The Pre-Launch Checklist for SaaS Founders

Deciding when to launch MVP is one of the hardest calls a founder makes. Ship too early and you damage trust with users who encounter something broken. Ship too late and you have spent months building features nobody asked for.

The answer is usually to ship earlier than feels comfortable — but with a specific set of things working correctly. Not everything, not a polished v2, but the short list of things that actually matter for a first paying customer.

This checklist covers what that short list looks like in practice.

Authentication

Authentication is the foundation everything else depends on. Before you launch MVP, it needs to be solid — not just functional, but handling the real-world scenarios your first users will encounter.

Core auth flows

• Sign-up works end to end, including email verification
• Sign-in works with email/password
• Password reset works and the email arrives reliably
• OAuth sign-in (Google, GitHub, or whichever providers you support) works without errors
• Sign-out clears the session correctly on all devices

Auth edge cases

• Authenticated users trying to visit /sign-in are redirected away, not shown a login form
• Protected routes redirect unauthenticated users to sign-in rather than showing an error
• API routes return 401 for unauthenticated requests, not 500
• Sessions expire and refresh correctly without breaking the user experience
• Auth pages are excluded from your sitemap and set noindex

Why this matters before launch

The first thing a new user does is create an account. If that flow breaks — verification email does not arrive, OAuth errors out, the redirect after sign-in goes somewhere wrong — you have lost them before they have seen your product. Auth needs to work on the first try, every time.

Payments

If you are charging for your product, the payment flow is critical infrastructure. A broken checkout is a directly measurable revenue loss.

Checkout

• Checkout session creation works and redirects to Stripe's hosted checkout
• Test mode has been fully tested with Stripe's test card numbers
• Coupon and discount codes apply correctly if you are using them
• Automatic tax calculation is enabled or tax handling is explicitly decided
• Cancel URL takes users back somewhere sensible if they abandon checkout

Webhooks

• Webhook endpoint is live and reachable by Stripe
• Signature verification is implemented — never process unsigned webhook events
• Idempotency is handled — the same event processed twice should not cause duplicate fulfillment, duplicate emails, or double charges
• Webhook event logging is in place so you can investigate issues after the fact
• Webhook events tested locally using the Stripe CLI (stripe listen --forward-to localhost:3000/api/webhooks/stripe)

Order confirmation

• Order page shows the correct order state after checkout
• Session validation prevents anyone from accessing the order page with a fake or expired session ID
• Order confirmation email is sent reliably after successful payment

Why this matters before launch

A payment that fails silently, charges the customer but does not fulfill the order, or sends duplicate confirmation emails is a support nightmare and a trust problem. The webhook logic in particular needs to handle retries and edge cases before real money starts moving.

Email

Email is how you communicate with users at every important moment — welcome, purchase confirmation, password reset, notifications. It needs to work reliably and look professional.

Transactional email

• Welcome email sent after sign-up (if applicable)
• Order confirmation sent after successful purchase
• Password reset email arrives promptly and the link works
• From address is a real domain you own, not a generic sender
• Reply-to is set to an address you actually monitor
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC DNS records are configured for your sending domain
• Emails tested across major clients (Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail) for rendering

Deliverability basics

• Domain is warmed up with your email provider if you are starting from zero
• Emails are not landing in spam for test accounts on major providers
• Unsubscribe handling is in place for any marketing emails

Why this matters before launch

An order confirmation that lands in spam, or a password reset email that never arrives, is a support ticket within hours of your first user. Email deliverability issues are surprisingly common and surprisingly easy to prevent if you handle DNS setup correctly before launch.

Core Product Functionality

The actual product — whatever problem you are solving — needs to work for the most important use case. Not every use case. The one.

The primary workflow

• A user can complete the core workflow end to end without hitting an error
• The workflow works for a user who has just signed up, not just your test account
• Edge cases in the primary workflow are handled gracefully, not with a 500 error
• Data persists correctly across sessions and page refreshes

Error handling

• API errors return informative messages, not stack traces
• Frontend shows useful error states rather than blank screens or infinite spinners
• Form validation catches obvious mistakes before submission
• 404 and error pages are in place and styled

Why this matters before launch

Your MVP does not need to do everything. It needs to do one thing reliably. If the primary workflow breaks for a new user, the product does not exist for them. Get that workflow solid before anything else.

Infrastructure and Performance

Your infrastructure does not need to be perfectly optimized at launch, but it needs to be stable and fast enough to not embarrass you.

Deployment

• Production deployment is separate from development — no deploying from localhost
• Environment variables are set in your hosting provider, not in committed .env files
• Environment variables are validated at build time — missing keys fail the build, not the runtime
• Custom domain is configured with SSL
• Deployment pipeline triggers on push to main — no manual deploys

Database

• Production database is separate from development
• Database migrations have been applied to production
• Connection pooling is configured for your serverless environment
• Backups are enabled on your database provider

Monitoring

• Error monitoring is in place — you will find out about crashes before users report them
• Analytics is set up so you can see what users do after launch
• Uptime monitoring alerts you if the site goes down

Why this matters before launch

Manual deployments, shared dev/prod databases, and no error monitoring are fine for prototypes. For a product with paying customers, you need to know when something breaks before a user tells you, and you need confidence that a deployment will not corrupt your data.

Legal and Compliance

Legal pages are not exciting, but they are required to operate a product that collects user data and processes payments.

Required pages

• Privacy Policy is published and linked in the footer
• Terms of Service (or Terms and Conditions) is published and linked in the footer
• Cookie banner or consent mechanism is in place if you are operating under GDPR
• Privacy Policy accurately describes what data you collect and how you use it

Payment compliance

• Checkout includes a reference to your Terms of Service
• Refund policy is clearly stated somewhere accessible
• Stripe account is fully verified and not in restricted mode

Why this matters before launch

A product with a payment flow but no Terms of Service creates legal exposure. A product collecting user data without a Privacy Policy is non-compliant under GDPR, CCPA, and most other privacy regulations. These pages also build trust — a user who cannot find a privacy policy before entering their payment details will often not enter their payment details.

SEO and Discoverability

You do not need to rank for anything on day one, but a few basic SEO fundamentals are worth getting right before you launch.

Technical SEO basics

• Every page has a unique <title> and <meta description>
• Open Graph tags are set for social sharing previews
• Sitemap is generated and submitted to Google Search Console
• robots.txt is in place and excludes auth pages, admin routes, and private content
• Canonical URLs are set correctly, especially for paginated or filtered content

Content

• The homepage clearly communicates what the product does and who it is for
• Blog or content section exists — even one post is better than none for launch
• Landing page copy passes the "what, for whom, why" test in the first two sentences

Why this matters before launch

SEO is a long game, but the fundamentals take an hour to get right and compound over time. A sitemap submitted on launch day starts building crawl history immediately. Open Graph tags make social sharing look intentional rather than broken. These are low-effort, high-value items to tick off before you start driving traffic.

Pre-Launch Testing

Before you open the product to the public, run through it as a new user would.

The new user test

• Create a new account with a fresh email address you have not used before
• Complete the primary workflow from start to finish
• Complete a test purchase using Stripe's test card numbers
• Check that confirmation emails arrive correctly
• Try to access a protected route while signed out
• Try to access the order page with a fake session ID
• Check the site on a mobile device

Cross-browser and device testing

• Tested on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox
• Tested on iOS Safari (a common source of auth and form issues)
• Tested on a slow connection or with network throttling enabled

Why this matters before launch

Your test account has permissions, data, and session state that a real new user will not have. The new user test catches the category of bugs that only appear when someone is starting from zero — missing setup steps, broken onboarding flows, redirects that work for you but not for them.

The Launch Mindset

A checklist can tell you what to build. It cannot tell you when good enough is good enough.

The goal of launching an MVP is not to ship something perfect. It is to ship something real enough that users can engage with it and give you signal. Every item on this list is necessary for that goal. Nothing on this list is sufficient by itself.

When you can go through this list and honestly check each item, you are ready to launch MVP. Not because everything is perfect, but because the things that would embarrass you in front of a paying customer are handled.

Ship it. Then fix what breaks next.