A SaaS product is software your customers log in to and pay for every month. As a SaaS development company, we build the features your customers pay for and the parts that keep the business running, such as billing, permissions, backups and support tools.
That second group is easy to underestimate. The main feature is often the smaller part of SaaS development.
Accounts and teams
Most business software is bought by a company and used by several people. We build around teams from the start.
- A person signs up and creates a workspace for their company.
- They invite colleagues by email.
- One person can belong to more than one workspace, which suits consultants and agencies.
- The owner can remove people and hand ownership to someone else.
People can log in with email and password, a one-time email link or Google. Larger customers often ask for single sign-on through Microsoft or Okta, so we plan for it even if it comes in a later phase.
Roles and permissions
Each team member gets a role, such as owner, admin, member or read-only. The role decides what a person can see and change. We check permissions on the server for every request. Hiding a button in the interface is never the only protection.
If your customers need finer control, such as access to one project or one location only, we add it where the data model allows it from the first release.
Separate data for each customer
In a multi-tenant app, all your customers use the same software and the same database. Every record belongs to one customer account, and the app must never show it to another. We enforce that rule in the code and again in the database with PostgreSQL row-level security. If one screen has a bug, the database rule still blocks access to another company’s records.
Some customers need their own database, often for contract reasons. We can set that up for those accounts.
Subscription billing with Stripe
- Monthly and yearly plans, with free trials if you want them
- Upgrades and downgrades that adjust the bill for the rest of the period
- Pricing per seat, per plan or by usage
- The Stripe customer portal, where customers update their card and download invoices
- Automatic retries and emails when a payment fails
- Sales tax through Stripe Tax, which works out GST, HST, PST, QST or RST for each sale
Stripe sends your app a message each time a payment succeeds, fails or a plan changes. The app updates the account’s access right away, so nobody keeps paid features after a cancellation.
Usage limits and plans
Plans usually differ by limits, such as the number of users, projects or gigabytes of storage. We keep those limits in one place, so you can change a plan without a code change. Customers see how close they are to a limit before they hit it, with a link to upgrade.
Onboarding and email
- A welcome email and a short checklist of first steps inside the app
- Reminders before a trial ends
- Receipts and billing notices
- Invitations and password resets
Account emails go through a sending service such as Postmark or Resend, with your domain set up so messages reach the inbox. Marketing email to people in Canada falls under Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL). We keep it separate from account emails and record consent when people sign up.
An admin area for your staff
Your support team needs its own tools.
- Search for any account and see its plan, users and payment status
- View the app as a customer sees it, with every visit logged
- Extend a trial, add credit or cancel an account
- See sign-ups, active accounts and monthly revenue on one screen. Our dashboard development page covers reporting in more detail.
- A log of every admin action and who took it
Security and backups
- Passwords handled by a trusted login provider, never stored in plain text
- HTTPS everywhere and encrypted backups
- Daily automated backups, with a restore test before launch
- Error alerts and uptime checks
- Regular updates to the libraries the app depends on
- An audit log of sensitive actions, such as role changes and data exports
If you collect personal information from Canadians in the course of business, PIPEDA sets rules for how you collect, use and protect it. We build tools to export or delete one person’s data when they ask. The database can stay in a Canadian region, such as the Canada (Central) region on Supabase.
What you get at handover
- The code in a GitHub repository your company owns
- Hosting, database, Stripe and email accounts in your company’s name
- A README that explains how to run, test and deploy the app
- Notes on the data model and the main technical decisions
- A walkthrough call with your developers, if you have them
Price and next steps
Prices are on our pricing page.
Still testing whether people want the product? Start with MVP development and add these pieces once customers pay. The custom web app development page covers the tools we use and how projects run.
Book a scoping call to talk through your product.
