MVP Examples You Can Inspect: Four Built Here With Prompt, Cost and Output, and the Famous Three Traced to a Source

Every list of MVP examples tells the same three stories and pads to twenty with the author's client work. This page has two kinds of example and labels them. Four MVPs built on Lovable from prompts on this site, with the prompt, the credits read from the billing page and the output shown. And the famous three, each traced to the best source we could read the day this was written, including one for which no company page tells the story at all.

Updated 26 September 2026

Four MVPs built here, with what each cost and taught

All four were pasted into Lovable as one message each, in Marco's personal workspace, with the credit balance read before and after. Total: 26.2 credits.

Credits per example, read from the billing page on the day of each run

Credits per example, read from the billing page on the day of each run
Category	credits
Landing page with email opt-in	1.8 (2026-07-31)
States gallery for a UI	9.5 (2026-09-26)
SaaS foundation	10.4 (2026-09-26)
SaaS landing page, six sections	4.5 (2026-09-26)

src/data/runs.ts and src/data/saasLandingPrompt.ts, composed at build time.

The four examples, 26 September 2026
	What came back	What it taught	Prompt
Landing page with email opt-in (1.8 credits, 2026-07-31)	One round, all five priority features, inline success state, Cloud enabled	One prompt with five priority features produced all five in one round; the cheapest way to test an offer is a page that stores the email with its source.	Open
States gallery for a UI (9.5 credits, 2026-09-26)	Asked 2 questions, built a /states gallery and a task list, verified slow load, failure and retry	The builder asked two questions before writing code; an MVP that specifies its empty, loading and error states costs more credits and fewer support emails.	Open
SaaS foundation (10.4 credits, 2026-09-26)	Asked 4 questions, enabled Cloud, self-tested sign-up and invites, roles checked in the database	Four questions first, then a self-tested invite flow with roles checked in the database; the most upvoted prompt on the site is also the one whose safeguards cost the most to honour.	Open
SaaS landing page, six sections (4.5 credits, 2026-09-26)	Five pre-build questions including a rendered design picker, six minutes to a preview, server-rendered with FAQ schema and one CTA type	The page is the MVP of the MVP: it exists to count sign-ups against visitors before the product earns its billing.	Open

Landing page with email opt-in: 1.8 credits

One prompt with five priority features produced all five in one round; the cheapest way to test an offer is a page that stores the email with its source.

States gallery for a UI: 9.5 credits

The states gallery built from the empty-states prompt: the error state with a retry — States gallery for a UI, built 2026-09-26 for 9.5 credits. Asked 2 questions, built a /states gallery and a task list, verified slow load, failure and retry.

The builder asked two questions before writing code; an MVP that specifies its empty, loading and error states costs more credits and fewer support emails.

SaaS foundation: 10.4 credits

The Cadence SaaS foundation in Lovable's preview after the build — SaaS foundation, built 2026-09-26 for 10.4 credits. Asked 4 questions, enabled Cloud, self-tested sign-up and invites, roles checked in the database.

Four questions first, then a self-tested invite flow with roles checked in the database; the most upvoted prompt on the site is also the one whose safeguards cost the most to honour.

SaaS landing page, six sections: 4.5 credits

The SaaS landing page built from the six-section prompt, in the preview — SaaS landing page, six sections, built 2026-09-26 for 4.5 credits. Five pre-build questions including a rendered design picker, six minutes to a preview, server-rendered with FAQ schema and one CTA type.

The page is the MVP of the MVP: it exists to count sign-ups against visitors before the product earns its billing.

The famous three, traced to a source

Airbnb, Dropbox and Zappos appear on every MVP list, almost never with a link. Here is what we could read on 26 September 2026, and what we could not.

Three canonical MVP stories and their provenance, read 26 September 2026
	The story as usually told	What the source says	Status
Airbnb	Two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home in 2007; the site launched at SXSW in March 2008 with two bookings and got 80 during the Democratic National Convention that August.	“Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home.” (Airbnb newsroom, About us timeline)	Company page
Dropbox	A three-minute demo video, released before the product, moved the beta waiting list from 5,000 to 75,000 people overnight, per Drew Houston.	“Our beta waiting list went from 5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight.” (Eric Ries in TechCrunch, 19 October 2011, quoting Drew Houston)	Founder quote, secondary page
Zappos	The story every list repeats: in 1999 Nick Swinmurn photographed shoes in local stores, posted them online, and bought each pair at retail when someone ordered.	“Founded in 1999, we built our reputation on exceptional service.” (zappos.com/about, read the same day, says only that the company was founded in 1999)	Not found on a company page

Two of three hold up in the form the lists tell them. The third is not false; it is unsourced on the company's own site, and the page says so instead of repeating it as fact. An MVP story is itself a claim someone should have validated.

What do the top results for this term leave out?

Appetiser, 20 MVP examples. About 8,500 words, updated 24 July 2026; fifteen retold stories with press links and five of the agency's own client builds, no costs; the CTA is a consultation.
Purrweb, Top 15 MVP examples. About 3,500 words, updated 30 April 2026; no primary sources; no first-party build with a cost; the CTA is an estimate.
Atlassian, What is an MVP. A definition page; the article body was not readable through our fetch, so it is listed, not characterised.

What we did not publish

Twenty examples. Four were built and measured; three were traced. Padding the count with client work or retold stories is what the ranking pages do.
Outcomes for the four. None has users; they are starting points with a cost, not businesses with a result.
Uber, Spotify, Amazon and the rest of the usual list. We did not trace them today, so they are not here.

Sources

All read on 26 September 2026. Own examples composed in src/data/mvpExamples.ts from the run files; the famous three with their URLs in the same file.

Frequently asked

What are good MVP examples?↓

Ones you can inspect. Four on this page were built on Lovable from prompts on this site, 26.2 credits in total, with the prompt, the cost read from the billing page and the output shown. The famous three, Airbnb, Dropbox and Zappos, are here too, each with the best source we could read on 26 September 2026: Airbnb's own newsroom timeline, Drew Houston quoted by Eric Ries in TechCrunch, and for Zappos a company page that says only that it was founded in 1999.

Is the Dropbox video story true?↓

The figure is Drew Houston's, quoted by Eric Ries in TechCrunch on 19 October 2011: the beta waiting list went from 5,000 to 75,000 overnight after a three-minute demo video. It is a founder's account in a secondary source; Dropbox's own about page today says only that Houston co-founded the company in 2007.

Is the Zappos shoe-photo story sourced?↓

Not on a Zappos page we could read today. The about page says the company was founded in 1999 and nothing about photographing shoes in stores. The story is repeated on every MVP list; this page keeps it, labelled as unverified on a company page, rather than dropping it or asserting it.

What did your own MVPs cost?↓

Landing page with email opt-in 1.8 credits, states gallery 9.5, SaaS foundation 10.4, SaaS landing page 4.5: 26.2 credits across four builds, each read from the billing page on the day. On a $25 Pro plan that includes 100 credits, that is a quarter of a month's allowance for four working starting points.

What did you learn from them?↓

That the builder asks questions when the prompt tells it to, and the answers shape the build more than the prompt does; that specifying states costs credits up front and saves them later; and that a landing page is the cheapest MVP because it measures demand before the product has to.

Can I reuse these as starting points?↓

Each example links to the page with its prompt. The landing page and SaaS prompts are in the library; the states prompt is in the UI category; the six-section landing page prompt has its own page. The SaaS starter kit adds the schema with row-level security and the queries that prove it.