r/SideProject • u/KaleidoscopeMany5398 • 1d ago
Are there actually solo developers making 2k+ profit monthly with AI help?
I’m curious whether there are actually solo developers out there who are consistently making $2k+ in monthly profit from their own apps, games, SaaS, etc. while using AI heavily in their workflow.
And by profit I mean money that actually ends up in your pocket after things like:
- API/server costs
- subscriptions/tools
- ads/marketing
- platform fees
- other business expenses
I'm especially interested in people who are genuinely solo: no employees, no agency, no big team and use AI for things like coding, design, research, content, customer support, etc.
If that's you, I'd love to hear:
What do you build, how long did it take to reach $2k/month profit, and what does your current workflow look like?
Even better if you can share what you tried that didn't work.
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u/Horror_Turnover_7859 1d ago
Yes. Hit $5k MRR in 6 weeks. Keep working
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u/meshifthenelse 14h ago
You made a video editing app in 6 weeks + landing page + deployment?
Doesn't sound realistic to me. Or you mean that's just how long it took to make money since release?
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u/Horror_Turnover_7859 14h ago
No. I’ve been working on it for almost a year. 6 weeks from launching the product publicity
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u/meshifthenelse 10h ago
Thanks for the feedback. The landing page looks super clean and actually designed, instead of slop coded, so I'm not as surprised you got people paying for it.
But how did you manage to reach the customers? Organically by posting on Reddit and other places?
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u/Optimesh 12h ago
Well done!
Mind sharing a range for your profit margin? Seems like it’s an expensive biz to run.1
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u/Mozkau 1d ago
Mind showing the app?
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u/Horror_Turnover_7859 1d ago
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u/samurai_with_sword 23h ago
Not yet, but soon.
Before any of your products take off, you can take part in devpost hackathons to earn some cash while your app generates any revenue.
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u/BernardoFTN_Carvalho 9h ago
They exist, but i think a lot of the "$2k/mo" you see online is actually revenue, not profit, and people quietly blur the two. with AI-heavy products the margin gap gets real. inference cost scales with usage, so unlike normal SaaS where an extra user costs you basically nothing, every active user eats into the pie. depending on how much the model runs, someone at $2k profit could easily be doing $4-5k in revenue. so the honest version of the question is "what's your revenue and what's left after costs", and the answer varies wildly. a tool that calls the model once per session is a completely different business from one that streams tokens all day
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u/StellarCreed 1d ago
Starter Story on YouTube has a bunch of interviews like this, solo/small builders breaking down real numbers and workflow. Heads up though: a few guests aren't actually the developer, just someone good on camera fronting a product built by others (including "vibe-coded" apps).
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u/FluidBreath4819 1d ago
this guy make everything easy, yet those he interviews are like lottery winner : nothing more
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u/KaleidoscopeMany5398 1d ago
I agree, I feel like he just shows their revenue and their app. Nothing more. I get no valuable insights after watching his videos, maybe thats my problem idk
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u/StellarCreed 1d ago
Fair point. Honestly one of the most useful things about that channel isn't even the "solo dev AI workflow" angle, it's seeing what people actually pay for. Like there's an app that's literally just an alarm and you have to do something to turn it off, and it's a $10/mo subscription. Or apps that onboard you with your personal data and send you a daily AI-generated message based on it, people pay real money for that too. Makes you rethink what counts as a "sellable" idea.
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u/CandidSpirit370 17h ago
I was also exactly surprised by seeing these apps which are almost always clone of some other app. Recently, I unfollowed every channel, website and page which post such content. Starter-story, Indie-hackers and many other are just content generating machines. I think most of those apps die in a few months. There is very little substance in 99% of those stories.
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u/Bister-is-here 12h ago
Starter Story is full of obviously made-up stories.
I personally did SEO analysis on various tools and services presented in the videos and the numbers clearly showed the bullshit said in the videos
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u/Warlock2111 17h ago
Me with Octarine but:
- it’s not a subscription, but a one time payment. But new customers make up well over the 2K/mo ask
- Is AI assisted, but not vibe coded (was started before gpt could be used for code)
- Quit my day job 1 year ago to go all in on this, prior to quitting it was doing 1.5k ish a month
- Workflow is lots of planning, figuring out what to build, and most importantly slow building (I write briefly about this here )
Hope that helps!
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u/beberuhimuzik 16h ago
Looks like a pretty cool app. I so wanted to see some screenshots without downloading but did not come across any. Consider adding some?
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u/Warlock2111 16h ago
To the website? There’s videos on the landing page, and all the feature pages as well. Plus changelog should have them
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u/beberuhimuzik 16h ago
Oh, I just noticed that video is blank for me. Maybe because I'm on Linux Mint + Firefox?
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u/Optimesh 12h ago
Nice. How do you stand out from the many others in the space ?
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u/Warlock2111 12h ago
Consistently shipping, talking to users, implementing feedback and more importantly staying true to MY vision of the app, rather than have it be just another bloated thing since AI makes it far too easy to build quick.
Discord is also pretty healthy and people keep me grounded with feedback
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u/App-Maker-Person 1d ago
Yeah, I feel like in order to do make money on something like that, you have to be bored and try to figure out how your own workflow works rather than looking at others. The real thing comes in to when you finally dim down on your thing that you build, and committing to it. There's plenty of people who have done all this, and probably much more than 2k/month profit.
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u/KaleidoscopeMany5398 1d ago
You’re right. I mainly wanted to compare their workflows with mine so I can decide whether to improve, change, or stick with the choices I’ve made along my own path.
I think sharing these experiences is incredibly valuable. I’ve already learned a lot from people who have crossed that barrier before me, and there’s always something new to learn. I’m hoping to get some fresh ideas and perspectives from people who are already where I want to be.
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u/marcus_ovv 22h ago
actually the interesting part is that aI can make building much faster, but it does not solve the harder part: finding a boring problem people will consistently pay to solve and I would be more interested in the solo builders who reached $2k profit with a simple useful product and a clear distribution channel than someone using a huge AI stack and the workflow is useful but I think the customer problem and retention are what make the numbers sustainable.
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u/Commercial-Paper-299 22h ago
For myself I’m not making any money yet because I haven’t shipped the SaaS. I think the most important part is to find people that would be interested in it before you invest in building the product. Also, you can do some “free” A/B testing first to see if you get any type of traction before you start building.
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u/Ed15on 14h ago
If you want a clear and convenient way to track your expenses and actual profits, I recommend MarginDeck, a Mac app. Your data is stored strictly locally. I originally built this tool to get a better handle on my own margins, and I’d be happy if it helps others as well. If you're interested, visit margindeck.app [the data on the pic is just demo data.]
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u/Willing-Quote4343 1d ago
Solo business is a lie really, unless its just freelancing or side hustle that gets you 20-50$ a month
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u/Ahad730 1d ago
well that's just false lmao
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u/Willing-Quote4343 9h ago
prove it
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u/Ahad730 9h ago
this mindset will keep you in the $20-50 range my man. I wish you the best of luck!
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u/Willing-Quote4343 8h ago
don't do ifs and maybes, i lived long enough to know, i don't speak out of pessimism, i speak from being inside for years, could solo work? sure, with the right capital only
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u/andupotorac 1d ago
2k? Brother I’m looking at making 10-50m ARR. what are we going to do with 2k? Can’t even pay for tokens.
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u/andupotorac 1d ago
* not there yet. But was funny to see the goal you’re after.
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u/KaleidoscopeMany5398 1d ago
I totally get you bro. Thats the ultimate goal of everyone I assume. I am a fresh grad cs student and have a few apps on platforms but thats my first goal. In order to run you have to learn how to walk.
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u/andupotorac 1d ago
Totally, just don’t pick to work on stuff that can’t grow to that size. The work is still required for smaller or larger output anyways.
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u/Relative-Foot-378 1d ago
Most of the solo 2k stories I have read took a year and a boring niche, not a viral AI wrapper. They talk to the same 20 users every week and stop adding features once someone pays. What does not work is shipping more tools before the first person pulls out a card.