Colorize.cc: Revenue, team and how it was built
Colorize.cc (AI colorization and restoration of old black-and-white photos, paid with one-time credit packs, Thailand (TrustMRR); the operator is registered as a Russian individual entrepreneur): US$50K in verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026. Evidence grade A: disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor. Team: 1 founder, Alexander Kozhevin, who runs the service as an individual entrepreneur; no source gives a headcount. Launched 2018; still running, revenue falling.Added 25 October 2026
- Outcome
- US$50K in verified revenue in 12 months, October 2026Revenue falling
- Evidence
- A disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor
- Launch
- 2018
- Status
- Still running
- Team
- 1 founder, Alexander Kozhevin, who runs the service as an individual entrepreneur; no source gives a headcount
- Outside funding
- None reported
- Group
- Photos and portraits
- Main channel
- Not stated
Colorize.cc is a web service for photo colorization, which means adding plausible color to a black-and-white photo, and for photo restoration, which means removing scratches, tears, stains and noise. The work is done by neural networks, computer models that learn a task from many examples; here they learned from millions of color photos which colors usually belong to skin, clothing, plants and objects. The service sells credits, prepaid units that are spent per processed photo: US$12 buys 50 credits, US$49 buys 250 and US$199 buys 1,250. The company's pages say that it has worked since 2018 and has processed more than 3 million photos for more than 500,000 users; these are the company's own figures.
The terms of service, updated on 23 October 2026, say that the service is provided by the individual entrepreneur Alexander Sergeevich Kozhevin, a sole trader under Russian law. TrustMRR, a site that shows startups' revenue, names Alexander Kozhevin as the founder and lists the country as Thailand. TrustMRR reads the sales of Colorize.cc from Stripe, the payment processor, through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. On 25 October 2026 it showed US$49,951 of revenue in the last 12 months, US$116,016 in total and US$4,196 in the last 30 days. Its MRR, monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, is US$0, because all sales are one-time credit packs.
The revenue figures are grade A, because TrustMRR reads them from the payment records, not from screenshots. Monthly revenue has stayed between US$2,771 and US$5,564 for a year, and the last six months brought almost exactly as much as the six months before. The page also shows browser photo editors and photo services that failed before neural networks could do the work themselves.
How much revenue does Colorize.cc make?
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue in the last 12 months, to 25 October 2026 | US$49,951 | A | TrustMRR, revenue synced on 25 October 2026 at 20:00 UTC through a Stripe API key. Last 6 months: US$25,032. Last 3 months: US$15,016. Calculated: an average of about US$4,163 a month. | [1] |
| Revenue since the Stripe records begin | US$116,016 | A | TrustMRR's all-time figure. It covers the Stripe account only (see the watch box on other payment methods). | [1] |
| Revenue by month, November 2025 to October 2026 | Nov US$3,963; Dec US$4,156; Jan US$4,681; Feb US$3,972; Mar US$3,971; Apr US$3,957; May US$2,771; Jun US$4,292; Jul US$3,713; Aug US$5,527; Sep US$5,564; Oct to the 25th US$3,033 | A | TrustMRR monthly timeline. Calculated: the eleven full months average US$4,233, with a low of US$2,771 in May 2026 and a high of US$5,564 in September 2026. The twelve values add up to US$49,600, US$351 less than the 12-month total, because the periods end on different days. | [1] |
| Revenue in the last 30 days, to 25 October 2026 | US$4,196 | A | TrustMRR, which gives growth of -22.7% against the 30 days before. Calculated: those earlier 30 days brought about US$5,428, and the last 30 days are 24.6% below September 2026, the best month. | [1] |
| Last 6 months compared with the 6 months before | US$25,032 against US$24,919, 0.5% more | calc | Calculated: the 6-month total from the 12-month total (US$49,951 minus US$25,032). This is the reason this page calls the trend flat, although the last 30 days fell after two record months. | [1] |
| Revenue before November 2025 | US$66,416 | calc | Calculated: the all-time total of US$116,016 minus the twelve monthly values (US$49,600). | [1] |
| Monthly recurring revenue and subscriptions, 25 October 2026 | US$0 MRR, 0 active subscriptions | A | TrustMRR snapshot. All revenue comes from one-time credit packs, sold to many buyers: TrustMRR shows sales on every day of the last 30, from US$12 to US$394 a day. | [1] |
| Operator | the individual entrepreneur Alexander Sergeevich Kozhevin | C | Terms of service, updated 23 October 2026, section 1, with a Russian tax number. Section 10 says that the law of the Russian Federation applies. | [3] |
| Founder | Alexander Kozhevin | C | Named as founder on TrustMRR, and quoted by name on the company's AI portrait page: "AI portraits are our internal development based on unique technology." | [1, 6] |
| Country | Thailand on TrustMRR; Russian law in the terms | C | TrustMRR lists the country code TH. The terms name a Russian individual entrepreneur. No source explains the difference. | [1, 3] |
| Team | 1 named founder; no headcount in any source | C | An individual entrepreneur is a one-person legal form. The enterprise page gives one contact, the founder's X handle @alexpolymath. The site's pages write "we". | [3, 8] |
| Outside funding | none reported | C | No source mentions investors. | [1] |
| Start of the service | 2018 | C | The enterprise page says "Colorize.cc has been created in 2018", and the home page says "Working since 2018". TrustMRR gives a founded date of 18 December 2022, which is entered by the founder. | [8, 2, 1] |
| First dated outside mention | 3 January 2019 | C | A reader comment signed Alexander Kozhevin under a 2016 Lifehacker article links to colorize.cc and says that it is based on the open-source project DeOldify. | [11] |
| Photos processed (company figure) | more than 200,000, then more than 2 million, now more than 3 million | C | Three figures on three pages of the same site, written at different times: the enterprise page, the older price and animation pages, and the home page. No page gives a date. | [8, 5, 2] |
| Users and paid customers (company figures) | more than 500,000 users; more than 10,000 paid customers | C | Home page. TrustMRR shows the same user estimate, entered by the founder. | [2, 1] |
| Time from the start of the service to the October 2026 figure | 94 to 105 months | calc | Calculated: from December 2018 or January 2018 to October 2026. The company gives the year 2018 but not the month; the page uses 105. | [8, 1] |
How to read this table: a grade A value was read by TrustMRR from the company's Stripe account through an API key. A grade C value was written by the founder or the company, on its own site, on a TrustMRR profile or in a public comment. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free preview | 0 | 0 | simplified quality, on the landing page only |
| Basic | 12 one-time | 50 credits; 12 premium photos at 4 credits each | |
| Standard | 49 one-time | 250 credits; shown as a saving of US$11 | |
| For studios | 199 one-time | 1,250 credits; shown as a saving of US$101 |
All packs are one-time payments through Stripe, not subscriptions. The home page, the restoration page and the terms say that credits are valid for 365 days; older pages of the same site (the price, animation and portrait pages) still say "Credits never expire". Credit costs per photo: V2, V4 and V5 1 credit; V6.0 and V6.1 2 credits; V6.2 3 credits; V7 6 credits; V8 Studio 2 to 4 credits per edit. The free preview on the landing page is in simplified quality. The Russian-language text on the restoration page also offers a single restored photo for 100 rubles.
When did Colorize.cc launch, and how did it grow?
From a service built on an open-source model in 2018 to its own V8 model and about US$4,000 a month by October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.
- 2018CColorize.cc is created, according to its enterprise page. [8]
- 3 January 2019CIn a comment under a Lifehacker article about an older colorization demo, Alexander Kozhevin links to colorize.cc and writes that it is based on the open-source project DeOldify and handles some photos much better. [11]
- 10 April 2019CAnother reader comments under the same article that two photos uploaded to the service a day earlier were still processing. [11]
- 2022CThe V2 model, the oldest model still offered, according to the model list on the restoration page. [4]
- 18 December 2022CThe founded date on the TrustMRR profile. [1]
- 2024 to 2026CNew model versions: V4 in 2024; V5, V6.0, V6.1 and the flagship V7 in 2025; V6.2 in 2026. V8 High and the V8 Studio editor follow. [4, 2]
- November 2025AUS$3,963 of revenue, the first month in TrustMRR's public timeline. [1]
- May 2026AUS$2,771 of revenue, the lowest month of the year. [1]
- August and September 2026AUS$5,527 and US$5,564 of revenue, the two best months of the year. [1]
- 23 October 2026CUpdated terms of service name the operator, the individual entrepreneur Alexander Sergeevich Kozhevin. [3]
- 25 October 2026ATrustMRR: US$49,951 in the last 12 months, US$116,016 in total, US$4,196 in the last 30 days, no subscriptions. [1]
Why did Colorize.cc work?
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
One task with an obvious buyer
Old family photos are black and white, faded or torn, and many families, genealogy researchers and museums want them in color. The home page names these buyers directly: family albums, genealogy research, memorial photos, studios, museums and agencies. A customer understands the result in one look at a before-and-after picture.
A free preview, then full quality for credits
The landing page colorizes a photo for free in simplified quality, with no sign-up. Full quality, up to 4K, needs credits, and the Russian-language text of the restoration page says that the full result comes "without a watermark". The free preview shows the value before the customer pays.
One-time packs instead of a subscription
The site writes "Not a subscription — a fair one-time purchase". A person with one box of photos does not want a monthly plan, so the packs are sized by the number of photos. The cost is that every month needs new buyers or returning ones; TrustMRR shows no recurring revenue at all.
Many model versions, priced by credit
The service keeps old and new models side by side, from V2 at 1 credit per photo to V7 at 6 credits. Newer models keep faces closer to the original and follow text instructions such as "muted 1940s palette". A customer can choose between a cheap result and a better one, and each new model is a reason to come back.
More tools for the same photo
The same credits pay for scratch and crack removal, upscaling up to 10 times, a generated portrait, short videos made from a still photo, and edits in V8 Studio. Each tool works on a photo that the customer has already uploaded.
How it was built
These details come from the company's own pages and their page source (grade C), the founder's 2019 comment (grade C) and the TrustMRR profile (grade A for the payment provider). [11, 4, 8, 6, 1, 2, 3]
- The first version was based on DeOldify, an open-source colorization model published on GitHub, according to the founder's comment of January 2019.
- The service now lists more than 10 models of its own numbering, from V2 (2022) to V8, the newest in October 2026. The founder says that the AI portraits are an internal development; the enterprise page says that the colorization software needs an Nvidia 1080 Ti graphics card or a faster one.
- Photos are stored in Yandex Cloud Storage, according to the restoration page: paid photos for 1 year, free photos for 90 days.
- Payments in US dollars go through Stripe payment links, and TrustMRR reads them from Stripe. The page source of several pages also loads the checkout widget of YooKassa, a Russian payment service.
- The current pages are built with the Astro and Next.js web frameworks, visible in the page source. Login is by email link or Google sign-in.
- The enterprise page offers companies a dedicated processing worker in the company's cloud, or an installation of the software with its pipelines on the customer's own machines.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
Who tried this before Colorize.cc, and why did they fail?
Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold photo editing or family photo services before neural networks could edit a photo on their own. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Picnik
The promiseSimple photo editing in the browser, with no software to install.
Why it diedGoogle bought it and later closed it, moving its tools into Google+.
Snipshot
The promiseQuick photo edits in the browser for casual users.
Why it diedLarger rivals offered more tools, and free editors took the casual users.
Splashup
The promiseAdvanced photo editing in the browser, with several people editing the same image at once.
Why it diedIt was built on Flash and had no business model when the web moved to HTML5 and mobile apps.
Picwing
The promisePrint uploaded photos and mail them to family members on a schedule.
Why it diedPrinting and postage cost too much per customer, and digital sharing and Shutterfly were faster or cheaper.
Everalbum
The promiseUnlimited photo storage with automatic organization.
Why it diedIt charged a subscription for features that Google Photos gave away for free.
The failed startups come from Loot Drop, a free database of dead startups, retold here in our own words. Loot Drop describes its entries as AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.
What changed
Picnik, Snipshot and Splashup gave people editing tools in the browser, but the person still did the work: every color, every repaired scratch, by hand. Automatic colorization was still a research demonstration in 2016, when Lifehacker wrote that its results depended strongly on the photo. These services competed on convenience, and free editors and large companies took that advantage away. Picwing and Everalbum sold services around family photos, printing and storage, and lost on cost and to free alternatives.
Neural networks changed what the customer pays for. The model does the colorization and the repair, so the customer pays for a result, not for a tool. In 2019 one person could start from an open-source model, DeOldify, and sell the result as a web service. The weak point is the same as before: the core task became cheap for everyone, and Colorize.cc keeps its customers by adding newer models and more tools for the same photo, not by owning the idea.
Can one person copy Colorize.cc now?
The method, yes. The colorizer itself is a crowded market.
Colorize.cc shows that a one-person web service around one image task can earn about US$4,000 a month for years, with no subscription, according to its Stripe records. The same task is offered by many other sites, and the founder built on an open-source model that anyone can use. What a copy needs is the work the founder kept doing: new model versions, more tools around the same photo, and pages in more than one language.
Where it is still open: Services for institutions are still open: archives, libraries and local history societies that need thousands of photos processed with records of what the model changed. The enterprise page of Colorize.cc offers this only as a contact address.
- 1Pick one image task that a clear group of people needs, such as family archives, and show the result with before-and-after examples.
- 2Start from an open-source model, and replace it with your own trained versions over time.
- 3Give a free preview in lower quality, and sell full quality as one-time credit packs sized to the job.
- 4Add tools that work on the photo that the customer has already uploaded: repair, upscaling, editing.
- 5Connect the payment account to a verification site such as TrustMRR, so that the figures can be checked.
What could go wrong for Colorize.cc?
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
Only the Stripe account is verified
TrustMRR reads the Stripe account only. The page source of several pages also loads the checkout widget of YooKassa, a Russian payment service, and the Russian-language text offers a photo for 100 rubles. Any sales through YooKassa are not in the verified figures, so the real total may be higher.
No recurring revenue
MRR is US$0 and there are no subscriptions. Every month depends on new buyers or returning ones. The last 30 days brought US$4,196, 22.7% less than the 30 days before, after the two best months of the year; the 12-month level of about US$4,000 a month has held so far.
Company figures that do not agree
The site gives three counts of processed photos on different pages: more than 200,000, more than 2 million and more than 3 million. Older pages say that credits never expire; the home page and the terms say 365 days. The user count of 500,000 is the founder's figure.
Photos of real people that move and speak
The examples page sells short videos in which "the person in the photo starts speaking", and the portrait page generates a new portrait from an old photo. The site markets these for family memories, and the terms require the consent of the people shown and forbid deceptive impersonation. The same tools could still be misused on photos of living people.
Easy to copy
The first version was built on DeOldify, an open-source model. Free demonstrations of automatic colorization existed by 2016, when Lifehacker wrote about one, and every new general image model can colorize and repair photos. Colorize.cc competes on its own model versions, its tools and its prices.
Two jurisdictions
TrustMRR lists Thailand; the terms name a Russian individual entrepreneur and choose Russian law. Payment, tax or sanction rules in either country could change how the service is paid and run.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- A TrustMRR profile of colorize.cc, revenue synced 25 October 2026Read the markdown profile. Revenue figures read by TrustMRR from Stripe through an API key (grade A); the description, the founded date, the user estimate and the country are entered by the founder (grade C). Data as of October 2026.
- C Colorize.cc home page with prices, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the product, the credit packs, the credit cost per model, the target buyers and the company's user and photo counts.
- C Colorize.cc Terms of Service, last updated 23 October 2026Read in full. Source for the operator, the rules on consent and prohibited use, the 365-day credits and the applicable law.
- C Colorize.cc restoration page, read 25 October 2026Read in full, including the questions and answers in the page source. Source for the model list with years, the storage provider and the Russian-language single-photo offer.
- C Colorize.cc older pricing page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. An older design of the site with the same three prices; source for the claim that credits never expire and for the 2 million photos figure.
- C Colorize.cc AI portrait page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the portrait tool and the founder's quotation.
- C Colorize.cc examples page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the photo-to-video examples and the 10,000 professional clients claim.
- C Colorize.cc enterprise page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. An old, short page. Source for the 2018 start, the 200,000 photos figure, the GPU requirement and the enterprise offer.
- C Colorize.cc photo animation page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the nine predefined animations. Used for the purpose check.
- C Colorize.cc portrait generation page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the portrait generator from a photo of one person, with 5 to 8 hours of processing. Used for the purpose check.
- C Lifehacker (lifehacker.ru), 19 July 2016: Colorize Photos turns black-and-white photos into color photos, with reader commentsRead in full, in Russian. The article is about another, older colorization demo. Source for the founder's comment of 3 January 2019 that names colorize.cc and DeOldify, and a user comment of 10 April 2019.
- C Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startupsLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.