How Long Does It Really Take to Build an MVP

"How long does it take you to build the MVP?"

It's the question we hear most in first meetings with founders. And the honest answer — "it depends" — tends to frustrate. So in this article we break it down for real: which factors determine the timeline, what the real timeframes are by product type, and what usually drags it out longer than expected.

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The short answer: between 6 weeks and 6 months

There's no standard timeline because there's no standard MVP. An MVP can be a landing page with a waitlist form (2 days) or a marketplace with payments, profiles and user matching (5–6 months).

To make the comparison useful, here are the real ranges by product type:

| MVP type | Typical timeline | Example | |-------------|-------------|---------| | Landing page + waitlist | 1–3 days | Validate demand before building | | Functional no-code prototype | 2–4 weeks | Airtable + Webflow + Zapier for a manual process | | Simple SaaS (basic CRUD) | 6–10 weeks | Task management app, internal tool | | Marketplace or two-sided platform | 3–5 months | Services app, booking platform | | Mobile app with its own backend | 3–6 months | iOS/Android with a custom API and auth | | Product with ML or AI integration | 4–6 months | Recommendations, image/text processing |

These ranges assume a dedicated team (not part-time freelancers) and reasonably defined requirements at the outset.

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The 5 factors that most determine the timeline

1. The clarity of requirements at the start

This is the factor founders most underestimate. An MVP with well-defined requirements — what it does, what it doesn't, which flows are critical for launch and what's left for later — can be built in half the time of one that "gets defined as you go".

Every time a founder says "oh, and we'd also need it to…" mid-development, that change has a cost that's usually measured not in money but in weeks.

The most effective way to cut the timeline: invest 1–2 weeks in product design and definition before writing a single line of code.

2. The size and dedication of the team

A full-time senior developer takes 3 months to do what a team of 3 (frontend + backend + QA) can do in 6–7 weeks.

The common mistake at pre-seed startups: they hire 1 part-time developer to save money, and the MVP that should be ready in 2 months takes 6. During those 4 extra months, the market can shift, competitors can launch and the validation window closes.

3. External integrations

Third-party integrations (payment gateways, identity services, external APIs, maps, messaging systems) are what stretch timelines most unpredictably.

Not because they're technically hard, but because they depend on external factors: incomplete documentation, slow third-party support, unannounced API changes, account verification times (especially with payment gateways like Stripe).

Rule of thumb: each payment or identity integration adds between 1 and 3 weeks to the timeline.

4. The chosen tech stack

There's no "best" stack for every MVP. But there are choices that slow things down:

• New or experimental frameworks: the team loses time solving problems that aren't documented.
• Over-engineered architectures from the start: microservices for an MVP that will have 100 users in its first month add complexity with no real benefit.
• Two platforms in parallel from day 1: native iOS + Android from the start doubles the effort. The standard recommendation is to start with React Native or Flutter if the MVP needs mobile apps.

5. The quality of the UX definition before development

The fastest MVPs to build are the ones that reach code with detailed wireframes — not necessarily complete visual design — that answer: what does the user see on each screen? what can they do? what happens if they do X?

The slowest are the ones where the development team has to "imagine" the UX while building. The result: costly UI iterations, flow changes mid-sprint, and an MVP that doesn't look finished even if it technically works.

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What stretches timelines most in practice

From our experience building MVPs for startups:

1. Unmanaged scope creep. The MVP starts out as "something simple" and by week 4 it already has 3 new features that "are essential". Every addition delays launch and increases cost. The discipline to say "that goes in v2" is one of the most valuable skills of a good product manager or CTO.

2. Lack of user feedback during development. The best MVPs are tested with real users as soon as there's something clickable — even if it isn't polished. The worst are shown for the first time on launch day. The problem: when feedback arrives too late, changes are expensive. When it arrives during development, they're affordable.

3. Product direction changes mid-development. "We met a potential customer who told us what they actually need is X, not Y." This scenario is normal in early validation. But if it means rewriting the core of the product, the timeline resets.

4. Teams with no clear technical leadership. At startups with no CTO or no one making technical decisions coherently, the development team can spend weeks debating which architecture to use, which library is better or how to structure the database. Those weeks produce no product.

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How to estimate your MVP's timeline

The most useful process we use with new clients:

1. List the MVP features — only those critical for the first launch.
2. Classify them by complexity: low (1–3 days), medium (3–7 days), high (1–3 weeks).
3. Add up the days and add a 30% buffer for integrations, bugs and reviews.
4. Identify external integrations and add 1–2 weeks for each.
5. Validate the result with the development team before communicating it to investors or customers.

This exercise takes 2–3 hours and can save you weeks of misaligned expectations.

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A real example: timeline for a services-marketplace MVP

MVP features:

• Sign-up and login (email + Google) — 1 week
• Provider profile (photo, description, categories) — 1 week
• Search and filters — 1.5 weeks
• Booking system with calendar — 2 weeks
• Payment gateway (Stripe) — 2 weeks
• Email/push notifications — 1 week
• Basic admin panel — 1 week

Estimated total: 9.5 weeks + 30% buffer = 12–13 weeks (~3 months with a team of 2 full-time developers).

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Conclusion

If someone promises you a complex MVP in 3 weeks, ask exactly what it includes. If someone tells you a simple MVP takes 6 months, ask exactly why.

Realistic timelines — with right-sized teams and reasonably defined requirements — fall in the range of 6 weeks to 4 months for most startup MVPs. Anything outside that range needs a concrete explanation.

At Collybrix we build MVPs with predictable timelines because we separate the product-definition phase from the development phase. If you want to estimate your MVP's timeline, tell us what you're working on →.

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More on the MVP development process for startups: MVP Development.