Top 15 Most Profitable Indie Apps
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Indie apps are pulling in serious revenue this year, and the numbers might surprise you.
Some solo founders are making more than entire VC-backed teams, and they're doing it without raising a single dollar.
Understanding what's working in the indie app space gives you a competitive edge (which is exactly why we create our market clarity reports on over 100 different product categories).
Quick Summary
The indie app market ranges from $2K to $3M in monthly revenue, with clear patterns separating lifestyle businesses from category leaders.
The highest earners focus on developer tools (like ConvertKit at $3M/month and ShipFast at $133K/month) or productivity solutions with strong product-market fit. What's striking is that most of these founders started with zero funding and built their products while working day jobs or during paternity leave.
The most capital-efficient indie apps like Formula Bot ($220K/month, built in 6 weeks with no coding experience) and TypingMind ($50K/month in under 1 year) prove that small teams with the right timing can compete with anyone.
Top 15 Indie Apps Ranked by Monthly Revenue
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1. ConvertKit / Kit ($3,000,000/month)
ConvertKit (recently rebranded to Kit) generates approximately $3 million monthly with $45M annual revenue as of 2024, making it one of the most successful bootstrapped SaaS companies ever built. The email marketing platform serves 58,000 paying customers and 500,000 free users with a focus specifically on content creators, bloggers, podcasters, and authors rather than general business email marketing.
While ConvertKit has grown beyond typical indie app scale with a full team of employees, its origin story is deeply indie. Founder Nathan Barry invested his own $50,000 when the business was nearly dying at $1,330 MRR in September 2014, rejected multiple VC offers, and scaled it entirely through bootstrapping. The company achieved this through direct sales (Nathan personally emailed hundreds of bloggers), offering free concierge migrations, running 150+ educational webinars with affiliate partners, and maintaining a 30% recurring commission affiliate program that drove explosive growth.
ConvertKit took 11 years to grow from $0 to $45M annually, nearly shutting down multiple times before finding product-market fit. Key growth levers included solving specific creator problems other tools ignored, Pat Flynn's affiliate webinar that brought 1,000 signups in 24 hours, building in public with transparent revenue sharing, and maintaining an open startup philosophy that resonated with the creator community.
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2. Wave AI ($450,000/month)
Wave AI generates approximately $450,000 monthly as of 2024, with founder Josh Mohrer growing it from 200 to 22,000 paid subscribers in a single year. What makes this indie app particularly remarkable is that Josh is a first-time programmer who wrote 99% of the code himself using AI coding tools like Cursor and Claude.
This indie app represents a new wave of non-technical founders using AI to build technical products without traditional programming backgrounds. Josh's approach demonstrates how AI tools have democratized software development, allowing someone with no prior coding experience to build and scale a SaaS product to nearly half a million in monthly revenue. The product operates with a lean team of 38 employees, showing extreme capital efficiency in the AI-powered indie app space.
Wave AI's growth strategy centered on riding the AI wave early, using AI tools to develop the product rapidly, and focusing on a clear value proposition. The journey from 200 to 22,000 subscribers in one year represents some of the fastest growth in the indie app world, proving that timing and execution matter more than traditional technical skills when building modern software products.
Source: Indie Hackers -
3. Formula Bot ($220,000/month)
Formula Bot generates approximately $220,000 monthly as of February 2024, serving 750,000+ total users with 5,000 paying subscribers. This indie app converts plain text instructions into Excel and Google Sheets formulas using AI, helping finance professionals and marketers work with complex spreadsheets without memorizing syntax.
What makes Formula Bot a true indie app success story is that founder David Bressler built it entirely as a solo founder during his paternity leave in 2022 with zero coding experience. He used no-code tools (Bubble.io) to build the MVP in just 6 weeks with $0 investment, completely bootstrapped with no external funding. David wrote 99% of the functionality himself, proving that you don't need a technical background to build a successful SaaS product.
Formula Bot's growth exploded through a viral Reddit launch that brought 100,000 visitors overnight from simple posts on subreddits like "Internet Is Beautiful." The indie app made $6,000 in the first 48 hours after launching on Product Hunt, reached $30,000 in revenue within 3 months, and hit $220K MRR within approximately 18 months. Key growth levers included getting featured in Microsoft Excel's official add-on marketplace, creating a TikTok influencer program, implementing a freemium model at $6.99/month, and maintaining 90%+ profit margins.
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4. ShipFast ($133,000/month)
ShipFast generates approximately $133,000 monthly as of April 2024, with founder Marc Lou's entire portfolio doing $124,772 in January 2025 across 11+ products. This indie app is a NextJS boilerplate that helps developers launch startups faster by providing pre-built code for common features like Stripe payments, authentication, email, landing pages, and SEO.
ShipFast exemplifies indie app success because Marc Lou built it as a solo founder from France, going from living with his parents with zero income in 2021 to making $100K+/month. Completely bootstrapped, he built the boilerplate by organizing code from his previous 20+ side projects, was named Product Hunt's Maker of the Year 2024, and works alone with no employees. The indie app operates with 90% profit margins and serves 135,000+ users across Marc's product portfolio.
The growth strategy leveraged first-mover advantage as one of the first comprehensive NextJS boilerplates when launched in 2023. Marc spent just 1 week building the boilerplate in August 2023, made $6,000 in first 48 hours while flying to Hong Kong, hit $40,000 in first month, and reached $250,000 total revenue in 5 months. Key drivers included building in public on Twitter with 60,000+ followers, emotional marketing positioning it as "Ship your startup in days, not weeks," creating a Discord with 5,000+ builders, and using a one-time payment model at $199-$299 that eliminated churn concerns.
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5. Tally Forms ($100,000/month)
Tally Forms generates approximately $100,000 monthly as of March 2024, growing from $5K MRR in March 2021 to serve 250,000+ registered users. This indie app is an intuitive form builder that works like a text document where you just start typing, positioned as a simpler, more affordable alternative to Typeform and Jotform with unlimited forms and submissions for free.
Tally qualifies as an indie app because it was built by couple Marie Martens and Filip Minev from Belgium, started as a pivot from their travel startup that failed due to COVID-19, and remains completely bootstrapped with no external funding. The team grew from 2 to just 5 people (adding 2 engineers), and they even had a baby during the early building phase. Their journey from $0 to $100K MRR took 3.5 years (September 2020 to March 2024), demonstrating sustainable indie app growth.
The growth strategy centered on a generous freemium model offering unlimited forms and submissions for free, with a viral "Made with Tally" badge that free users display. Marie and Filip acquired their first 1,500 users from manual cold outreach on Product Hunt, Twitter, and Reddit. Their Tally 2.0 launch became the #1 Product of Day/Week/Month on Product Hunt, won a Golden Kitty in the Bootstrapped category, and built a community of 3,000+ early users initially in Slack (later moved to Discord). The Notion-like editor approach made form creation fast and seamless, driving word-of-mouth growth.
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6. SiteGPT ($95,000/month)
SiteGPT generates approximately $95,000 monthly as of February 2024, with founder Bhanu Teja's combined portfolio (including Feather) reaching $102,600/month. This indie app allows anyone to create a custom ChatGPT-like chatbot trained on their website content by simply adding their website URL, used by businesses for customer support automation.
SiteGPT is a true indie app built by 24-year-old solo founder Bhanu Teja from India, who started it as a weekend project to learn AI while working on his other product, Feather. Completely bootstrapped with no funding, he built in public on Twitter sharing wins and losses, and quit his software engineering job in January 2020 to pursue indie hacking full-time. Bhanu is an IIT graduate who previously built and sold Feather for $250K.
The growth timeline is impressive for an indie app. Launched in March 2023, SiteGPT reached $10K MRR within 1 month, hit $15K MRR within 6 months, and scaled to $95K MRR in February 2024 (about 11 months after launch). Key growth levers included building in public with 10,000 Twitter followers when launching, becoming #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt with almost 900 upvotes, closing multiple enterprise deals that drove major revenue spikes, launching a basic MVP in 2-3 weeks and improving based on feedback, and leveraging his existing product Feather by initially building SiteGPT as a feature before spinning it out.
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7. Bannerbear ($50,000/month)
Bannerbear generates approximately $50,000 monthly with $991,400 annual revenue in 2024, reaching the $1M ARR milestone while remaining completely bootstrapped. This indie app is an API and automation tool that automatically generates social media visuals, e-commerce banners, and marketing images through no-code workflows or REST API integration.
Bannerbear qualifies as an indie app because it was built by Jon Yongfook, a digital nomad based in Singapore/Bali, as a solo founder with approximately $500 starting costs and $0 marketing spend. After quitting his corporate job earning $16K/month salary, Jon previously did the "12 Startups in 12 Months" challenge. The indie app operates with very low overhead (server costs only a few hundred dollars monthly) and has grown to a 4-5 person remote team while maintaining profitability since inception.
Jon started Bannerbear in January 2019 after quitting his corporate job with a 2-year runway, made no money for almost 1 year, hit $10K MRR after about 2 years, reached $20K MRR 6 months later, and is currently at $50K MRR (total journey of 5+ years from $0 to $50K MRR). His growth strategy followed a 50/50 rule of splitting time equally between coding and marketing from the start, building in public by sharing all numbers openly on an "open" page and Twitter, creating extensive tutorials and educational blog posts, achieving 50% of customers via Google organic search, adding Zapier integration to reach non-technical users, and growing to 60,000+ Twitter followers by sharing journey and insights.
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8. Pintura Image Editor ($50,000/month)
Pintura generates approximately $50,000 monthly as of September 2024, up from $20,000+ MRR in 2021. This indie app is a JavaScript image editor SDK that provides a native-feeling image editing experience across all devices and browsers, used by companies like Dropbox, Square, ConvertKit, and Ghost.
Pintura is a true indie app built by solo developer Rik Schennink from the Netherlands, completely bootstrapped with no funding. Rik quit his full-time consulting work (taking a 70% pay cut) in 2016 to pursue building products full-time, operates as a one-person company under PQINA, and built the product over 5 years before reaching significant revenue. His indie app now serves 2,000+ companies with high profit margins since he operates solo.
The growth timeline shows patience typical of successful indie apps. Rik started selling plugins on CodeCanyon in 2011, built FilePond as a free product, launched Pintura commercially, took 5 years from quitting consulting to surpassing his previous consulting income, hit $20K MRR in 2021, and reached $50K MRR by 2024. His growth strategy leveraged a free open source funnel through FilePond (his free file upload library with 11K+ GitHub stars) that promotes Pintura, ran a 25% recurring commission affiliate program where some affiliates earn $500+/month, focused on SEO by owning premium domains like edit.photo, differentiated through superior UX especially on mobile devices, and wrote technical blog posts based on popular Stack Overflow questions.
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9. TypingMind ($50,000/month)
TypingMind generates approximately $50,000 monthly as of January 2024, with $15,000 MRR from subscriptions and the rest from one-time purchases, reaching the $500K total revenue milestone in February 2024. This indie app is an alternative UI for ChatGPT that allows users to use their own OpenAI API key with features like faster typing, search through past conversations, no daily logouts, and advanced customization options.
TypingMind is a true indie app built by Tony Dinh, a Vietnamese indie hacker and solo founder who is a 30-year-old former software engineer who quit his job in 2020 to pursue indie hacking full-time. Completely bootstrapped with no external funding, Tony builds, designs, and supports all his products himself (occasionally working with freelancers), making TypingMind part of his portfolio of successful indie products including DevUtils, Xnapper (sold for $150K), and Black Magic (sold for $128K).
TypingMind's growth shows the power of perfect timing for indie apps. Launched in March 2023 just 5 days after OpenAI announced the ChatGPT API, it made $22,000 in the first 7 days, reached $500,000 total revenue in February 2024 (approximately 11 months), and grew to $50K MRR by January 2024. Key growth levers included first-mover advantage by releasing immediately after the API announcement, solving real pain points like ChatGPT's slow typing and daily logouts, launching quickly with an MVP and pushing 171 updates in 12 months to keep up with the fast-moving AI space, using a dual revenue model with one-time purchases for the static version plus subscriptions for team/sync features, and relying primarily on organic growth and word-of-mouth with minimal marketing spend.
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10. Lunch Money ($34,000/month)
Lunch Money generates approximately $34,000 monthly as of March 2024. This indie app is a personal finance and budgeting web app that offers a pragmatic, design-forward approach to managing income and expenses, positioned as an alternative to Mint or YNAB for the "modern-day spender" with support for multi-currency and flexible categorization.
Lunch Money is a true indie app built by Jen Yip, a solo founder and former Twitter engineer who started it as a personal side project to replace spreadsheets after getting burnt out from a previous startup that went through YC Fellowship and 500 Startups. Completely bootstrapped with no plans to raise funding, Jen does everything herself (coding, design, customer support, marketing), emphasizes building for passion over profit, and is based in Toronto, Canada as a University of Waterloo computer engineering graduate.
The growth timeline for this indie app spans approximately 5 years. Started in 2019 as a side project while freelancing, Jen launched an initial version without monetization, reached $3K/month while still freelancing after a Hacker News success brought 1,000+ signups, and grew to $34K MRR by March 2024. Growth drivers included building in public by blogging about experiences on Hacker News, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Indie Hackers, having a "Show HN" post reach the front page, relying primarily on word-of-mouth from happy users with product-led growth, building an active Discord community of 2,000+ users, implementing a unique pay-what-you-want pricing model ($40-$150/year) in 2023, and maintaining a privacy focus by not selling user data.
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11. Black Magic ($14,000/month)
Black Magic was generating $14,000 monthly at the time of acquisition in April 2023, having reached $100,000 ARR in June 2022. This indie app was a Twitter SaaS tool that helped users improve their Twitter presence and engagement with analytics, scheduling, and growth tools designed for professional content creators and marketers.
Black Magic was built by Tony Dinh as a solo founder, completely bootstrapped with no external funding as one of his indie products after quitting his software engineering job in 2020. This indie app represented Tony's first major success story, operating as a pure subscription SaaS model with recurring revenue that he built and maintained alone until the acquisition.
The growth journey started after Tony quit his job in 2020, reached $2K MRR relatively quickly, hit $100,000 ARR in June 2022 (about 9 months after focus), and grew to $14,000 MRR by April 2023 before being sold for $128,000. Interestingly, Tony had previously rejected a $500K acquisition offer before Twitter's API changes. The forced sale came because Twitter's new API pricing would have made the $14K MRR business unsustainable, providing an important lesson about building API-dependent businesses. Growth levers included building in public by sharing development and growth openly on Twitter, leveraging Twitter itself as the primary marketing channel, positioning as differentiated from other Twitter tools, and building a unique product that solved his own Twitter growth needs.
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12. Feather ($7,700/month)
Feather was generating $7,700 monthly as of February 2024 before being sold to Tibo Maker for $250,000. This indie app was a Notion-to-blog platform that allowed users to turn their Notion pages into published blog posts, solving the problem of content creators who wanted to write in Notion but publish elsewhere.
Feather was built by Bhanu Teja, the same 24-year-old solo founder from India who built SiteGPT, making it part of his indie app portfolio. Completely bootstrapped with no funding, Feather represented Bhanu's earlier success before he pivoted more focus to SiteGPT, which was initially built as a feature for Feather users before being spun out as a standalone product. The sale for $250,000 at $7.7K MRR represents a 32x monthly revenue multiple, showing strong valuation for indie apps.
Feather's growth strategy included building in public on Twitter, targeting the Notion power user community who wanted better publishing options, focusing on ease of use with minimal setup required, and leveraging Bhanu's technical skills as an IIT graduate. The indie app served as the foundation for his later success with SiteGPT, demonstrating how indie founders can build multiple products in a portfolio approach where each product informs and supports the others.
Source: Twitter -
13. Xnapper ($6,000/month)
Xnapper was generating approximately $6,000 monthly at its peak (around $4,000/month at time of sale) before being sold for $150,000 in March 2024. This indie app is a macOS screenshot app that helps users create beautiful, shareable screenshots in seconds with features like automatic balancing, background color detection, rounded corners, watermarking, and automatic redaction of sensitive information.
Xnapper was built by Tony Dinh as a solo founder in June 2022, created out of personal frustration when Tony was constantly asked about his beautiful screenshots on Twitter. Completely bootstrapped as a native macOS app built using no-code/low-code tools with no prior native app development experience, this indie app proved that solving your own problem can lead to a successful business. The sale for $150,000 despite only making around $4K/month represents a 37.5x monthly revenue multiple, actually higher than Tony's Black Magic valuation which was making $14K MRR.
Built and launched in June 2022, Xnapper made $7,802 in early bird sales during beta and generated approximately $6K MRR at peak before being sold about 21 months after launch. Growth came from leveraging Tony's existing 40K+ Twitter followers who already saw his screenshots, announcing to his 2K newsletter subscribers, building in public by frequently tweeting about development progress, offering a one-time purchase model at $29 per device with 30% early bird discount, and relying primarily on his existing audience with no marketing beyond Twitter. The minimal maintenance required made it an attractive acquisition target for someone who wanted to grow it further.
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14. Postiz ($2,000/month)
Postiz generates $2,000 monthly as of January 2025, having launched in September 2024 (just 4 months prior). This indie app is an open-source social media scheduling tool that allows users to schedule posts across multiple social platforms, positioned as an alternative to tools like Hootsuite and Buffer with the key differentiator being that it's fully open-source (Apache-2 license) and can be self-hosted supporting 20+ social media platforms.
Postiz qualifies as an indie app because it was built by Nevo David as a solo founder with 10 years of experience as a software engineer and dev team leader, completely bootstrapped. Nevo previously worked at Novu (another open-source company) where he helped grow it to 30K GitHub stars. He started Postiz after realizing his SEO approach wasn't working (spending around $3K/month on freelancers for 4 months) and pivoted to an open-source strategy instead.
Postiz launched the open-source version on September 1, 2024 and reached $2,000 MRR by January 2025 (approximately 4 months), showing rapid traction despite being a brand new indie app. The growth strategy centered on making the product fully open-source to attract the developer community, launching as #1 Product of the Day/Week/Month on Product Hunt, posting on multiple communities (Reddit, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, Dev.to, Lemmy), growing to 14,000+ stars on GitHub rapidly, building a Discord community of 1,115+ members who contribute and provide feedback, achieving 584,000+ Docker downloads, and launching on Reddit every month with product updates. The indie app now has 4,000+ cloud registrations with a strong contributor community helping build features.
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15. DevUtils (Stable Monthly Revenue)
DevUtils generates stable monthly revenue (specific amount not disclosed, but described as "cruising nicely on auto-pilot"). This indie app is a macOS developer toolbox that provides various utilities for developers in one native app, including tools for JSON formatting, Base64 encoding/decoding, URL encoding, hash generation, and many other common developer tasks as a native macOS app designed to be fast and offline-first.
DevUtils qualifies as an indie app because it was built by Tony Dinh as his first successful indie product, operating as a solo founder completely bootstrapped as a native macOS app built by Tony alone. This was Tony's breakthrough product that proved he could build successful indie software after leaving his corporate software engineering job. The product now runs on "autopilot" with stable monthly revenue, requiring minimal ongoing development since it's nearly feature-complete.
DevUtils predates Tony's other successful indie apps like Black Magic (2020-2021) and now generates steady income with low maintenance. The growth strategy focused on building specifically for developers' daily needs with a native macOS app providing a premium feel that's fast and offline-capable, using a simple one-time purchase pricing model with no subscription, launching successfully on Product Hunt, marketing in developer forums and communities, solving real problems that address common developer workflow inefficiencies, and reaching a stable state with minimal maintenance needed. Tony has emotional attachment to this indie app as his first success and has no plans to sell it, unlike his other products Xnapper and Black Magic.
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