ShipFast vs Indie Starter vs Supastarter 2026

TL;DR

Three popular indie-hacker-oriented SaaS boilerplates in 2026, three distinct philosophies:

• ShipFast ($199–299) — B2C speed champion, Marc Lou's own kit, 7,500+ community
• Indie Starter ($49–99) — budget-first, solid basics, smaller community
• Supastarter ($299) — most features, B2B-ready, multi-tenancy and organizations baked in

Pick ShipFast for your first B2C product. Pick Supastarter if you need teams/organizations. Pick Indie Starter if budget is your primary constraint.

Feature Comparison

Feature	ShipFast	Indie Starter	Supastarter
Price	$199–299	$49–99	$299
Auth: email	✅	✅	✅
Auth: OAuth	✅ Google, GitHub	✅ Google	✅ Google, GitHub, more
Auth: magic link	✅	❌	✅
Auth: OTP	❌	❌	✅
Stripe	✅	✅	✅
LemonSqueezy	✅	❌	✅
Multi-tenancy	❌	❌	✅
Admin panel	❌	❌	✅
i18n	❌	❌	✅ (7+ languages)
MDX Blog	✅	❌	✅
Landing page	✅ Complete	Basic	✅ Complete
Discord community	7,500+	500+	2,500+
SEO helpers	✅	Basic	✅

ShipFast — Speed and Community

Price: $199 (Starter) / $299 (All-in) | Created by: Marc Lou

ShipFast has one quality that no competitor can copy: Marc Lou ships real products with it. 12+ products at last count — Zenvoice, MakeLanding, PopularAI, and others. The template is shaped by pain points discovered while actually shipping.

The "ship in a weekend" promise is real for the right product. What ShipFast gives you out of the box:

// ShipFast covers your weekend launch checklist:
//
// auth/         → NextAuth with Google + GitHub OAuth
// libs/stripe/  → Checkout sessions + subscription management
// libs/mail/    → Resend transactional email
// components/   → Hero, Features, Pricing, Testimonials, FAQ
// app/blog/     → MDX blog with dynamic routes
// app/api/auth/ → Auth.js route handler
// public/       → Open Graph images, favicon sets

The biggest advantage beyond features: the community. 7,500+ Discord members means when you're debugging a Stripe webhook at midnight, someone in #help has seen that exact error. For solo founders, this community support is worth more than any feature.

ShipFast supports both MongoDB and Supabase Postgres as the database (you choose at project creation). It also supports both Stripe and LemonSqueezy — the LemonSqueezy option matters for non-US founders who need a merchant of record to handle international VAT automatically.

What it doesn't have: multi-tenancy, admin dashboard, i18n, role-based permissions. For B2C products this is fine. For B2B products where companies buy seats, you'll need to build these yourself or switch boilerplates.

Choose ShipFast if: B2C SaaS, solo founder, launching fast is the priority, want the best community.

Indie Starter — Budget-First Option

Price: $49 (Starter) / $99 (Pro) | Stack: Next.js + Prisma + Stripe

Indie Starter is the budget pick. At $49–99, it covers the essentials without charging $199+ for them: NextAuth with Google OAuth, Stripe subscriptions, basic email with Resend, Prisma for the database, and shadcn/ui components.

// Indie Starter Stripe integration — basic but functional:
export async function createCheckout(priceId: string, userId: string) {
  const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
    mode: 'subscription',
    line_items: [{ price: priceId, quantity: 1 }],
    success_url: `${process.env.NEXTAUTH_URL}/dashboard?success=true`,
    cancel_url: `${process.env.NEXTAUTH_URL}/pricing`,
    metadata: { userId },
  });
  return session.url;
}

What it lacks vs. ShipFast: LemonSqueezy support, magic link auth, the landing page components library, MDX blog, and the community size. The Stripe integration is functional but doesn't cover customer portal or subscription management UI.

The community gap is real. 500+ Discord members vs. 7,500+ means support is slower and community-contributed documentation is sparse. For a solo founder's first SaaS, that community support gap might cost more time than the $150 price difference saves.

Choose Indie Starter if: Primary constraint is budget, building a simple B2C app, and the smaller community tradeoff is acceptable.

Supastarter — Most Complete

Price: $299 (Next.js) / $349 (Next.js + Nuxt) | Created by: Jan Hesters

Supastarter is the most feature-complete of these three. The differentiation is what it includes that the others don't: multi-tenancy, admin panel, i18n, per-seat billing, and 5 payment providers.

Organizations and multi-tenancy are the big ones. If your SaaS sells to teams — companies that need to invite colleagues, manage roles, and see team-level billing — Supastarter saves 3–4 weeks of development:

// Supastarter organization invite — complete flow pre-built:
export async function inviteMember({
  email,
  organizationId,
  role,
}: InviteMemberParams) {
  // 1. Check inviter has permission
  const hasPermission = await checkOrgPermission(organizationId, 'invite_members');
  if (!hasPermission) throw new Error('Forbidden');

  // 2. Create invitation record
  await db.invitations.create({
    email,
    organizationId,
    role,
    token: generateToken(),
    expiresAt: new Date(Date.now() + 7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000),
  });

  // 3. Send invitation email
  await sendInviteEmail({ email, organizationId });
}

The admin panel (user management, organization list, subscription status) and the waitlist feature (collect emails pre-launch, import to billing) are both genuinely useful for solo B2B founders.

At $299 — the same price as Makerkit's core — you get more features, though Makerkit's plugin architecture and code quality are arguably superior. Compare this directly in ShipFast vs Makerkit vs Supastarter.

Choose Supastarter if: B2B SaaS, need multi-tenancy from day one, want the most complete feature set at a single flat price.

Pricing Reality

Scenario	ShipFast Cost	Indie Starter Cost	Supastarter Cost
B2C MVP launch	$199	$49	$299 (overkill)
B2B with teams	$199 + 3 weeks dev	$49 + 4 weeks dev	$299 flat
Non-US (VAT/tax)	$199 (LS support)	$49 (no LS)	$299 (Paddle support)
International (i18n)	$199 + dev time	$49 + dev time	$299 flat

Supastarter's flat $299 wins on total cost for B2B because multi-tenancy is included. For B2C, ShipFast wins on features-per-dollar and community.

Auth Comparison

Auth Feature	ShipFast	Indie Starter	Supastarter
Email + Password	✅	✅	✅
Google OAuth	✅	✅	✅
GitHub OAuth	✅	❌	✅
Magic Link	✅	❌	✅
OTP	❌	❌	✅
SSR pattern	Auth.js or Supabase	Auth.js	@supabase/ssr ✅
RLS pre-written	❌	❌	✅

Supastarter has the deepest auth: OTP support is unique among these three, and the Row Level Security policies pre-written for all tables mean your data security lives at the database level, not just in application code.

Decision Framework

You're a solo founder launching a B2C product this weekend: → ShipFast. The community support during launch will save you more stress than any feature comparison.

Your budget is genuinely limited and you're just validating: → Indie Starter at $49, or T3 Stack for free. Don't spend $299 on a boilerplate before you've validated your idea.

You're building B2B where companies need accounts with teams: → Supastarter. The multi-tenancy alone is worth the $299.

You've launched once before and want architectural quality: → Consider Makerkit — same price tier as Supastarter with better code architecture.

Browse all three in detail on StarterPick: ShipFast, Supastarter, or see the full $0–300 boilerplate comparison.