Legal groundwork for SaaS founders getting ready to launch

Often, yes. Many SaaS founders engage this service before full public launch because legal issues tend to appear early, not later. If you are testing with pilot customers, onboarding beta users, or bringing in contractors to build the product, it can help to have the core documents in place before expectations harden. The exact mix of documents depends on what stage you are at. A founder team preparing for investment conversations may need different emphasis from a solo founder about to onboard first users under paid subscription terms.

The recurring issues are usually ownership, user terms, privacy, and team arrangements. Founders often need clarity on who owns the code and other IP, what customers are actually being promised, how subscriptions and liability settings are described, and what happens when contractors or employees contribute to the product. Privacy wording also matters because the legal position depends on how the business handles information in practice, including what it collects, uses and shares. Those points can become more visible during pilots, procurement reviews, and fundraising due diligence.

The service commonly includes a founders' agreement or shareholders' agreement, SaaS terms and a privacy policy, an employment or contractor agreement template, and a basic IP assignment or licensing document. That combination is intended to cover several launch-stage pressure points at once, rather than dealing with each issue separately. We will usually discuss how your product is sold, whether there are multiple founders, how the team is engaged, and whether third parties are helping build the software. More specialised work can be quoted separately if your setup is more complex.

A single-document service is narrower. This launch service is for founders who need the main legal pieces to work together across the business, not just one customer-facing agreement. For example, customer terms may need to line up with the way the founders hold IP, the way contractors assign rights, and the way your privacy wording describes the product. That broader view can be useful if you are close to launch, hiring early team members, or preparing for investor questions. It is still a defined fixed-fee service, not an open-ended legal retainer.

This service does not include If extra support is needed, we will explain it upfront and quote it separately before you proceed. It also does not automatically cover every specialist document a SaaS business might eventually need, such as a detailed reseller agreement, complex data processing schedules, or a heavily negotiated enterprise master services agreement. If those issues come up, we can usually scope further work separately. For privacy-related matters in particular, the legal drafting can only go so far on its own because the real position depends on how the product and internal processes operate in practice.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the SaaS Startup Launch Pack service, pricing starts from $1,200.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.