# AI Profile Pic

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/ai-profile-pic/ · added 2026-11-08 · updated 2026-11-08

**In short.** AI Profile Pic (iPhone app that trained an AI image model on the user's photos and returned avatars, Estonia): About US$2K a month per side project, April 2023. Evidence grade D: reported, not verified. Team: 1 indie developer; no employee named in any source. Launched November 2022; closed later.

iPhone app that trained an AI image model on the user's photos and returned avatars · Estonia · AI-native · solo founder · closed · group: Photos and portraits

- Outcome: About US$2K a month per side project, April 2023 (evidence grade of the headline number: D; headline in US dollars: 24000)
- Launch: November 2022; months from launch to the outcome: 5
- Team: 1 indie developer; no employee named in any source
- Outside funding: None reported
- Main factor: Timing
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 1
- Tags: AI-native, Solo founder, Bootstrapped, Closed, B2C, Consumer software

Links:

- Archived apps.apple.com, April 2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230410172316/https://apps.apple.com/app/id6444115082

**The product.** An iPhone app, also usable on Macs with Apple silicon, that trained an AI image model on photos of the user and returned more than 100 avatars of that person in different styles. The download was free. The archived store listing of April 2023 lists the orders as in-app purchases of US$2.99 and US$6.99.

**Why it worked.** The store subtitle named the method, "Stable Diffusion & Dreambooth", and the description promised "100+ avatars of you in different, stunning styles". Reviews from November 2022 show buyers who wanted a new profile picture and accepted paying for each batch; one reviewer wrote that "there's enough good ones in there to make it worth the cost". The developer already sold several small apps under the same company, so the app reused his store account and his support address.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

AI Profile Pic was an iPhone app that made portraits of its user with Stable Diffusion, an image-generation model that draws a picture from a text description, and DreamBooth, a fine-tuning method. Fine-tuning means training an existing model a little further on new examples; here the examples were photos of one person, so that the model learned that face and could draw it in many styles. According to its App Store listing, the user uploaded photos "in different poses", the app trained its model on them, and the user received "100+ avatars in different styles". The download was free; the archived listing of 10 April 2023 lists in-app purchases at US$2.99 and US$6.99, and a reviewer wrote on 11 November 2022 that the app "requires $20 in order to get a credit".

The seller on the store was Fadel.io OÜ, the Estonian company named in the license agreement on fadel.io, the site of Rony Fadel, an indie developer of small Mac and iPhone utilities. The domain aiprofilepic.app first appears in the Internet Archive on 3 November 2022, as a redirect to the App Store page, and on 10 April 2023 that page showed 4.2 stars from 271 ratings. On 14 April 2023 he wrote on Hacker News, in a thread about side projects with more than US$2,000 in monthly revenue, "I make around that with each of my side projects", and listed AI Profile Pic among five projects.

That comment is the only money figure on this page. It is one claim, grade D, and it does not give a figure for this app alone. The app has closed: the Internet Archive shows its store page on sale under a later name, AI Avatar & Portrait Generator, on 13 November 2024 and answering 404 on 11 July 2025; on 8 November 2026 the page still answered 404, its domain registration had expired, and no source says why it stopped. Fadel.io OÜ licensed apps before this one (its license agreement was last updated on 14 October 2021), so this page dates the business from the app's own launch in November 2022. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that sold a new photo feature which larger platforms later offered.

## Pricing

AI Profile Pic prices as listed on its archived App Store page of 10 April 2023 (grade C); the app is no longer sold

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| App download | 0 | 0 | free; orders bought inside the app |
| Avatars Creation Pack | 6.99 one-time |  | listed twice at this price |
| Avatars Creation Pack | 2.99 one-time |  | contents not stated |
| Additional styles pack | 2.99 one-time |  | contents not stated |

The app was a free download, and avatars were bought as in-app purchases. The listing names the packs but does not say how many avatars or styles each one gave. A reviewer wrote on 11 November 2022 that the app "requires $20 in order to get a credit", so the prices changed at least once. Prices are in US dollars on the US store.

## How much revenue did AI Profile Pic make before it closed? The numbers, graded

A per-order AI avatar app from November 2022 whose developer said in April 2023 that each of his side projects made around US$2,000 a month; the app is closed

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue per side project, April 2023 | around US$2,000 a month for each of the founder's side projects; no figure for this app alone | D | Rony Fadel's Hacker News comment of 14 April 2023 in the thread "Ask HN: Side project of more than $2k monthly revenue? what's your project?": "I make around that with each of my side projects", followed by VidCap, AI Profile Pic, Mission Control Plus, Batteries and Kay (Kay "makes less, currently at $600 MRR"). The comment does not give a figure for this app alone. | [1, 2] |
| Yearly run rate from that figure | about US$24,000 a year | calc | Calculated: US$2,000 times 12. It holds only if this app made the "around" US$2,000 a month that the comment states for each project. | [1] |
| First trace of the product | 3 November 2022 | B | The Internet Archive's first capture of aiprofilepic.app, 3 November 2022 at 03:52 UTC, is a redirect to the App Store page of app id6444115082. The oldest review shown on the archived store page is dated 7 November 2022. | [4, 3] |
| App Store ratings, 10 April 2023 | 4.2 out of 5 from 271 ratings (US store) | B | Archived App Store page. Category Photo & Video. | [3] |
| Prices, 10 April 2023 | free download; Avatars Creation Pack US$6.99 and US$2.99, Additional styles pack US$2.99 | C | In-app purchases as listed on the archived store page. A reviewer wrote on 11 November 2022 that one order needed US$20. | [3] |
| What the app did | more than 100 avatars of the user from the user's own photos | C | Store description: "Upload photos of you in different poses", "Have our A.I. train its model based on your photos", "Receive 100+ avatars in different styles". Subtitle "Stable Diffusion & Dreambooth". Guideline: "Make sure it's only you in the photos (no other people)." | [3] |
| Age rating and platforms | 4+; iPhone with iOS 15 or later, and Macs with an Apple M1 chip or later | C | Archived store page. Languages English, French and Spanish; size 23.7 MB; last version shown 1.1.9 of 3 January 2023. | [3] |
| Seller and its earlier apps | Fadel.io OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia; apps on fadel.io since at least September 2019 | C | The store page names the seller "Fadel.io OU" and "© 2022 Fadel.io OÜ". The app license agreement at fadel.io/apps/terms.html, archived on 3 January 2023, says "Last updated October 14, 2021" and names Fadel.io OÜ in Tallinn, Estonia, as licensor. The Internet Archive holds fadel.io from 19 September 2019, with a support address for Mission Control Plus, a Mac app; the site today also lists Batteries for Mac, CastPanda, VidCap and Spiik. The company's start date in the Estonian register was not read. This page dates the business from the app's own launch in November 2022. | [9, 10, 7, 3] |
| Team | 1 indie developer | C | Rony Fadel calls the apps "my side projects" on Hacker News, and the About page of fadel.io says "I'm an indie developer". The site footer reads "Copyright © Rony Fadel, Chapter Two LLC". No employee is named in any source. | [1, 8, 7] |
| Link between the founder and the app | his Hacker News comment and the fadel.io footer | C | The Hacker News user ronyfadel links aiprofilepic.app and fadel.io/missioncontrolplus in the same comment; the footer of fadel.io names Rony Fadel; the store page gives support@fadel.io as contact and lists VidCap under "More By This Developer", an app that the same comment names. | [1, 7, 3] |
| Outside funding | none reported | C | No source mentions investors or a funding round. | [1, 7] |
| Status, 8 November 2026 | closed: the App Store page answers 404 and the domain registration has expired | B | apps.apple.com/us/app/ai-profile-pic-avatar-maker/id6444115082 returned HTTP 404 on 8 November 2026, and aiprofilepic.app shows a Namecheap notice "Domain registration has expired". The Internet Archive's capture of 1 January 2025 still redirected to the App Store page. The developer's App Store page, read 3 November 2026, lists eight other apps and not this one. | [5, 6, 4, 11] |
| Later store name and end of sales | AI Avatar & Portrait Generator; still on sale on 13 November 2024, HTTP 404 on 11 July 2025 | B | The same app id 6444115082, sold by Fadel.io OU, appears in the Internet Archive as "AI Avatar & Portrait Generator" from 15 July 2023. The capture of 13 November 2024 shows version 1.2.3 of 3 November 2024, 4.1 stars from 314 ratings and in-app packs at US$3.99, US$6.99 and US$2.99. The capture of the store page of 11 July 2025 recorded HTTP 404, so the app stopped being sold between those two dates. | [13] |
| Time from launch to the headline figure | 5 months | calc | Calculated: November 2022 to April 2023. | [4, 1] |

How to read this table: the grade D value is a single founder statement with one date and no second source, and it covers all his side projects, not this app alone. A grade C value is read from the developer's own pages or the archived store listing. A grade B value is a record of an independent party: the Internet Archive's captures, Apple's rating count or a server reply. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A.

## When did AI Profile Pic launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From a Mac utility site in 2019 to an AI avatar app in November 2022, then a closed store page and an expired domain by November 2026. Each entry carries its grade.

- **19 September 2019** (grade B [10]): First Internet Archive capture of fadel.io, with a support address for Mission Control Plus, a Mac app by the same developer.
- **14 October 2021** (grade C [9]): Date of the last update of Fadel.io OÜ's app license agreement, which later also covered AI Profile Pic.
- **3 November 2022** (grade B [4]): First Internet Archive capture of aiprofilepic.app: a redirect to the App Store page of the app.
- **7 to 11 November 2022** (grade C [3]): The oldest reviews shown on the archived store page. One says an order needs US$20; one says it "does still seem to struggle quite a bit" with Black users.
- **3 January 2023** (grade C [3]): Version 1.1.9, "Bug fixes and improvements", the last version shown on the archived page.
- **10 April 2023** (grade B [3]): The archived store page shows 4.2 stars from 271 ratings and in-app packs at US$2.99 and US$6.99.
- **14 April 2023** (grade D [1, 2]): Rony Fadel writes on Hacker News that he makes around US$2,000 a month with each of his side projects, and lists AI Profile Pic among them.
- **15 July 2023** (grade B [13]): First Internet Archive capture of the store page under the app's later name, AI Avatar & Portrait Generator, with the same app id and seller.
- **13 November 2024** (grade B [13]): Last Internet Archive capture of the store page while the app was on sale: version 1.2.3 of 3 November 2024, 4.1 stars from 314 ratings.
- **1 January 2025** (grade B [4]): The last Internet Archive capture of aiprofilepic.app still redirects to the App Store page.
- **11 July 2025** (grade B [13]): The Internet Archive's capture of the App Store page records HTTP 404.
- **3 November 2026** (grade C [11]): The developer's App Store page lists eight other apps and not AI Profile Pic.
- **8 November 2026** (grade B [5, 6]): The App Store page answers 404 and the domain shows that its registration has expired.

## Why did AI Profile Pic work?

### A model trained on one person

The store listing describes three steps: upload photos of yourself, let the AI "train its model based on your photos", and receive more than 100 avatars in different styles. That is DreamBooth fine-tuning of Stable Diffusion, as the subtitle says: each order made a small model of one face, which then drew that face in many styles.

### Pay per batch, not per month

The app was free to download, and every batch of avatars was an in-app purchase. The listing of April 2023 lists packs at US$2.99 and US$6.99, and a reviewer wrote in November 2022 that one order needed US$20. Each sale paid for its own model training, so the app needed no subscription.

### A store page instead of a website

In the Internet Archive's captures of 3 November 2022 and 1 January 2025, the domain aiprofilepic.app sent visitors straight to the App Store page. No capture shows a landing page of its own; buyers arrived at the store listing with its screenshots and reviews.

### One app among many

The developer listed five side projects in April 2023 and said each made around US$2,000 a month, apart from one that made less. A closed app did not end his business: in November 2026 his site and his App Store page still list other apps.

## How it was built

The developer published nothing about how the app was built. These details come from the archived App Store listing and the Internet Archive's records.

- Image model: the store subtitle names Stable Diffusion and DreamBooth. No source names a model provider, a GPU host or the compute cost of an order.
- Input rules for the user: only the user in the photos, photos from different distances and angles, and no sunglasses.
- Platforms: iPhone with iOS 15 or later, and Macs with an Apple M1 chip or later; 23.7 MB; English, French and Spanish.
- Payments: Apple's in-app purchases on a free download.
- Privacy label: the developer listed only "Usage Data" as collected, under "Data Not Linked to You".
- No website: the domain redirected to the App Store page, and support went to the developer's general address support@fadel.io.

Sources: [3, 4]

## Who tried this before AI Profile Pic, and why did they fail?

Three companies in our database of failed startups sold consumers a new way to handle their photos and lost when larger platforms offered the same thing. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Everalbum (2013 to 2019; funding US$19.2M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Unlimited photo storage with AI organization of the user's photo library.
- Why it died: It charged subscriptions for features that Google Photos gave away free.
- Record: 

### Picnik (2005 to 2012; funding US$3.5M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Simple photo editing and effects in the web browser, with no download.
- Why it died: Google bought it and then merged it into Google+, and the service ended.
- Record: 

### Mobli (2010 to 2017; funding US$86M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A photo and video sharing app with filters and location-based browsing.
- Why it died: Instagram started earlier and had Facebook's money, and Mobli had nothing that set it apart.
- Record: 

## What changed

Each of the three sold one new thing to do with photos, and each lost when a larger platform offered the same thing free or with more users. AI Profile Pic had the same exposure from the start: its own store page of April 2023 showed four other AI avatar apps under "You Might Also Like".

Two things differed. The app raised no money and had one developer, so it did not need to grow large to pay for itself; the developer said in April 2023 that each of his side projects made around US$2,000 a month. And every order was paid before the model was trained, so each training run was paid for before it started. Those differences let a small app make money during a short wave, but they did not keep it open: no source says why it closed.

## Can one person copy AI Profile Pic now?

**Verdict: This moment, no. The structure, yes.**

AI avatar apps were a crowded wave in late 2022, and the store page of April 2023 already showed four similar apps next to this one. What a solo developer can still copy is the structure: a narrow app on top of a published image model, paid per order through the App Store, run next to other small apps so that one of them can close without ending the business.

1. When a new open model or fine-tuning method appears, ship one narrow consumer use of it within weeks.
2. Charge per order through in-app purchases, so that each sale pays for its own compute.
3. Write the input rules into the store listing, as this app did with "only you in the photos".
4. Keep several small apps under one company and one support address, and close the ones that stop selling.

**What is still open.** One-step jobs on new image models that a general chat app does not do in one tap: photo restoration, product photos, pet portraits and other per-order results.

## What could go wrong for AI Profile Pic?

- **What is not verified.** The only money figure is one founder claim. Rony Fadel wrote on Hacker News on 14 April 2023, in a thread about side projects with more than US$2,000 of monthly revenue, "I make around that with each of my side projects", and listed AI Profile Pic among five projects. It is one claim, grade D, and it does not give a figure for this app alone. No payment-processor profile, App Store sales report, interview or second post was found. The app was sold by Fadel.io OÜ, an Estonian company whose app license agreement was last updated on 14 October 2021 and which had earlier apps, such as Mission Control Plus, on fadel.io since at least September 2019; the company's own start date in the Estonian register was not read. A reader could look for a later post by the founder with figures for this app.
- **Why it closed.** No source says why the app closed. The Internet Archive shows the store page on sale under the later name AI Avatar & Portrait Generator on 13 November 2024, with version 1.2.3 of 3 November 2024; its capture of 1 January 2025 still redirected aiprofilepic.app to the App Store page, and its capture of the App Store page of 11 July 2025 recorded HTTP 404, so the app stopped being sold between 13 November 2024 and 11 July 2025. On 8 November 2026 the App Store page answered 404 and the domain showed a Namecheap notice that its registration had expired. The developer's App Store page, read 3 November 2026, lists eight other Fadel.io OÜ apps and not this one, and fadel.io lists five apps without it.
- **Competition.** The archived store page of April 2023 showed four other AI avatar apps under "You Might Also Like"; on this site, Imagined with AI also sold DreamBooth portraits from late 2022, and HeadshotPro trains models on customers' photos on the web.
- **Dependence on the model.** The store subtitle names Stable Diffusion and DreamBooth, a model family and a fine-tuning method, not a provider. No source says where the training ran, which GPU service or API it used, or what an order cost in compute, so the app's dependence on any one vendor cannot be judged.
- **Faces, consent and age rating.** The app worked on photos of a real face. Its listing told users "Make sure it's only you in the photos (no other people)", and the license agreement asks users to have the "written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person" in what they submit; no source shows a technical check that the photos were of the user. The app was rated 4+. Its privacy section listed only "Usage Data" and did not say how long uploaded photos or trained models were kept. One reviewer wrote in November 2022 that "if you're black, it does still seem to struggle quite a bit".

## Sources

1. Hacker News, 14 April 2023: comment by ronyfadel in "Ask HN: Side project of more than $2k monthly revenue? what's your project?" — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35572116 (grade D). Read in full (downloaded 3 November 2026). The founder's comment and his reply of 15 April 2023 on Setapp income. Source for the only money claim and for the link between the founder, aiprofilepic.app and fadel.io.
2. Hacker News search API (Algolia): the founder's comments in thread 35567822 — https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=comment,author_ronyfadel,story_35567822 (grade D). Read in full, 8 November 2026. Gives the full thread title and the time of the comment, 14 April 2023 at 17:24 UTC.
3. App Store: AI Profile Pic - Avatar Maker, by Fadel.io OU, Internet Archive copy of 10 April 2023 — https://web.archive.org/web/20230410172316/https://apps.apple.com/app/id6444115082 (grade C). Read in full (downloaded 8 November 2026). Source for the description, subtitle, prices, ratings, age rating, seller, reviews, privacy section and the similar apps.
4. Internet Archive captures of aiprofilepic.app, 3 November 2022 to 1 January 2025 — https://web.archive.org/web/20221103035240/https://aiprofilepic.app/ (grade B). Read the capture index of the domain (first capture 3 November 2022) and the response headers of the captures of 3 November 2022 and 1 January 2025, both a redirect to apps.apple.com/app/id6444115082, on 8 November 2026.
5. App Store page of AI Profile Pic, requested 8 November 2026 — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ai-profile-pic-avatar-maker/id6444115082 (grade B). Requested on 8 November 2026: HTTP 404.
6. aiprofilepic.app, read 8 November 2026 — http://aiprofilepic.app/ (grade B). Read in full on 8 November 2026: a Namecheap notice that the domain registration has expired.
7. Fadel.io home page — https://www.fadel.io/ (grade C). Read in full on 8 November 2026. Lists Mission Control Plus, Batteries for Mac, CastPanda, VidCap and Spiik; the footer names Rony Fadel and Chapter Two LLC.
8. Fadel.io About page: Rony Fadel — https://www.fadel.io/about (grade C). Read in full (downloaded 3 November 2026). The developer describes himself as an indie developer.
9. Fadel.io OÜ, End User License Agreement for its apps, Internet Archive copy of 3 January 2023 — https://web.archive.org/web/20230103212032/https://www.fadel.io/apps/terms.html (grade C). Read in full (downloaded 8 November 2026); the live page read the same day carries the same date. Source for "Last updated October 14, 2021", the licensor Fadel.io OÜ in Tallinn, Estonia, and the consent clause.
10. Internet Archive capture index of fadel.io — http://web.archive.org/cdx/search/cdx?url=fadel.io&fl=timestamp,original,statuscode&limit=3 (grade B). Read in full, 8 November 2026. First capture 19 September 2019, with a support address for Mission Control Plus.
11. App Store: developer page of Fadel.io OU — https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/fadel-io-ou/id1483403574 (grade C). Read in full (downloaded 3 November 2026). Lists the developer's current apps; AI Profile Pic is not among them.
12. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
13. App Store: AI Avatar & Portrait Generator, the same app (id6444115082) under a later name, Internet Archive copy of 13 November 2024 — https://web.archive.org/web/20241113171737/https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ai-avatar-portrait-generator/id6444115082 (grade B). Read in full, 8 November 2026, with the capture index of the app's store URLs. First capture under the later name 15 July 2023; the capture of https://web.archive.org/web/20250711163455/https://apps.apple.com/app/id6444115082 (11 July 2025) recorded HTTP 404. The 13 December 2023 capture of apps.apple.com/app/id6444115082 redirects to /us/app/ai-avatar-portrait-generator/id6444115082.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run AI Profile Pic? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: AI Profile Pic).