SaaS App Development - Step by Step Guide

• By Ravi Makhija
• 22-12-2022
• Mobile App Development

Creating a SaaS application may help you to take your business to the next level. It would help if you didn't take this decision carelessly or without doing your research first. You must thoroughly understand the SaaS development process before hiring a team and allocating sufficient funds to the project.

Building a SaaS application may help your business move faster and achieve success. However, it would help if you didn't take this decision carelessly or without doing your research first. You must thoroughly understand the SaaS development process before hiring a development team and allocating sufficient funds to it.

Software as a service (SaaS was considered a new business model a decade ago. Today, it is one of the go-to choices of businesses around the globe. SaaS is adopted by industries such as retail, finance, marketing, healthcare, travel, and more.

If you also have decided to develop a SaaS application, you have reached the right place. Here we will provide you with the process of SaaS app development. Before we move on to that, let us know the basics of SaaS app development.

What is SaaS App Development?

SaaS applications are web-based programs that take the role of offline programs. Your customers won't have to install it locally on their devices or upgrade the necessary hardware because it's a subscription-based, on-demand service.

Customers typically access SaaS solutions from connected devices using an internet browser or various APIs, with all maintenance handled by the software supplier. Typically, a third-party cloud computing provider is in charge of maintaining its infrastructure.

According to a report in 2020, 73% of organizations stated that 80% of their apps would be SaaS apps.

According to BetterCloud, the SaaS market share will increase over the coming years, and by 2025, 85% of business apps will be SaaS-based.

Before we go through the streamlined process of building a SaaS application, we will go through the benefits of SaaS for your businesses.

So, let's get started.

Benefits of SaaS for Users

Here are some of the advantages of SaaS applications for businesses.

• Accessibility: Cloud-based web programs are accessible from any device, anywhere in the world, after logging in. Simply having a solid internet connection is all that users need to use SaaS apps effectively.
• Immediate and regular updates: Compared to desktop and mobile apps, which still require users to download new software versions to receive updates, SaaS web apps have a significant advantage. Because web-based programs are updated automatically, users never even realize when and how updates occur.
• Scalability: Users can quickly and easily update their plans if their needs change. Also, painless are downgrades.
  Reliability: A network of servers called a cloud can be found worldwide. The software will continue to function even if one server is unavailable.
• Attract a Wider Audience: As more businesses switch to SaaS apps, you have more chances to reach a broad audience. Furthermore, because of the software's low monthly fees, even start-up businesses with little resources can afford it.
  Generate long-term & reliable financial gain: Thanks to the SaaS business model, SaaS developers can get a relatively steady revenue through subscriptions. So they can please their customers and paying subscribers and plan and execute consistent development projects.

After looking at the benefits of SaaS applications, we will look at the process of building a SaaS application.

So, let us start.

7 Steps for Developing a SaaS App

Here is the streamlined process you must follow to build a SaaS application.

Planning

Sound planning is the cornerstone of developing a successful application. A SaaS application's success depends on thorough market research, audience analysis, defining the app's goal, considering its essential features, and utilizing the right technology. You need to decide these things if you're planning to build a SaaS application.

Discovery Phase

Structure your SaaS application development plans throughout the discovery phase by creating various documents that will assist your development team in creating the product you want. The SaaS app development team schedules multiple meetings to learn the specifics of your project during the discovery phase of the project and produces documentation like:

Software Requirements Specification (SRS): A description of the functions of your SaaS application in addition to technical specifications (such as app dependencies and structure), project goals, user groups, and the scope of work, among other things.

A risk assessment and mitigation strategy is a forecast of the potential hazards you may encounter when creating your cloud-based SaaS application, together with steps you can take to reduce those risks.

A table with all the features you wish to add to your SaaS platform and time estimates for doing so is called a "feature breakdown list."

A cost estimate is a table showing possible spending on SaaS app development.

Only a portion of the deliverables you receive during the discovery phase include these materials. Additionally, a business analyst assists you in defining the ideal development team structure at this stage so that you may develop your SaaS platform within the predetermined spending limit and timeframe.

Designing a SaaS Application

When designing online apps, you must take the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) into consideration (UX). In order to ensure your cloud-based SaaS service satisfies the target audience, you should design it effectively.

When creating the user interface and user experience for your SaaS platform, consider the devices used by your target audience.

A UI/UX professional will create designs for devices with different resolutions. You should check the app design on multiple devices and screen sizes.

Choose Monetization Strategy

You should choose a suitable monetization strategy for your SaaS application to generate revenue. Generally, the subscription-based model is adopted by businesses worldwide.

For instance, Google Drive offers 15GB of storage accessible to all users. However, it charges users if they want more storage.

Define a Tech Stack

Choosing the right technology stack for smooth SaaS app development is essential.

In technology stack, the developers decide the correct frontend, backend, database, servers, and more for the SaaS application.

Development & Testing

Although the first two steps in developing cloud applications may not have been immediately apparent, this one is simple and doesn't require much explanation.

During this stage, SaaS developers work on your application's front end and back end. Quality assurance (QA) engineers check that each functionality works properly individually and together.

Development and testing are iterative processes in software development. SaaS developers don't produce the whole application at once. They often start with a minimal viable product (MVP), which only has the essential features to meet the must of your target market. After developing and deploying a SaaS platform MVP, they can solicit feedback from early adopters to determine which existing features to improve and which new features to build.

The iterative development process ends with deployment. A cloud-based SaaS product's MVP version is now available to customers thanks to the deployment process. During this stage, a DevOps specialist or another team member with the necessary experience prepares all of the new code's deployment-ready components and integrates the entire codebase into production.

Continuous App Upgrade

Concentrate your efforts on measuring the performance of your MVP once it is made accessible to users. You should collect user feedback, examine it, decide what can be improved, and ascertain what new features your users require throughout this process.

Conclusion

We hope you have understood the six-step development process to launch a high-caliber SaaS application.

If you have decided to develop a SaaS application, you should approach a company offering the best web app development services.

They have years of experience in building diverse SaaS applications for industries across the globe. Hence, they can create a user-friendly, reliable, and scalable SaaS application.