Mahat Business Action (MBA)
Pricing Model

A revolutionary approach to software development pricing

Introduction to Mahat Business Action (MBA)

Mahat revolutionizes software development pricing through its Mahat Business Action (MBA) model, a standardized unit to measure application size and cost. An MBA represents a business operation performed on business objects within an app, such as:

  • Basic actions: Create, Modify, Remove, View.
  • Advanced operations: Approve/Reject, Assign/Reassign, State-Change actions.

This approach replaces complex metrics like functional points or user stories with a transparent, value-based pricing structure because:

The real worth of a software application is only as much as the Business Actions that it helps accomplish effectively.

Mahat Pricing Model

There are two platform related price components:

1. MBA Cost

Number of MBAs × $150

2. Platform Subscription Cost*

10% of MBA Cost for a period of 12 months.

*Platform Subscription Cost (PSC):

Mahat App-Generator is a SaaS Platform hosted on the cloud. For a customer to be able to develop an application using Mahat App-Generator (by themselves or through a service provider or through Mahat itself), the platform needs to be hosted and maintained along with the data and meta-data of the application.

PSC is the cost we have arrived based on our calculation of the average cost we incur related to our cloud and maintenance expenditure during the development of a mid-size application (< 200 MBAs). Platform usage (number of users, storage, previews etc) will be restricted to what is required for a mid-size application.

Example: Inventory Management Application

An Inventory Management Application is estimated to have 200 MBAs.
So, to develop this application, the customer buys a "200 Action Pack"

  1. MBA Cost: 200 MBAs × $150 = $30,000
  2. PSC: 10% of $30,000 = $3000 per year. It will be $250/month. If the project is finished in 2 months, the PSC Cost would be $250 × 2 = $500.

Total Platform Cost = MBA Cost + PSC Cost: $30,000 + $500 = $30,500

Note 1: If the customer wants to add more features to the same application or wants to create another application, they can top-up MBAs by buying another Action Pack. The PSC for this Action Pack will be calculated in the same way as it is shown in the example above.

Note 2: Development costs, that is, the human resource costs for configurations, customization and maintenance will depend on who develops the application and its size and complexity. So, this will vary on a project-by-project basis.

Key Advantages of MBA Pricing

1 Simplicity

Single-unit pricing eliminates ambiguity. Non-technical users can easily calculate MBAs of an application (e.g., "Add Customer" = 1 MBA).

2 Predictability

No hidden fees; costs scale linearly with app complexity.

Cost Comparison: MBA vs. Traditional Models

Metric Traditional Models Mahat MBA Model
Pricing Units Functional points, User Stories, Screens, APIs, etc. Business actions (MBAs)
Cost Transparency Low (multiple variables) High (fixed per MBA)
Development Time Months Weeks
Ownership Platform lock-in risks and additional costs for Run Time Environment (RTE). 100% source code ownership. No RTE, no additional cost.