Dev.to Article — Technical Tutorial
Title: How I Built a SaaS Template Marketplace with Next.js 14, Groq AI, and Stripe
I spent the last 2 weeks building AI Empire — a marketplace of production-ready Next.js 14 templates for SaaS products. Here's what I learned and the technical decisions I made.
The Problem
Every SaaS project starts the same way:
- Set up Next.js
- Add authentication
- Integrate payments
- Build a dashboard
- Add email
- Deploy
This takes 2-4 weeks. By the time you're done, you've lost momentum on your actual product idea.
The Solution
I built 10 templates that handle all of this:
# Clone a template
git clone https://github.com/ai-empire/neurastore
cd neurastore
# Install dependencies
npm install
# Add your API keys
cp .env.example .env.local
# Deploy
vercel deploy
Each template includes:
- Auth: Login, register, password reset
- Payments: Stripe subscriptions + one-time
- AI: Groq API integration (free tier)
- Dashboard: Admin panel with analytics
- Email: Transactional emails via Resend
- i18n: 10 languages out of the box
Tech Decisions
Why Groq over OpenAI?
Groq offers free inference with no API key restrictions. For a template marketplace, this means:
- Users can try the AI API immediately
- No upfront costs
- Fast inference (~500 tokens/sec)
Why Stripe?
Stripe is the industry standard for SaaS billing. I integrated:
- Checkout sessions for one-time purchases
- Customer portal for subscription management
- Webhooks for order fulfillment
Why Prisma?
Prisma gives you type-safe database queries:
const templates = await prisma.template.findMany({
where: { featured: true },
orderBy: { price: 'asc' },
});
What's Next?
I'm working on:
- More templates (chatbot, admin panel, marketplace)
- Better documentation
- Community features
If you're building a SaaS and want to skip boilerplate, check it out: https://ai-empire-steel.vercel.app
What features would you want in a SaaS template?