SaaS Custom Domain Cost Calculator
Should you build custom domain support in-house or use a managed service? Adjust the sliders to calculate the total cost of ownership for your situation.
How many custom domains will your users connect?
DNS validation, SSL provisioning, request routing, UI widget, operational tooling, edge cases
Bug fixes, cert renewals, DNS edge cases, support tickets
Estimated Year 1 Savings with SaaSKevin
$24.3k
That's 98% less than building in-house
Ready to skip the build phase? SaaSKevin gives you custom domains for your SaaS in 5 minutes with 3 domains free.
Claim 3 Free DomainsThe True Cost of Custom Domains
Custom domain support seems simple on the surface: let users point their domain to your app. In practice, it involves DNS validation, SSL certificate provisioning and renewal, reverse proxy configuration, request routing, a user-facing setup UI, and ongoing monitoring and maintenance.
What Goes Into Building It In-House
A typical in-house implementation requires: a DNS verification system (checking CNAME or TXT records), integration with an ACME provider like Let's Encrypt for SSL certificates, a reverse proxy (Nginx, Caddy, or custom) for request routing, a database to store domain-to-customer mappings, a user interface for domain setup, and monitoring for certificate expiration and DNS changes.
The Opportunity Cost
Beyond direct costs, consider the opportunity cost. Every hour your team spends on DNS infrastructure is an hour not spent on your core product. For most SaaS companies, custom domains are an important feature but not the product itself. Using a managed service lets you ship the feature in minutes instead of weeks and focus your engineering effort where it matters most.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does it cost to build custom domain support?
- Building custom domain support from scratch typically takes 80-200+ hours of developer time. This includes DNS validation, SSL certificate provisioning and renewal, request routing/proxying, a user-facing setup UI, monitoring, and handling edge cases. At $100-200/hour, that's $8,000-$40,000 in initial development costs alone.
- What are the hidden costs of building in-house?
- Beyond initial development, hidden costs include: SSL certificate infrastructure (servers, storage, ACME client maintenance), ongoing DNS debugging and support tickets, monitoring and alerting systems, and the opportunity cost of developer time not spent on your core product.
- When does building in-house make more sense?
- Building in-house may make sense if you have very specific requirements (unusual routing logic, custom TLS termination), you're at massive scale (10,000+ domains), you have dedicated infrastructure engineers, or custom domains are your core product rather than a feature.
- How is SaaSKevin priced?
- SaaSKevin offers the first 3 domains free, then charges $0.15 per domain per month. This includes SSL provisioning, DNS verification, request routing, an embeddable setup widget, and operational support tooling (including traffic alerts). There are no setup fees or minimum commitments.
- What does the maintenance cost include?
- Monthly maintenance for in-house solutions includes fixing certificate renewal failures, debugging DNS configuration issues for specific users, handling edge cases (Cloudflare proxy conflicts, DNSSEC issues), updating dependencies, and responding to support tickets about domain setup.
Need setup examples for real SaaS products? Browse our industry guides and explore all free domain tools.