The Complete SaaS Development Checklist

192 items · 7 stages

Founder's Guide

The Complete SaaS Development Checklist

A stage-by-stage guide to building, launching, and scaling your SaaS product—from initial validation to exit-ready. Built from 50+ real-world checklists and Reddit war stories.

192 items • 7 stages

Stage 3 / 29 items

MVP Development

Build the minimum product that delivers your core value. One feature that works perfectly beats ten features that exist.

Core feature delivers the primary value proposition

User can complete entire core flow end-to-end

User data persists correctly across sessions

Basic CRUD operations work for primary entities

One feature that works perfectly > ten features that exist

Design empty states for all list/data views

Design error states (network, server, validation)

Add loading states that provide visual feedback

Show inline form validation errors

Handle timeouts gracefully

Prevent double-submission on critical actions

Choose and integrate payment provider

Test mode payments working end-to-end

Implement webhook handling for payment events

Handle failed payment webhooks

Implement subscription upgrade/downgrade flow

Build cancellation flow

Payment confirmation page clearly shows what user bought

Generate invoices/receipts

Capture request context in logs

Integrate error tracking service (Sentry or similar)

Attach user ID to logs and errors

Use structured logging format (JSON)

Log critical business events

README explains project setup from scratch

Enforce code style with linter

Write tests for critical path

Set up CI pipeline for automated testing

Require CI to pass for PR merges

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