US APP TEAM

Free Tools MVP Scope Planner

MVP Scope Planner

Turn a messy feature list into what ships first - free, instant, no signup.

Almost every app idea starts as a list of features that all feel essential. That is exactly how launches slip - a "minimum" viable product quietly grows a login system, a chat feature, a rewards program and a dozen other things nobody asked for on day one.

This planner makes you score each feature on two things that actually decide build order: how much it matters to users, and how much it costs to build. It sorts the results into three honest buckets - ship now, fast-follow, and later - and lets you flag anything that is genuinely non-negotiable regardless of score.

Everything runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and there is no email box anywhere on this page.

Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and there is no email box on this page. Close the tab and it is gone.

Your feature list

How the scoring works

  • Every feature scores impact ÷ effort (Low/Medium/High = 1/2/3, Small/Medium/Large = 1/2/3). Higher scores ship sooner.
  • A feature checked “Required to launch” skips scoring entirely and always lands in the MVP bucket.
  • The suggested tier totals the effort points of everything in your MVP bucket and maps that to our own pricing - it is a starting point, not a quote.

Watch: how to use this tool

How to use it

  1. Start from the example feature list, or clear it and add your own with "+ Add feature".
  2. For each feature, rate its impact on users (Low, Medium, High) and the effort to build it (Small, Medium, Large).
  3. Check "Required to launch" for anything the app cannot function without, like account creation - it skips scoring and goes straight into the MVP.
  4. Read the three buckets: Ship in v1 (MVP), Fast-follow (v1.1), and Later / backlog.
  5. Check the suggested starting tier at the bottom, based on how much your MVP bucket actually costs to build.

Questions

How does the planner decide what's in the MVP?
Every feature gets a score of impact divided by effort - a simple bang-for-the-buck ratio, using the same logic behind ICE and RICE prioritization frameworks. High-impact features with small or medium effort score high enough to land in the MVP bucket automatically; anything marked "Required to launch" skips scoring entirely and goes straight in, because some features are not optional no matter how they'd score.
What's the difference between the Fast-follow and Later buckets?
Fast-follow is a feature worth building soon after launch - usually something with real impact that just costs a bit more than a quick win, or a low-effort feature with modest impact. Later is everything else: high effort for what it returns right now, or low impact on its own. Neither bucket means "never" - it means "not this release."
Why rate effort in three buckets instead of hours or story points?
At the scoping stage, before any of it is built, precise estimates are false precision. Small, Medium and Large are honest about what you actually know this early, and they are enough to separate a quick win from a multi-week feature.
Should everything really be Small, Medium or High effort? What about a genuinely huge feature?
Rate it Large and let the score do its job - a high-effort feature needs an outsized impact to justify shipping in v1, and the planner will push it toward Fast-follow or Later unless it truly earns its place. If a single feature is a project on its own, it may be worth scoping as its own release rather than one line in this list.
How is the suggested starting tier calculated?
It totals the effort points of everything in your MVP bucket (Small = 1, Medium = 2, Large = 3) and maps that total to US APP Team's own pricing tiers - Simple app ($3,500), Standard app ($7,500), or Complex app ($12,000). It is a rough starting point tied to how much scope you actually kept in v1, not a quote.
Is anything sent to a server?
No. The whole thing is JavaScript running in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is saved, and closing the tab erases it.

Built by US APP Team

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