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  • What's a Realistic 1-Year Budget for SaaS Community (Tools, Staff, Events)?

    Erin May

    Member

    Updated: Apr 30, 2025
    Views: 17

    We’re planning the first-year budget for our SaaS community and I’d love to learn how others have approached it.

    Here’s what I’m trying to figure out:

    • What’s a realistic yearly spend on community tools like the platform, newsletter, and integrations?

    • How much should we budget for staffing → part-time or full-time community roles?

    • Do online/offline events need a large chunk, or is it okay to start lean?

    We're not VC-backed 🙂 , so everything needs to be cost-efficient and intentional.

    If you've already gone through this, I’d love to know:

    • What did you plan for; and what did you actually end up spending?

    • Any surprises or lessons that could help others budgeting for the first time?

    Thanks in advance for sharing!

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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Founder • 8h

    Let me share the actual budget numbers for Jatra Community (FY - 2024-2025). These numbers more or less remain the same. By the way; we are not VC funded either. We're bootstrappers! :-)

    Tools Budget (Community Platform, Emails, Integrations)

    We planned for about $1500/year but spent about $2000 towards the platform fees including community platform (Jatra), Email (used multiple platforms) and Integrations (Zapier, Analytics).

    For a community just starting out; expect to spend about $1500 - $1800 per year on various platforms. Jatra's $99/mo plan is ideal for startups and once we integrate the newsletter facility; it'll save several hundred (if not thousands) of dollars per year. It all depends on your member size.

    Team Costs

    We relied on a team of freelancers and interns. The overall planned spend was about $2000/year, but we spent about $900. We worked with an intern who worked magic with AI prompts to generate content ideas. We focused on 100% human-generated content for Jatra community.

    Events Budget

    We didn't plan for it for Jatra. But a new or mid-size community can expect to spend anywhere between $1000 - $3000 on online events, giveaways or even offline events. How much you spend on events actually depends a lot upon your geography, target-users and the type of activity.

    It was our first year of budgeting for community. We have learned from our mistakes. This year, we are allocating $7000 towards platform, user acquisition and events. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have questions.

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  • Erin May

    Member • 7h

    Thanks, Kaustubh...this was super helpful and reassuring!

    That kind of budget seems realistic for us, especially if we go with outsourced community management instead of hiring full-time. It gives us a bit more flexibility without compromising on quality.

    I also went through your article on community online activities and it has some really nice suggestions.

    IMHO, there are quite a few low-cost activities we can easily run each month under $500. We’re planning to test a few of those ideas over the next quarter to see what drives the most engagement and long-term retention.

    Curious to hear from others: If you're working with a lean budget, which community activities have given you the best ROI in terms of engagement or member growth?

    Would love to compare notes!

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