It is not easy to build Software as a Product (SaaS). You must consider here several things like the challenges associated with the SaaS product development as well as the development architecture that you choose for the same. Many of the developers try to put an end to all the issues by choosing a framework that can thoroughly power the SaaS product. Even though the decision may seem to be minor, but, it dramatically influences the capabilities and features of the SaaS product and also determines the scope and boundaries that it will have.
It has been seen that over the years, Laravel has been considered as one of the favorite choices when it comes to building Laravel SaaS projects. The kind of products which are high in performance-focused on reaching a large number of users and comes with several features.
So before we get any further, let’s try to know the two technical terms first.
Software as a Services(SaaS)
SaaS is a software distribution model where the users use the software and interact with it directly over the internet. Most such software solutions need not be downloaded, and users can simply access them online over the internet by reaching it and get the full value of it. If we look at the revenue generation and pricing aspects of SaaS products, there are just a few in the market that are of one-time sale while; the rest of them bring in recurring revenue to the business.
SaaS products are said to be offering pricing models that fit all kinds of the budget when we consider the end-users. Here the users need to pay an initial down payment, and after that, they just need to go for the options like the fixed volume of service they intend to used or on a per-user basis. Only by paying an extra nominal amount, users can go for some additional products or services.
When we consider SaaS in terms of developers, it simplifies product development and deployment for them. Here the development model is distributed, and this seamlessly streamlines the product deployment. Here the standard product deployment processes are considered and followed once the product development phase is completed. If the product goes under some update in the form of adding a new feature or something else, the deployment on the original server only takes place for the component which is revised. So now, the users just have to re-login to the software product, and they will be able to find the new features there.
Knowing Laravel
Laravel is an MVC framework that is used for web artisans. It offers a system that the developers can use to save their time and effort that needs to be spent on developing the product from the ground. It comes with an easy to understand scalable structure which can be used by developers to write sophisticated codes. Laravel comes with a number of built-in components and functions which help the developers to get done with the development task within a very less amount of time.
When it comes to building web apps, Laravel can be considered as a smart option. It is free, open-source, and easily accessible. While building web apps, developers need to develop features like authentication, navigation, security, routing, caching, password hasting, and sessions. With Laravel, you are saved from working on all these from scratch, as you can get done with them within a few lines of code. For the developers, it quickly takes care of things like building eCommerce modules, database migration, unit tests, and permissions.
Why is Laravel Considered as a Good Fit for SaaS?
Multi-user apps that reach to a wide range of users and offer them different features are what Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is all about. SaaS products are used to develop better applications out of the existing ones, which make use of the features of SaaS products to help online businesses add value to it.
It is not that easy to build SaaS applications in the right manner, and so many are interested in learning to do it right. You can go for Laravel to make your SaaS applications in the perfect way as it comes with all the components that you need to develop modules for payment, subscriptions, and admin dashboards.
The functionalities for the Laravel SaaS product like deal based offers, full users, and free trials, gets simplified by the use of this framework. Moreover, you can make use of Laravel to build SaaS products that are capable enough to serve thousands of products because the structure offers extensibility and robustness.
Laravel is customizable
is considered to be an ideal option for the larger development teams, and it simplifies the application architecture. The development team can simply concentrate on customizing the features of the product without having to worry about code maintenance issues as it makes use of Git, a version control system.
Applications come with separate models, views, and controllers because of the followed MVC model. This means the developers can work on them individually in a manner that will not disturb the design and components that are present in the application.
It also brings on table optimization. With Laravel, you will get to enjoy pre-optimized features like routes caching, internal caching system, CDN, eager loading, JIT compiler, and modification. Now developers can easily add value to the SaaS product by optimizing all these mentioned components using custom codes.
Laravel offers support of Modular App Structure
follows the MVC framework and so it helps in building modules for different features, which can then be combined into the main application later. Say, for example, you are planning to host a contest on your eCommerce store, then you can get a module developed for the same. The module can then be plugged into the eCommerce app. Later, once the contest gets over, you can simply unplug the blade from the main application or disable it.
It helps with third-party tool integration
it comes to building Laravel SaaS apps; developers are concerned about connecting different third APIs which work together in sync and come up with data views for the users. Choosing Laravel to get rid of all the complexities that come up with API connection and management is a good idea. This becomes possible as it comes with a simple API management process.
Some key examples of Laravel-based SaaS solutions
Here in this article, we have seen some of the critical reasons why Laravel is good when it comes to developing SaaS products. Now it is time that we check out some of the live examples of SaaS products that are powered by Laravel.
Laravel Spark
is very crucial for different features of SaaS products like subscription, billing, invoicing, and team management. Laravel offers a package which can help with scaffolding. Another important thing that you need to know about Laravel Spark is that it takes care of different security features present within the application like password resets, authentication, 2FA, and profile pictures.
Laravel Envoyer
benefits that come to the project because of continuous deployment reach the developer through Envoyer. Connect your hosting servers to GitHub, and after commits, move the files in there.
Technologies which needs to be used to build SaaS with Laravel
Generally, there are three architectural components in SaaS products. They are the frontend, the stack, and the backend. These three components have the features and business logic set. Now when we look at the things from the end-users’ point, they don’t see all these things; instead, all that they see is a dashboard and some features which they can use for the business.
You can have a number of frontend and backend frameworks used to develop SaaS products. You can have any number of packages and libraries used in your project to offer specialized services, and this makes it a challenge for the developers to choose from the available options. Something that you will get to enjoy when using Laravel is the native support in terms of packages and frameworks.
Performance and optimization issues often come with scalable applications. If the number of users on the app increases exponentially, then chances are more than either the application may slow down or it can break down. So to deal with such performance issues, the developers of SaaS products should try to come up with solutions that are based on Cluster, Kubernetes, and Docker.
Laravel SaaS with Single Window view
To understand better why Laravel and SaaS products go hand-in-hand, let’s consider the dashboard –one of the main aspects which are shared across different SaaS products.
When it comes to SaaS product design, dashboards are considered as a very crucial element. A dashboard is used to display all the information from different areas of the application architecture. In the majority of the cases, the dashboard offers options and settings which are needed to use the SaaS product.
Revenues from Laravel and SaaS
For all SaaS product operations, taxes play a vital role.
As per a study conducted by Gartner, it has been said that the earnings from SaaS products are expected to reach $85 billion in 2019, and by 2021 the cloud application services (SaaS) is expected to reach 113.1 billion.
All SaaS revenue models are supported by Laravel
is said to be supporting a wide range of revenue models and so it is quite better on this front. It can offer you a flat pricing model to pricing model based on per-user resource consumption. You will be able to have SaaS products available with different revenue generation models and ideas.
you need to be clear that SaaS products are specifically focused on building recurring revenue generation for the business. Some SaaS products come with single flat pricing, but most of the SaaS products follow a subscription-based revenue model, which will keep on bringing regular revenue to the business. This will help the company to sustain as well as collect regular feedback for continuous improvements in the product. This way, a new idea can be put up-front to attract and satisfy the users.
SaaS revenue processing is simplified by Laravel
it comes to building SaaS products, Laravel is considered as the ideal framework, and it is because of the ease it offers in adding components for collection and processing to the platform. You can come up with a payment collection module of your own, but then, there is no meaning in spending time, effort, and money on building something which is already present out there.
It can have a revenue collection product component, which is subscription-based, set up for your business by going for the package named Laravel Cashier. This is simple to set up yet very powerful. It can be considered as a perfect option for coupons, for collecting a subscription-based model for recurring revenues and standard subscription management options. It helps you have your SaaS products the option to build customized payment collection models that can be used for recurring revenue models as well as for flat pricing ones. It is an end-to-end recurring revenue collection and process management component which comes with capabilities for normal user management and digital invoicing.
Hosting Solution of SaaS products built on Laravel
The success of the product, in the long run, is determined by the answer which hosts SaaS products. It can be easy to sell out the products for the first time but, whether you will be able to have increased market share or not, or will be able to get sustained revenue out of it or not, clearly depends on the performance of the product.
You need to be very considerate about the hosting solution that is used to power your SaaS products. Cloud hosting is said to be offering the best solution for SaaS products when you consider the ratio between the cost and benefits. Going for dedicated servers can be quite expensive, while the shared hosting solutions will not offer you all the required features.
Managed hosting as a solution
we can say that for the SaaS product development teams, managed hosting proves to be a critically right solution. Such solutions are focused on offering optimal performance as they are built on IaaS providers that are leading in the industry. Here in the case of the managed hosting provider, the provisioned cloud server has an added custom layer that takes care of most of the server management tasks.
A variety of feature sets comes with managed hosting providers. Some such features are stack upgrades, server provisioning, the security of the server, and server management.
Managed cloud hosting is opted by the SaaS developers. They don’t have to worry about server-level maintenance tasks. Here they can entirely focus on component and application layer integration.
Challenges that come with server management
management is an essential aspect for SaaS products in terms of maintenance activity and product development as they are live on servers. This is a common complaint that we constantly get from SaaS product developers because instead of focusing more on developing SaaS products, they end up spending time on server management.
the developed product is tested in the local environment. You can move it to the live server. Once the deployment gets finished, the SaaS product becomes available to the general users. To achieve smooth operations for the product, the developers need to remove all kinds of package dependencies and match versions.
the product goes live in the market. The development team remains distracted with the issues arising with infrastructure management rather than putting their efforts in feature improvements and product enhancements.
Wrapping it up
The way users will continue to use software products in the present scenario as well as in the future, is clearly defined by SaaS. To come up with SaaS products that are well equipped with features and are easy-to-use, it is important that developers need to make use of the best technology framework and choose the best feature list.
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