SaaS Starter is a free, open-source SvelteKit and Convex SaaS template that ships auth, billing, admin, AI chat, email, and i18n end-to-end, built specifically for AI coding agents to work on. It takes a cloned GitHub repository and produces a running SaaS application with a local Convex backend and a seeded admin account after four commands, and can be deployed to Cloudflare Workers or Vercel at zero hosting cost. The template is maintained by stickerdaniel and released under the MIT license.
What makes SaaS Starter stand out?
- Authentication — email/password, Google, GitHub, and passkeys via Better Auth running locally on Convex, so no external auth service is required; new signups verify their email before gaining access.
- Billing — Autumn on top of Stripe with predefined pricing tiers and usage quotas; ships a Free tier (3 community plus 3 AI messages per month) and a Pro tier ($10 per month, unlimited community chat and 500 AI messages per month).
- Admin panel — a full area at
/adminwith live metrics, a searchable users table with filtering and cursor-based pagination, per-user actions (ban, unban, impersonate, change role, revoke sessions), and a complete audit log. - AI support chat — built with Convex Agent and OpenRouter; a floating chatbar on every page accepts image and PDF uploads with a canvas annotation editor, and admins take over from a 3-pane support dashboard with thread assignment and status tracking.
- Email system — transactional email via Resend with automatic retries, idempotency, and delivery tracking; templates are Svelte components compiled to inline HTML by
bun run build:emailsand protected by a snapshot test. - Internationalization — 4 languages (EN, DE, ES, FR) with URL-based routing via Tolgee; in-context editing with Tolgee DevTools, automatic translation pulls on production builds, and an ESLint rule enforcing translation keys on every
aria-label. - Analytics — PostHog loads lazily, detects ad blockers, and falls back to a Cloudflare Worker proxy; only identified users are tracked.
- Developer experience — git worktrees with isolated Convex backends and ports, varlock type-safe environment variables, pre-commit hooks, Knip dead-code detection, bundle analysis with
ANALYZE=true, and VS Code tasks.
Who is it for?
- AI coding agents — read real implementations of auth, billing, and AI chat instead of inventing patterns; every recurring bug class is encoded as ESLint rules, banned-pattern scans, Convex validators, or CI regression guards.
- SaaS founders and developers — clone the template, run
bun run setupto rebrand, and launch a product with Free/Pro billing, quotas, admin panel, and localized copy without building those systems from scratch. - Teams shipping AI support features — reuse the Convex Agent and OpenRouter chat with file uploads and human handoff through a support dashboard.
What can you do with SaaS Starter?
- Indie hackers — launch a paid SaaS with Autumn/Stripe billing tiers, usage quotas, and user management without writing Stripe webhook handlers.
- AI-first product teams — ship a streaming AI support chat that triages questions, accepts image and PDF attachments, and escalates to humans through a support dashboard.
- Agencies — white-label the template for clients by replacing the logo, brand, company, and legal copy through the setup script.
How does SaaS Starter work?
After cloning the template with gh repo create, run bun install and bun run dev to boot a local Convex backend and SvelteKit dev server; sign in with the seeded admin account. The bun run setup script rebrands the project. Optional features (email, OAuth, billing, AI) activate by adding API keys to .env.convex.local, and preview deployments are created per branch with isolated Convex backends.
Pricing
The template is free and open-source under the MIT license, with base hosting on Cloudflare Workers or Vercel at $0. The built-in SaaS billing tiers are Free (3 community and 3 AI messages per month) and Pro at $10 per month with unlimited community chat and 500 AI messages per month; optional external services like Resend, OpenRouter, and PostHog require their own API keys.
FAQ
Is SaaS Starter free?
Yes. The template is MIT-licensed and free to use. Base hosting on Cloudflare Workers or Vercel costs $0; you only pay for optional third-party services you enable, such as email, AI model access, or analytics.
What tech stack does SaaS Starter use?
SvelteKit for the frontend, Convex for the backend and reactive queries, Better Auth for authentication, Tolgee for internationalization, Tailwind CSS and shadcn-svelte for styling, with Autumn/Stripe for billing and Resend for email.
Can I deploy SaaS Starter on Cloudflare Workers or Vercel?
Both platforms are supported, including per-branch preview deployments with isolated Convex backends. A self-hosted production option via Coolify is also documented.
Does SaaS Starter include an AI chatbot?
It includes an AI support chat built with Convex Agent and OpenRouter that streams responses token-by-token, accepts image and PDF uploads with canvas annotation, and hands off to human admins through a support dashboard.
How does SaaS Starter enforce code quality?
The codebase uses ESLint rules, banned-pattern scans, Convex validators, and a CI check that requires a regression guard on every fix PR. Pre-commit hooks run varlock secret scans and static checks on staged files.
