Mastering Frappe Framework – Part 9: Building a SaaS Product with Frappe

Why Frappe is Perfect for SaaS

The Frappe Framework is already built for multi-tenancy, role-based permissions, and rapid UI generation — three things every SaaS product needs.

You can go from idea to MVP in weeks, not months.

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1. Understanding Multi-Tenancy in Frappe

In SaaS, multiple customers (tenants) share the same app but have isolated data.

Frappe supports two models:

1. Single-tenant per site – Each customer has their own Frappe site & database.
2. Multi-tenant shared app – Multiple customers share one app but data separation is handled via permissions & domains.

Recommendation: Start with single-tenant for easy isolation; move to shared tenancy if you want lower hosting costs.

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2. Setting Up Multi-Tenancy

Enable multi-tenancy in your bench:

bench config dns_multitenant on

Create a site for each tenant:

bench new-site client1.yourdomain.com
bench new-site client2.yourdomain.com

Install your app:

bench --site client1.yourdomain.com install-app myapp
bench --site client2.yourdomain.com install-app myapp

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3. Subscription & Payment Integration

A. Adding a Subscription Model

• Create a Subscription DocType:
  • Fields: Plan Name, Price, Billing Cycle, Start Date, End Date.
  • Link to Customer DocType.
• Add a before_save hook to check active plan before granting access.

B. Payment Gateway Integration

Popular choices:

• Razorpay (India)
• Stripe (Global)
• PayPal (Global)

Example with Razorpay:

import razorpay

client = razorpay.Client(auth=("KEY_ID", "KEY_SECRET"))
payment = client.order.create({
    "amount": 50000,  # Amount in paise
    "currency": "INR",
    "payment_capture": 1
})

You can expose this via a Custom API endpoint in Frappe.

4. Auto-Suspending Expired Subscriptions

Use a daily scheduler event:

def check_subscriptions():
    expired_users = frappe.get_all("Subscription", filters={"end_date": ["<", frappe.utils.nowdate()]})
    for sub in expired_users:
        # Disable user access
        frappe.db.set_value("User", sub.user, "enabled", 0)

Add in hooks.py:

scheduler_events = {
    "daily": ["myapp.api.check_subscriptions"]
}

5. Scaling Your SaaS

• Horizontal Scaling – Multiple servers behind a load balancer.
• Separate DB per tenant – Easier migrations & backups.
• Redis Cache & Worker Tuning – Reduce response time.
• Read Replicas for MariaDB – Handle heavy reporting loads.

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6. SaaS Best Practices

✅ Automate backups for each tenant.

✅ Use SSL for all customer domains.

✅ Monitor app health (uptime, errors, database size).

✅ Plan for migrations when updating your app.

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Key Takeaways from Part 9

• How to set up multi-tenancy in Frappe.
• Creating subscription plans & integrating payments.
• Auto-suspending expired accounts.
• Scaling strategies for long-term SaaS growth.

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Next in Part 10

We’ll cover Frappe Advanced Customization:

• Client & server scripts
• Webhooks
• API rate limiting
• Background jobs & workers