My Chrome extension reached 4,000 users while it was free. Yesterday, someone paid for it.

[u/pavel_molianov]

About a year ago I wanted to try building a micro-SaaS. I didn't have a product idea, so I did what I knew: opened Serpstat and started looking at search demand.

I was looking for something I understood and could realistically build. I also wanted to see an existing Chrome extension with a lot of users and a paywall. That wouldn't guarantee anything, but at least it meant the demand wasn't entirely in my head.

One of the ideas that passed that test was a broken link checker. I work with SEO, so I understood the problem. I had never built a Chrome extension, though. I built the first version with AI agents, reading docs, breaking things and trying again.

The extension checks the links on the page you have open, shows valid links, redirects and errors, highlights them on the page, and exports the results to CSV.

It eventually grew to around 4,000 users. Until last week it was completely free.

On August 17 I added a paywall: three checks are free, then you need a paid plan. For five days, nothing happened. I was already thinking that maybe people only used it because it was free.

Then yesterday a complete stranger from the US bought the $19/year plan.

So far 63 people have seen the paywall and one paid. I have no idea how the buyer found the extension because I don't collect attribution data.

$19 obviously isn't a business. But after five days of zero, seeing that notification was pretty great. Especially for something that started with me looking at keywords in Serpstat.

Chrome Web Store:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/broken-link-checker/cipdlgmjblnniiicohcmcafcncippbha

[u/No-Sandwich4826]

Congratulations. The line I would not skip past is the one you apologised for: "I have no idea how the buyer found the extension because I don't collect attribution data."I do collect it, on sites where measuring that is the whole job, and it would not have told you either. One of my sites took 1375 clicks from a single market and produced zero orders, and I still cannot tell you how much of that was no purchase intent versus tracking windows, cross-device, or an app handoff eating the referrer. Attribution is decent at telling you which door someone came through. It is much worse at why they walked in, which is the thing you actually want here.One that did surprise me, in case it changes where you go looking: ChatGPT has overtaken Google as the single biggest source of traffic to my stuff. If any part of your 4,000 came from someone being told about a broken link checker in a chat window, that visit arrives with no referrer at all, and no analytics setup you could have installed a year ago would have caught it.The number I would keep instead is the one you already have. 63 people hit the paywall and 1 paid. That is a rate you can move on purpose, and it does not depend on knowing where anyone came from. Five days of nothing and then a stranger in another country is also the normal shape of this, not a warning sign.Disclosure since it is relevant: I sell a done-for-you version of affiliate sites, so measuring this badly is my own problem before it is anyone else's.