A Complete Guide to SaaS Development

Written By

Ravi K Nair

Technical Content Strategist

Last updated at September 13, 2022

Software as a service, also known as SaaS, is one of the most popular trends in software today, despite being a relatively new business model ten years ago.

SaaS may be the best option for your company because it is appropriate for various industries, including retail, economics, marketing, healthcare, and transport.

You've arrived at the correct place if you want to create a SaaS application but don't know where to begin. This blog will define SaaS applications and provide a step-by-step analysis of the SaaS development process.

What are SaaS Applications?

An alternative marketing strategy to traditional software licencing is SaaS, or software as a service. Developers don't have to sell their applications with lifetime licences or wait until the following year's version to release feature upgrades using the SaaS method for software distribution and maintenance.

Rather than organizations marketing their SaaS generally through a subscription model, this software is hosted in the cloud, which implies they don’t require it to be physically installed on a customer’s system. Further, users must spend annual, quarterly, or monthly costs to utilize a specific software piece instead of purchasing a license.

As long as there is an internet service, this also implies that you can use this from any part of the world. It means that individuals can utilize a program even while developers constantly engage in updates from a development perspective.

Because of cloud architecture, SaaS programs are so accessible. SaaS applications are designed and deployed on the private or public cloud, where they are also used to run.

Steps for SaaS Development

SaaS development is a developing trend, and thousands of SaaS mobile apps are broadcasted on app stores every day. Read on if you want to understand how to construct a great SaaS app that will fight competition.

Conduct Market, Customer and Competitor Investigation

SaaS development increasingly depends on the latest-gen techs, such as AI, Machine Learning, etc. You can begin your product-finding phase with an in-depth examination of the current tech trends.

If you want to produce a vertical SaaS platform, get to understand the trends in your target market component.

Likewise, learn as much as possible regarding your target audience, their requirements and problems as you purify your SaaS app concept.

Competitor analysis is a necessary part of the imagination phase. Examine the existing apps in your element, describe your core opponents and find their vulnerable points to meet consumers’ necessities better.

Pick Your SaaS App Monetization Strategy

You must pick your SaaS app monetization strategy before completely submerging yourself into the development cycle. Your revenue model will eventually dictate your app architecture and characteristics, so you should keep it nicely mapped out before you begin constructing your application.

Learning about your audience will assist you in understanding how much your customers can afford to pay for operating your software. Multiple tried and accurate monetization strategies work best for SaaS apps, such as the freemium model, transaction and selling fees model, in-app advertising model, subscription model, etc.

Plan for Safety and Dependability

As promising as operating SaaS for the company might appear, the SaaS development model is also linked with safety risks and reliability problems.

The significant difference between SaaS and conventional apps is that SaaS runs in the cloud, so you must select a trustworthy cloud agent.

Reputed cloud service providers, like AWS, do their adequate to protect their customers’ data. They go the additional mile to guarantee the goodness of data in their data centers and leverage the best protection methods.

When employing cloud assistance, multi-tenancy is a recurring problem. Controlling multiple customers' access to an application places particular needs on the SaaS architecture.

At any point, choose an optimal method architecture for your SaaS application and confirm that the information is encrypted and backed up.

Schedule for Third Party Integration

SaaS apps should work smoothly with other business tools, primarily for corporate settings.

At the absolute least, it should offer open programming interfaces that enable third-party programmers to quickly gain access to the software code and modify it to combine with other programs. When selecting an open API architecture to guarantee dependability and security, you should pay particular attention.

Choose a Technology Stack

For a SaaS solution development, you must choose optimal technologies for the front end, back end, storage database, and application server.

For the front end, you can employ technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript frameworks such as React, Angular etc. For the server side, your developers can utilize languages like Ruby, JavaScript, Python, PHP, and related frameworks.

Read Also: How to Choose a Tech Stack?

For backend repositories, developers could use databases like MySQL, MongoDB or PostgreSQL. And ultimately, Nginx is usually the best option for SaaS application servers.

The primary factors taken into account while selecting the tech stack are the ranking of your project, the adultness of technology, and integrations with third-party methods.

Construct an MVP

MVP means a minimum viable product, i.e. a test version of your SaaS software with necessary features. The goal of an MVP is to function as proof of a vision and to provide users or target audiences with a trial of your product.

MVP is even created with the lowest budget, which allows you to test how the market will use your product without conveying high costs. In addition, you can adjust your development processor technology stack at this phase of your SaaS development lifecycle.

Initiate the SaaS Development

During the SaaS development cycle, you must maintain regular communication with your development team to ensure that you share the same concept about the product’s characteristics and requirements.

You can apply one of the Agile methods for constant development, testing, and quick period-to-value. It also makes understanding to launch an earlier marketing campaign to create a society of loyal customers expecting the release.

Production and Supervision

After your QA team has finished the beta-testing and studied all the production servers, your app is prepared for publication and release.

In the user-acceptance testing process, you can watch how early adopters will respond to your software. When you construct SaaS software, you can devote yourself to its ongoing maintenance and upgrade. The customers with your application installed on their gadgets should have straightforward access to all updates and 24/7 specialized support.

Final Thoughts

With more low subscription costs, improved accessibility and availability, all tech help and on-demand scaling, SaaS apps have several distinctive benefits over standard software.

Nonetheless, how to create a SaaS application is never a straightforward question. You can either build your team of experts with robust SaaS development experience or partner with a reliable SaaS development provider. The choice is yours.

If you are searching for an affordable and trustworthy organization for your SaaS product development, contact Noetic IT Services today. We will be glad to help you whenever you require us.