Dev estimates AI-assisted enterprise SaaS still needs 18,000 hours vs 26,000 human-only
ucx98 · reddit · 2026-11-16
A Reddit developer building an enterprise SaaS that integrates AI agents shared a detailed scoping exercise: 4 core apps, 6 shared cloud services, 16 additional capabilities, resolved into 12 component groups covering 158 logical components and 880 use cases.
- Human-only development is estimated at 26,000 hours; AI-assisted at 18,000 — nearly 10x his original hope of 1,500–2,000 hours
- Phased plan: 7,000 hours for MVP, plus 5,000 and 6,000 hours for phases 2 and 3
- He already cut 25% of deliverables, but many components involve domain-specific tech he doesn't yet understand well enough to estimate
- He expects AI overestimates effort and that testing/integration by humans will be the real bottleneck, and asks for advice before deeper feasibility work
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