Imagined with AI
What is not verified
The headline figure, US$4,500 a month, rests on one source: the profile box on Sabatino Masala's Starter Story interview of 29 January 2023, repeated unchanged on his update interview of 6 March 2024. The €10,000 in six weeks, the AI Puppy figure of €2,500 to €3,000 a month and the boudoir pack's €1,200 a month are also single founder statements to the same publication. No payment-processor profile, company account or second interview with a total was found. A reader could look for a TrustMRR or Stripe-verified profile, the published accounts of the App Store seller Wonderlus VOF at the Belgian company register, or a later interview that gives a total. The headline number is grade D: one claim or one estimate, with no second source. Aiolum shows it because the story is useful, and marks it so that it is not mistaken for a verified figure.
Imagined with AI is a portrait service built on Dreambooth, a method published in 2022 that fine-tunes an image model, that is, continues its training on a few photos of one subject, so the model can then draw that subject in any style. The customer uploads 5 to 10 photos; the company trains a model on them and returns 120 images in 15 styles. The company's page, read in October 2026, lists the price as US$6.99 for the package, and the same price was on the page in March 2023.
Sabatino Masala, a freelance developer in Ghent who is head of development at a Belgian consultancy, and his girlfriend Silke, who does the marketing, started it on a trip to New York in October 2022. The founder told Starter Story in January 2023 that the first version was a static HTML page with an upload form and a Stripe button, that the first week's orders were trained by hand, and that the service had sold in more than 25 countries and generated 234,000 images. He wrote in the same interview that revenue would reach about €10,000 (US$10,000) by the end of December 2022, six weeks after launch, and the Starter Story profile on that interview lists US$4,500 of revenue a month with 2 founders and 0 employees. In a follow-up interview published in March 2024 he said that a sister product for dogs, AI Puppy, now sells more than Imagined with AI itself, at €2,500 to €3,000 (US$2,700 to US$3,200) a month, and that a boudoir photo pack brings about €1,200 a month.
Every money figure on this page is a founder statement to one publication, Starter Story, so the evidence grade is D, reported and not verified. No payment processor, buyer or journalist has checked the numbers. The page also lists earlier consumer photo tools that died when the novelty passed or when the platform owners shipped the feature for free.
The numbers, graded
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 per month, January 2023 | US$4,500 | D | The profile box on the founder's Starter Story interview of 29 January 2023 lists "$4,500 revenue/mo". The 6 March 2024 update page shows the same figure unchanged. No second source. | [1, 2] |
| Run rate from the January 2023 figure | US$54,000 a year | calc | Calculated: US$4,500 times 12. Starter Story's list page shows the same business as "$54K/year". | [1, 13] |
| Revenue in the first six weeks, to end of December 2022 | about €10,000 (US$10,000) | D | The founder wrote in the January 2023 interview that the business was "looking at reaching the €10k ($10K) revenue milestone" by the end of December 2022, six weeks after launch. An expectation at the time of writing, not a closed figure. | [1] |
| AI Puppy revenue per month, March 2024 | €2,500 to €3,000 (US$2,700 to US$3,200) | D | Founder's update interview, 6 March 2024, for the dog product alone, which he said sells more than Imagined with AI itself. | [2] |
| Boudoir.ai pack revenue per month, March 2024 | about €1,200 | D | Founder's update interview, 6 March 2024, for one photo pack sold on a separate landing page. | [2] |
| Gross margin | about 40% in January 2023; 70% to 80% in March 2024 | D | Founder statements in the two Starter Story interviews. He said GPU prices fell between the two dates. | [1, 2] |
| Team | 2 co-founders, 0 employees | D | Starter Story profile on both interviews. The founder said in March 2024 that both of them work full-time jobs and build these products in evenings and weekends. | [1, 2] |
| Outside funding | none | D | The founder said in January 2023 that the business was bootstrapped entirely from the couple's own money, including the ad campaigns. | [1] |
| Price of the main package | US$6.99 one-time for 120 images | C | Company page read on 22 October 2026. The Wayback Machine copy of 13 March 2023 shows the same price. | [3, 5] |
| Customers and output, January 2023 | more than 25 countries; 234,000 images generated | D | Founder statement in the January 2023 interview. | [1] |
| Advertising spend, March 2024 | about US$250 per five days, about once a month, on Instagram | D | Founder's update interview. In January 2023 he said paid campaigns had been worth it but gave no amount. | [2] |
| App Store ratings, October 2026 | Imagined with AI app: 1.0 from 3 ratings; AI Puppy: 1.1 from 14 ratings | C | Read from the US App Store listings, both published by Wonderlus, seller Wonderlus VOF. The company's website, not the apps, is the main sales channel. | [7, 8] |
| Time from launch to the headline figure | 3 months | calc | Calculated: mid-October 2022 to January 2023. | [1] |
How to read this table: a grade D value is a single founder statement on a single date, or a profile figure on one site, with no second source. A grade C value is read directly from the company's own pages. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Imagined with AI, person or pet portraits | 6.99 one-time | 120 images in 15 styles | |
| Cat portraits page | 6.99 one-time | 120 images | |
| AI Puppy, website and App Store | 6.99 one-time | 120 dog portraits; in-app purchases up to US$79.99 | |
| Boudoir.ai pack | 19.95 one-time | 40 photos plus 10 extra credits; women only | |
| Studio Deepfake, Basic | 0 | 0 | free models, 1 photo at a time |
| Studio Deepfake, Hobby | 7.50 | 9 | 2 custom models, 2 photos at a time |
| Studio Deepfake, Professional | 74.17 | 82 | 9 custom models, no concurrency limit |
The main service is a one-time purchase: 120 images for US$6.99, the same price the page showed in a March 2023 archive copy. The founder said in March 2024 that AI Puppy charges US$6.99 for 120 portraits; its App Store listing shows in-app purchases from US$6.99 to US$79.99, which includes a styles pack and an "Unlimited Edits" subscription whose price the listing does not state. Studio Deepfake, a later sister site, is a subscription with a free tier; its yearly prices are US$90 and US$890, shown here divided by 12. Boudoir.ai is a one-time payment for 40 photos.
The timeline
From a jet-lagged idea in New York to a reported US$4,500 a month, in three months, then a move into pets and sister sites. Each entry carries its grade.
- Summer 2022DMasala, a freelance developer and head of development at a Belgian consultancy, spends his evenings writing prompts for DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. [1, 6]
- October 2022DOn a city trip to New York, just after Dreambooth is introduced, the couple decides on AI portraits. He trains a first model in Google Colab and posts the results in his employer's Slack; the reaction convinces them to sell it. [1, 4]
- Mid-October 2022DThe first version goes live: a static HTML page with an upload form and a Stripe button. The first portraits sell within 24 hours. In the first week the founder trains each order by hand. [1]
- October to November 2022DA Facebook post to friends brings the first paying customers. The couple starts TikTok and Instagram accounts; an Instagram Reel of a dog reaches 30,000 views in a few hours. [1]
- About November 2022DAn iPhone app with in-app purchases, built in one Saturday morning and submitted the same day; the first in-app purchases arrive by Monday. A first business partner resells the images on personalized photo products. [1, 6]
- 16 December 2022CAI Puppy, the dog version, is on Product Hunt: 94 upvotes, 17 comments, 21st of the day, submitted by Masala himself. [9]
- End of December 2022DThe founder writes that revenue is about to reach €10,000 (US$10,000), six weeks after launch. [1]
- 29 January 2023DStarter Story publishes the interview. Its profile lists US$4,500 of revenue a month, 2 founders and 0 employees. The founder says margins are about 40%, the process is fully automated, and the hype for AI avatars is dying, so they will go after pets. [1]
- 13 March 2023CArchive copy of the home page: 120 images in 15 styles for US$6.99, with AI Puppy and cat portraits in the menu, and the trained model offered for download. [5]
- May 2023DIn an IdeaMensch interview the founder says the tool is running and still generates revenue every day, and that he works on it one or two hours in the evening after his day job. [6]
- 6 March 2024DUpdate interview: AI Puppy sells more than Imagined with AI, at €2,500 to €3,000 (US$2,700 to US$3,200) a month; margins 70% to 80%; a boudoir pack brings about €1,200 a month. Both founders still have full-time jobs. Generation takes 20 minutes and cheaper competitors are faster. [2]
- 22 October 2026CThe site is live at the same US$6.99 price, with Studio Deepfake added to the menu. The two iPhone apps are still listed, with ratings of 1.0 and 1.1 out of 5. [3, 7, 8, 10]
Why it worked
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
Timing
Dreambooth was published in late summer 2022, and the service was live by mid-October 2022, before the wave of avatar apps that followed in December. The founder said in May 2023 that it was one of the first profile-picture generators. Being early is what made a static page with a Stripe button enough: the founder said in January 2023 that the first portraits sold within 24 hours.
Sell first, automate later
The founder said in January 2023 that in the first week he trained each order by hand while all the effort went into marketing, and only then automated the flow end to end. The service never had to be finished before it earned money.
Pets, not people
The founder said in January 2023 that AI images are something people buy once and forget, and that the avatar hype was dying, while dog owners had always been the largest customer group. AI Puppy, launched in December 2022, got its own app and, by the founder's March 2024 account, out-sold the original product at €2,500 to €3,000 a month. Silke writes one page per dog breed with sample results, a long-tail search strategy that the home page's list of 70 breed pages shows.
Upsells and resellers
The founder said in January 2023 that offering a second training run at 50% off to existing customers, for example for a partner, was a large revenue driver, and that cold emails to print-on-demand companies that resell the images worked well. In March 2024 he said more B2B outreach would have brought more success.
How it was built
These details come from the founder's two Starter Story interviews, his IdeaMensch interview and the company's own pages. They are grade D where they rest on one founder statement. [1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8]
- Dreambooth fine-tuning of Stable Diffusion: the founder said in January 2023 that he trained his first model in Google Colab; the page's FAQ says uploads go to an external training service and are deleted, and that the trained model can be downloaded for use in Stable Diffusion tools.
- The first version was a static HTML page with an upload form and a Stripe button; the production backend is Laravel with Laravel Nova, which the founder called his standard stack for a new product.
- The Starter Story tool lists name Digital Ocean and Amazon Web Services on the 2023 page and Linode and AWS infrastructure on the 2024 page for hosting, with Mailchimp and Mailgun for email, Zendesk for support, Google Analytics, and Facebook and Instagram ads.
- GPU time is the main cost. The founder said in January 2023 that GPU prices had surged unexpectedly and that a flexible setup let him switch within hours; in March 2024 he said GPU costs had fallen and margins had grown to 70% to 80%.
- The iPhone app was built in one Saturday morning with in-app purchases; the App Store lists both apps under the developer name Wonderlus, seller Wonderlus VOF.
- In March 2024 a model and its photos took about 20 minutes to generate; the founder said competitors using prompting or DALL-E 3 were faster and cheaper but lost the likeness, and that he was preparing cheaper alternatives, such as a free cartoon-your-pet tool to upsell the paid service.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
The dead that came before
Five companies in the Loot Drop database sold consumer image tools whose novelty faded, whose customers did not come back, or whose feature the big platforms shipped for free. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Picnik
The promisePhoto editing with effects in the browser, no software to install.
Why it diedGoogle bought it in 2010 and folded the technology into Google+; phones and Instagram made a standalone web editor unnecessary.
Snipshot
The promiseQuick photo edits in the browser for casual users.
Why it diedBigger web editors and free alternatives copied the convenience; it never found a way to charge.
Splashup
The promiseSocial photo editing in the browser, several people on one image at once.
Why it diedBuilt on Flash as HTML5 arrived, with a loyal user base but no business model.
Picplum
The promiseUpload photos, and prints are mailed to the people you choose.
Why it diedSocial sharing replaced prints, and the logistics cost more than customers would pay.
Modsy
The promiseUpload photos of your room and get photorealistic redesigns, sold as AI.
Why it diedEach order needed hours of human designer time; customers bought once and rarely returned, so paid acquisition lost money on every customer.
What changed
Three of the five sold a web image tool that was useful once and free to copy, and the platform owners, Google, Adobe, Instagram, shipped the same feature inside products people already used. Picplum and Modsy had the other problem that Imagined with AI shares: the customer buys once and does not come back, so the business must find each customer again. The founder said in January 2023 that AI portraits are exactly that kind of purchase.
Two things are different here. The founders spent nothing on staff or offices, so a reported US$4,500 a month, by the founder's January 2023 account, was a profitable side business and not a funded company looking for growth. And instead of defending one product, they kept moving to the niche that still bought: from people to dogs, cats and rabbits, then to breed-by-breed search pages, headshots and boudoir packs on separate sites. Whether that beats the pattern is not shown: no source gives a total revenue figure after January 2023.
Can one person copy it now?
The product, no. The method, yes.
An AI portrait service in 2026 competes with hundreds of apps and with free image models that need no training. The founder said in March 2024 that cheaper and faster methods were already taking customers. What can be copied is the way they entered: a new model capability, a page with a payment button within days, manual fulfilment at first, and a quick move to the customer group that keeps buying.
Where it is still open: Any new generative capability with a clear consumer use, applied to a group that buys repeatedly: pet owners, parents, hobby communities, small shops that need product photos.
- 1When a new model capability appears, put a one-page order form with a payment button in front of it the same week, and fulfil the first orders by hand.
- 2Post the results where friends and followers already are; the founder said in January 2023 that a Facebook post brought the first paying customers and a dog video on Instagram the first viral reach.
- 3Watch which subject sells, and build the next product for that group; here, dog owners.
- 4Add a page per segment with sample results, one dog breed per page, so search brings buyers without ads.
- 5Offer existing customers a second run at a discount and find businesses that resell the output on their own products.
What to watch
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
What is not verified
The headline figure, US$4,500 a month, rests on one source: the profile box on Sabatino Masala's Starter Story interview of 29 January 2023, repeated unchanged on his update interview of 6 March 2024. The €10,000 in six weeks, the AI Puppy figure of €2,500 to €3,000 a month and the boudoir pack's €1,200 a month are also single founder statements to the same publication. No payment-processor profile, company account or second interview with a total was found. A reader could look for a TrustMRR or Stripe-verified profile, the published accounts of the App Store seller Wonderlus VOF at the Belgian company register, or a later interview that gives a total.
A side project of two people with day jobs
The founder said in March 2024 that both founders work full-time and that answering support requests in time had become hard. Growth depends on evenings and weekends.
The hype passed, and the technology moved
The founder said in January 2023 that the avatar hype was dying, and in March 2024 that competitors using prompting or DALL-E 3 produce results in 20 seconds instead of 20 minutes at much lower cost. Pet portraits and search pages bought time; they do not stop a cheaper model from doing the same job.
Weak app ratings
The two iPhone apps show 1.0 stars from 3 ratings and 1.1 stars from 14 ratings in October 2026. Most sales go through the website, but the listings do not help the brand.
Sister sites with sensitive names
The same founders now sell Studio Deepfake, whose page says it makes professional headshots of yourself, and Boudoir.ai, whose page says it applies a nudity filter and serves women only. Both are self-portraits of the paying customer, but the names invite scrutiny, and any misuse would reflect on the whole business.
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.
- D Starter Story, 29 January 2023: Our AI Image Generator Made $10K In Just 6 WeeksRead in full. Founder interview with a profile box that lists US$4,500 revenue a month, 2 founders, 0 employees, Ghent, Belgium, started October 2022. Source for the launch account, the six-week figure, margins, channels and tools.
- D Starter Story, 6 March 2024: How We Expanded Our AI Image Generator Tools And Make $4.5K Per MonthRead in full. Founder update interview. Source for the AI Puppy and boudoir figures, the 70% to 80% margins, the ad spend, the full-time jobs and the 20-minute generation time. The profile box repeats the US$4,500 figure.
- C Imagined with AI home page, read 22 October 2026Read in full. Source for the price, the 120 images in 15 styles, the FAQ on the external training service and the list of breed pages.
- C Imagined with AI, About us: The story behind Imagined with AIRead in full. Company's own account naming Sabatino and Silke and the New York trip in October 2022.
- C Wayback Machine copy of imagined-with.ai, 13 March 2023Read in full. Shows the same US$6.99 price and the AI Puppy and cat portrait pages in March 2023.
- D IdeaMensch, May 2023: Sabatino Masala, Head of Technology at CraftzingRead in full. Founder interview, dated May 2023 with the text written in March 2023. Confirms the launch in October 2022, the Facebook launch, the app and that the tool still earned daily; gives no amount.
- C App Store listing: Imagined with AI, by WonderlusRead in full. Developer Wonderlus, seller Wonderlus VOF, in-app purchases, 3 ratings at 1.0. The Belgian store page returned 404 on 22 October 2026; the US page loaded.
- C App Store listing: AI Puppy, by WonderlusRead in full. In-app purchase prices from US$6.99 to US$79.99, a styles pack and an unlimited-edits subscription, 14 ratings at 1.1.
- C Hunted.space: AI Puppy Product Hunt launch dashboardRead in full. A third-party mirror of Product Hunt data: launched 16 December 2022, 94 upvotes, 17 comments, 21st of the day, hunted by Sabatino Masala.
- C Studio Deepfake home and pricing page, read 22 October 2026Read in full. Sister site linked from the company menu. Source for its prices and the FLUX fine-tune announcement.
- C Boudoir.ai home page, read 22 October 2026Read in full. Sister landing page named in the March 2024 interview. Source for the US$19.95 price and the nudity-filter FAQ.
- C Imagined with AI, cat portraits pageRead in full. Source for the cat package price.
- D Starter Story list: AI-based content creation business success storiesRead the Imagined with AI entry. Lists the business at US$54,000 a year, US$0 to start, and links to the interview.
- C Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startupsLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.