripe for payments. Stripe doesn't operate in many countries.

That means every "build your SaaS" resource was built for an audience I wasn't part of.

The $249 problem

The most popular Next.js boilerplate costs $249. It requires Stripe. It uses MongoDB (which adds hosting costs). It doesn't include a landing page template: that's sold separately for another $199.

For a developer in many countries, that's:

1. The price of a monthly rent for many developers
2. A payment processor that doesn't work in their country
3. Ongoing infrastructure costs that eat into already-tight margins

The alternative I built

CheapStack is the alternative. Same Next.js 16 stack. Same auth, payments, and database boilerplate. But:

Starting at $19 instead of $249
Polar.sh for payments (works in 130+ countries)
Drizzle ORM with SQLite (zero-cost hosting until you scale)
Landing page templates included in the base price

The Pro Bundle ($79) includes all 8 kits. One payment, lifetime access.

The result so far

The first sale came within days of launching. Not enough to quit my day job, but enough to prove the thesis: developers outside the US/EU want affordable tools that work in their countries.

CheapStack is open about this because I think more tools should work for developers everywhere, not just the US and Europe.

About the author: Muhammad Akbar builds affordable developer tools at CheapStack and writes about bootstrapping products on realistic budgets.