# Headless SaaS

URL: /products/templates/headless-saas · Id: `productTemplate:headless-saas`

> Headless SaaS sells Software with no App of its own: Customers and their Agents use it through the API, MCP server, SDK, and CLI.

Headless SaaS sells [Software](/business/nouns/software) with no [App](/business/nouns/app) of its own: [Customers](/business/nouns/customer) and their [Agents](/business/nouns/agent) use it through the API, MCP server, SDK, and CLI. Breaking changes ship only in a new [Version](/business/nouns/version).

## The business
| Line | Default |
| --- | --- |
| Earns | `usage` |
| Typical Prices | $0.01 per call; $99 a month for 25,000 calls |
| First revenue on | A [Demand Budget](/business/nouns/demand-budget) of $0 |
| Supply | `digital`: Agents do the work |
| Motions | [b2d](/business/motions/b2d), [b2b](/business/motions/b2b), [b2a](/business/motions/b2a), [b2a2b](/business/motions/b2a2b) |
| One metric per state | Idea: [Problem interviews](/agents/founding#problem-interviews); Building: [Committed ICP members](/agents/founding#committed-icp-members); Live: [Outside paying Customers](/agents/founding#outside-paying-customers); Repeatable: [Logo churn](/agents/customer#logo-churn); Scale: [Net revenue retention](/agents/customer#net-revenue-retention) |
| Seed Plays | [Agent registries](/workflows/plays/agent-registries), [Launch sites](/workflows/plays/launch-sites), [Community answers](/workflows/plays/community-answers) |
| Compounding Plays | [Developer relations](/workflows/plays/developer-relations), [Integration partners](/workflows/plays/integration-partners), [Answer engine optimization](/workflows/plays/aeo) |

| Offer | Price | Features | Limits | At its bound | On sale |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pay as you go (`pay-as-you-go`) | $0.01 per call, billed monthly | [Collection.query](/business/nouns/collection/query) | None. | None. | Always |
| Growth (`growth`) | $99 a month | [Collection.export](/business/nouns/collection/export) | [Collection.query](/business/nouns/collection/query): 25,000 a calendar month | `overage` | Always |

An Entitlement bounded by a Limit has `kind` `limit`; one without has `kind` `feature`. The `kind` is computed, never set.

| `atBound` | A call past the Limit |
| --- | --- |
| `overage` | Allowed: each unit past the Limit is billed through the Meter. |

[Offer.publish](/business/nouns/offer/publish) puts each Offer on every buy surface: `checkout`, `paymentLink`, `pricingTable`, `portalEntry`, `mcpBuyTool`, `http402`.

## Adds
| Kind | Item | From |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Built from | [Dataset API](/products/templates/dataset-api) | This template |

## Wakes
- [Product definition](/workflows/processes/product-definition)
- [Release](/workflows/processes/release)
- [Incident response](/workflows/processes/incident-response)

## Staffing
- [Engineering Lead](/agents/engineering/engineering-lead)
- [Reliability Engineer](/agents/engineering/reliability-engineer)

## Floor
- [Breach](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor/breach)

## Controls
- [Vulnerability management](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/vulnerability-management)
- [Deploy reconciliation](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/deploy-reconciliation)
- [Anomaly monitoring](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/anomaly-monitoring)
- [Incident handling](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/incident-handling)
- [Revert by query](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/revert-by-query)
- [Breach notification](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/breach-notification)
- [Change approval](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/change-approval)
- [Environment separation](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/environment-separation)
- [Capacity headroom](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/capacity-headroom)
- [Point-in-time recovery](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/point-in-time-recovery)
- [Processing definitions](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/processing-definitions)
- [Input validation](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/input-validation)
- [Purpose limitation](/systems/trust-and-governance/controls/purpose-limitation)

## Builders
- [SoftwareBuilder](/code/builders/software)
- [SalesBuilder](/code/builders/sales)

## Next
- [SaaS](/products/templates/saas)
- [Agent as a Service](/products/templates/agent-as-a-service)
- [Dropship store](/products/templates/dropship-store)
- [Autonomous data API](/start/templates/autonomous-data-api)
- [Solo SaaS](/start/templates/solo-saas)

## Example
A [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) sells invoice parsing: a Customer posts a PDF and gets structured line items back at $0.01 a page. Accounting tools build it into their own Apps, and Agents call it over MCP.