Contents
- Every standalone product build begins with the same infrastructure work: selecting a framework, setting up the development environment, building authentication, designing the database schema, creating admin interfaces, configuring API routing, and establishing a deployment pipeline.
- With a shared scaffold, new products skip the entire infrastructure layer.
Shared infrastructure saves 68% at 10 products compared to building each product from scratch. In Stealth Labz's documented portfolio, 10 products built on a shared scaffold cost approximately $26,000 in total external support. The same 10 products built independently -- each paying the full cold-start tax for frameworks, authentication, databases, admin tools, and deployment -- would have cost approximately $80,000. The savings grow with every additional product.
Why separate builds are so expensive
Every standalone product build begins with the same infrastructure work: selecting a framework, setting up the development environment, building authentication, designing the database schema, creating admin interfaces, configuring API routing, and establishing a deployment pipeline. According to a 2023 GoodFirms survey on web development costs, this foundational layer accounts for 30% to 50% of a typical project's total development budget.
That means nearly half the money spent on building a new product goes to infrastructure that is functionally identical to what was built for the last product. For a business entering multiple verticals or geographies, this repetition compounds into a significant drag on capital.
The cold-start tax per product, based on Stealth Labz's build data and industry benchmarks:
- Framework selection: 2-3 days
- Environment setup: 2-3 days
- Authentication build: 5-7 days
- Database design: 3-5 days
- Admin interface: 7-10 days
- API architecture: 3-5 days
- Deployment pipeline: 2-3 days
- Total before any product logic: 24-36 days and $5,000-$15,000
How shared infrastructure changes the math
With a shared scaffold, new products skip the entire infrastructure layer. Development begins at the business logic layer on day one. The scaffold deploys in hours. Vertical-specific configuration takes 1-2 days. Product-specific logic takes 3-7 days. Total: 4-9 days.
Here is the cumulative cost comparison from Stealth Labz's portfolio:
| Products Built | Separate Builds (est.) | Shared Scaffold (actual) | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ~$8,000 | ~$8,000 | 0% (building the scaffold) |
| 3 | ~$24,000 | ~$16,000 | 33% |
| 5 | ~$40,000 | ~$20,000 | 50% |
| 10 | ~$80,000 | ~$26,000 | 68% |
The first product carries the full investment. By the third product, you have already recouped a third of the scaffold cost. By the tenth, you are paying 32 cents on the dollar compared to building independently.
Beyond cost: the speed advantage
Cost savings are only half the picture. Build times compressed in parallel with costs:
- Early projects: 23-43 active development days
- Mid-stage projects: 11-28 days
- Late-stage projects: 4-9 days
The fastest scaffold deployment in the portfolio was 5 days for a reporting platform. The cheapest was $0 in external support costs. Both happened because the scaffold had been proven and deepened across prior deployments -- carrying battle-tested patterns with a 3.7% defect rate in the best-performing cluster.
Related: What percentage of software infrastructure transfers when you launch a new product vertical?
References
- GoodFirms (2023). "How Much Does Web Development Cost?" Survey data on foundational infrastructure as a percentage of total project budget.
- Keating, M.G. (2026). "Case Study: The Scaffold." Stealth Labz. Read case study
- Keating, M.G. (2026). "The Compounding Execution Method: Complete Technical Documentation." Stealth Labz. Browse papers