# Makeform Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/makeform/ · added 2026-11-01 · updated 2026-11-01 **In short.** Makeform (AI form builder that writes a form from a chat prompt, United States): US$1K a month, April 2026. Evidence grade C: the founder's own figures, not verified by anyone else. Team: 1 founder, no co-founders and no investors. Launched 2 October 2024; still running, revenue flat. AI form builder that writes a form from a chat prompt · United States · AI-native · solo founder · still running, revenue flat · group: Documents, data and slides - Outcome: US$1K a month, April 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: C; headline in US dollars: 12000) - Launch: 2 October 2024; months from launch to the outcome: 18 - Team: 1 founder, no co-founders and no investors - Outside funding: None - Main factor: Search - Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 1, copyable pattern 3, capital needed 1 - Tags: AI-native, Solo founder, Bootstrapped, Running, B2B, Productivity Links: - Visit makeform.ai: https://www.makeform.ai/ **The product.** A form builder where the first step is a chat: you describe the form in plain words, and the AI writes the questions, the page structure, the conditional logic and the design. You then edit every field by hand. Forms and submissions are free without a limit; the Pro plan adds premium AI models, an AI summary of recent responses, custom domains and branding removal. **Why it worked.** The founder wrote that Typeform and Jotform cost too much for small teams, Google Forms has little design control, and none of them were built around AI. He gave away the full form builder for free and charged for extras, and he got visitors from Google search pages and free AI form generator pages instead of paid ads. The founder said revenue went from US$600 a month in February 2026 to US$1,000 a month in April 2026. 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; calc = computed on this page from graded facts. ## Summary Makeform is an AI form builder. The user types a request such as "a patient intake form with a consent checkbox and an appointment picker", and a large language model, a program trained on a large amount of text that writes text on request, drafts the form. The draft includes conditional logic, rules that show or hide questions based on earlier answers. The changelog says the builder runs on OpenAI's Chat API and that Pro users can choose GPT-4 or Claude models. Forms and submissions are free without a limit, and the Pro plan costs US$19 a month billed yearly. Nil Ni, a former software engineering manager at Credit Karma and Intuit who left his job at the end of 2022, started Makeform alone in 2024. His public to-do list for 2 October 2024 is titled "MakeForm X Launch #1". He posted on X that MRR, monthly recurring revenue (the subscription money that comes in every month), was US$600 on 18 February 2026, US$847 on 17 March 2026 and US$1,000 on 11 April 2026. He wrote that the first US$100 a month took nine months and that he almost quit at month six. In November 2026 his personal site still listed Makeform at US$1,000 a month. All revenue figures on this page are the founder's own statements, grade C. Arrfounder, a directory, quotes his posts. No payment processor has confirmed them, and Arrfounder's own product page shows a much lower undated figure of US$44 a month. The founder wrote that customers come from SEO, search engine optimization (pages built so that Google shows them for searches), not from ads. The page also shows earlier form and feedback companies that failed. ## Pricing Makeform prices on 1 November 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C) | Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit | |---|---|---|---| | Free | 0 | 0 | unlimited forms and submissions | | Pro | 19 | | premium AI models, AI response brief, custom domain, no branding | | Business | 59 | | Pro plus data retention control and role-based access | | Pro pass, 30 days | 29 one-time | | no subscription | | Pro pass, 90 days | 79 one-time | | no subscription | | Business pass, 30 days | 89 one-time | | no subscription | | Business pass, 90 days | 239 one-time | | no subscription | The pricing page opens on yearly billing: Pro is US$19 a month, billed US$228 a year, and Business is US$59 a month, billed US$708 a year. The page says yearly billing gives 4 months free, which would make the monthly price about US$28.50 for Pro, but the monthly prices load by script and were not read. Passes without a subscription cost US$29 for 30 days or US$79 for 90 days of Pro, and US$89 or US$239 for Business. The free plan has unlimited forms and submissions under fair usage guidelines. ## How much revenue does Makeform make? The numbers, graded A free AI form builder that the founder said reached US$1,000 a month 18 months after its first launch list, all self-reported | Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources | |---|---|---|---|---| | Monthly recurring revenue, 11 April 2026 | US$1,000 | C | Founder's post on X, 11 April 2026: "Makeform just reached 1K MRR!", quoted on Arrfounder. Not read on X itself. | [1] | | Run rate from the April 2026 figure | US$12,000 a year | calc | Calculated: US$1,000 times 12. This is the headline value. | [1] | | Monthly recurring revenue, 17 March 2026 | US$847 | C | Founder's post, quoted on Arrfounder: "Reached $847/mo MRR. 3 weeks ago it was $600." | [2] | | Monthly recurring revenue, 18 February 2026 | US$600 | C | Founder's post, quoted on Arrfounder: "makeform just crossed $600 MRR." | [3] | | Time for each revenue step | US$0 to US$100: 9 months; to US$200: 3 months; to US$400: 2 months; to US$600: 1 month; to US$847: 3 weeks | C | Founder's posts of February and March 2026. He wrote "i almost quit at month 6". | [3, 2] | | Growth between the dated figures | about +41% in 27 days, then about +18% in 25 days | calc | Calculated: US$847 / US$600 and US$1,000 / US$847, with the days between 18 February, 17 March and 11 April 2026. | [1, 2, 3] | | Makeform revenue on the founder's site, November 2026 | US$1,000 a month | C | The founder's personal site, read 1 November 2026, lists "Makeform $1000 /mo" among his products, with a total of US$2,044 a month for all of them. The site gives no date for the figure. | [4] | | Monthly revenue on Arrfounder's product page | US$44 a month, US$528 a year | D | Directory figure with no date and no stated source, read 1 November 2026. It disagrees with the founder's posts that the same directory quotes. | [12] | | Pro plan price | US$19 a month billed yearly (US$228 a year) | C | Pricing page, 1 November 2026. Business is US$59 a month billed yearly. | [7] | | Paid plan introduced | 27 October 2025 | C | Changelog: a Pro plan with "Access to GPT-4 and Claude models", released with Form Builder V3, "powered by OpenAI's Chat API". | [10] | | First launch list | 2 October 2024 | C | The build-in-public page lists "10/2/2024, Day 1, OVERTHINKING -> LAUNCHING"; the linked form is titled "MakeForm X Launch #1". The about page and the AI Info page say Makeform was founded in 2024. | [11, 8, 9] | | Team | 1 founder | C | Founder's blog, 19 May 2026: "No investors. No co-founders." and "So I went solo. Truly solo." | [5] | | Outside funding | none | C | About page: "Makeform is built independently — no investors, no growth team, no roadmap committee." The changelog calls it "a bootstrapped company". | [8, 10] | | How customers arrive | Google search and word of mouth, no ads | C | Founder's blog: "acquire users through SEO instead of ads" and "How to grow without spending a single dollar on advertising." The changelog says growth "relies entirely on word of mouth". | [5, 10] | | Users claimed on the home page | 31,129+ makers | C | Company's own counter on the home page, 1 November 2026. Not a paying-customer count. | [6] | | Time from the first launch list to the April 2026 figure | 18 months | calc | Calculated: October 2024 to April 2026. | [11, 1] | How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder or on the company's own pages. Grade D is an undated directory figure. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B. ## When did Makeform launch, and how did it grow? Timeline From a two-line to-do list in October 2024 to US$1,000 a month in April 2026, with the paid plan added in October 2025. Each entry carries its grade. - **End of 2022** (grade C [4]): Nil Ni leaves his job as a software engineering manager at Credit Karma and Intuit to build his own businesses. - **2 October 2024** (grade C [11]): His public to-do list for day 1 is titled "MakeForm X Launch #1": a waitlist, Google site verification, an end screen and a "Made With" button. - **3 October 2024** (grade C [11]): Day 2 list: a dashboard with submission counts, multi-page forms "for tally like ui" and form logic. - **27 October 2025** (grade C [10]): Form Builder V3, built on OpenAI's Chat API, and the first Pro plan with GPT-4 and Claude models, custom domains and branding tools. - **21 January 2026** (grade C [10]): Workspaces, team access with roles, an inbox view for submissions and a Zapier integration. - **18 February 2026** (grade C [3]): The founder posts that monthly recurring revenue crossed US$600, after nine months to reach the first US$100. - **17 March 2026** (grade C [2]): The founder posts US$847 a month and a goal of ten times that by the end of the year. - **11 April 2026** (grade C [1]): The founder posts "Makeform just reached 1K MRR!" - **19 May 2026** (grade C [5]): On his blog the founder writes that he has four products with steady revenue and that Makeform taught him to get customers from Google without ads. - **August 2026** (grade C [9]): The AI Info page, written for AI assistants, describes a hosted MCP server and a REST API so that AI agents can create forms. - **November 2026** (grade C [4]): The founder's personal site lists Makeform at US$1,000 a month, the same as in April. ## Why did Makeform work? ### Search pages instead of ads The founder wrote that he grew Makeform with SEO and without any advertising money. The site has free generator pages for single use cases (waitlist, survey, quiz, contact form) and a page written for AI assistants, so that Google and chat assistants send visitors to it. ### A free plan with no limits on forms Unlimited forms and unlimited submissions are free, so a visitor can build and publish a real form without paying. Money comes from extras that a business needs later: no branding, a custom domain, team roles, premium models and an AI summary of responses. ### The AI writes the first draft The user describes the form in a chat and gets questions, logic and design in one step, then edits it in a normal form editor. This removes the slowest part of building a form, without taking control away from the user. ### One founder, frequent releases The changelog shows large releases in October 2025 and January 2026. The founder wrote that he had no co-founders and no investors, and that the product changes based on user requests. ## How it was built These details come from the company's changelog, its AI Info page and the founder's blog. They are grade C. - The form builder calls OpenAI's Chat API, and Pro users can select GPT-4 or Claude models. - The draft form streams into a live preview while the model writes it; the changelog mentions fixes for "form jumping issues during AI streaming". - Integrations send submissions to Google Sheets, Notion, Slack, Airtable, webhooks, Zapier and Make. - A content filter blocks publishing of forms with restricted content, to "protect against sensitive or high-risk information being accidentally published". - A REST API and a hosted MCP server, a standard interface that lets AI agents call tools, allow coding agents to create and manage forms. - The site and its forms are offered in 13 languages. Sources: [10, 9, 6] ## Who tried this before Makeform, and why did they fail? Four companies in our database of failed startups sold digital forms, feedback collection or no-code building and failed. 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. ### Canvas (2011 to 2017; funding US$17M; cause: Competition) - Promise: Create, edit and share digital forms to replace paper processes. - Why it died: Microsoft and Adobe added form and document features to their suites, and the standalone product had no strong distribution channel. - Record: ### Posmetrics (2013 to 2016; funding US$120K; cause: Competition) - Promise: Customer feedback forms on an iPad at the point of sale. - Why it died: It needed a physical iPad in each store, and app-based and web-based feedback forms replaced it. - Record: ### Frogmetrics (2008 to 2011; funding US$400K; cause: Competition) - Promise: Tablets in shops that collect customer satisfaction ratings in real time. - Why it died: Hardware, distribution and maintenance cost too much, and phone apps did the same job. - Record: ### Appcubator (2013 to 2016; funding US$120K; cause: Product/Tech Failure) - Promise: Build a mobile app without programming, with drag-and-drop tools. - Why it died: Users found the limits of the no-code tool larger than its benefits, and more flexible builders such as Bubble won. - Record: ## What changed Canvas, Posmetrics and Frogmetrics sold the same basic promise as Makeform: replace paper and slow tools with digital forms. Two of them needed hardware in every store, and Canvas needed a sales channel to reach businesses before Microsoft and Adobe added the feature. Appcubator promised building without code, but users hit the limits of what the drag-and-drop tool could make. Makeform has no hardware and no sales team: a form is a web page, and visitors come from search. A language model now writes the first draft of a form from a sentence, which removes the slow setup work that drag-and-drop builders still needed. The risk that killed Canvas is still there: Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Typeform and Jotform can add the same AI step, and the founder said in April 2026 that revenue was US$1,000 a month, which is small next to them. ## Can one person copy Makeform now? **Verdict: Yes, and the revenue level shows how slow it can be.** The method needs no money and no team: an AI-first version of a common tool, a free plan generous enough to rank and spread, and search pages for each use case. The founder's posts also show the cost: nine months to the first US$100 a month and 18 months to US$1,000 a month, he said. 1. Pick a common tool that people still set up by hand, and make the AI write the first draft from one sentence. 2. Give away the core product without limits, and charge for what businesses need later: branding removal, custom domains, team roles and better models. 3. Build one free page for each use case (waitlist, survey, quiz) so that search engines and AI assistants can send visitors. 4. Publish an API or an MCP server so that AI agents can use the product as well as people. **What is still open.** Other everyday business tools that still start from an empty screen: invoices, contracts, booking pages, simple internal apps. ## What could go wrong for Makeform? - **Small and self-reported.** Every revenue figure is the founder's own post or his own site. Arrfounder quotes his posts and does not check them. No TrustMRR profile was found (trustmrr.com/startup/makeform.md returned "Not found" on 1 November 2026), and no payment processor confirms the numbers. - **A directory shows a much lower figure.** Arrfounder's product page for Makeform shows US$44 a month and US$528 a year, with no date. It may be an old figure from when the listing was made, but no source says so. - **At the money floor, and flat.** US$1,000 a month is about US$12,000 a year, far below the engineering salary the founder left. His site still showed US$1,000 a month in November 2026, the same as in April, while his March 2026 post set a goal of ten times that by the end of the year. - **The owner's other products.** The footer of every Makeform page links to the founder's personal site, which lists several other small products he runs, such as QuizGen AI and PageGun. Makeform is judged here on its own pages and figures. - **Marketing claims not verified.** The home page says Makeform is "used by tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude" and is "Trusted by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Builders Worldwide". No source explains what this means; it may refer to AI assistants that recommend it. The named customer quotes on the home page were not checked. - **Model costs on a free plan.** Every free form is drafted by a paid language model, and free users have unlimited forms. Model costs grow with free usage; the home page says free use is subject to "fair usage guidelines". ## Sources 1. Arrfounder, news: Makeform Hits $1K MRR (founder's X post of 11 April 2026) — https://arrfounder.com/news/makeform-hits-1k-mrr (grade C). Read in full. The directory quotes the founder's post https://x.com/_nilni/status/2042831362428932215; X itself was not opened. 2. Arrfounder, news: Makeform Hits $847 MRR (founder's post of 17 March 2026) — https://arrfounder.com/news/makeform-hits-847-mrr (grade C). Read in full. Quotes the founder's post with the growth steps and his goal. 3. Arrfounder, news: Makeform Crosses $600 MRR (founder's post of 18 February 2026) — https://arrfounder.com/news/makeform-crosses-600-mrr (grade C). Read in full. Quotes the founder's post with the time for each revenue step. 4. Nil Ni, personal site: Dad, Husband, IndieHacker, Investor — https://www.nilni.com/ (grade C). Read in full, 1 November 2026. Source for his former job, the current Makeform figure and his other products. 5. Nil Ni's blog, 19 May 2026: A Dad With 2 Kids Shouldn't Quit His Job. I Did Anyway. — https://www.nilni.com/blog/dad-with-2-kids-shouldnt-quit-job (grade C). Read in full. Source for the solo team, the lack of investors and the SEO channel. 6. Makeform home page: Free AI Form Builder — https://www.makeform.ai/ (grade C). Read in full, 1 November 2026. Source for the product description, the user counter and the marketing claims. 7. Makeform pricing page — https://www.makeform.ai/pricing (grade C). Read in full, 1 November 2026. Yearly prices and passes read; monthly prices load by script and were not read. 8. Makeform: About Us — https://www.makeform.ai/about (grade C). Read in full. The founder's own statement that he started Makeform in 2024 with no investors. 9. Makeform: AI Info, last updated 16 August 2026 — https://www.makeform.ai/ai-info (grade C). Read in full. Company facts written for AI assistants: founding year, founder, features, API and MCP server. 10. Makeform changelog: What's new — https://www.makeform.ai/changelog (grade C). Read in full. Source for the releases of 27 October 2025 and 21 January 2026 and the AI models used. 11. Makeform: Build in Public page and the day 1 and day 2 lists of 2 and 3 October 2024 — https://www.makeform.ai/buildinpublic (grade C). Read in full, with the two linked forms https://www.makeform.ai/f/ILGS83qM and https://www.makeform.ai/f/sHQOQgUt. 12. Arrfounder, product page: Makeform — https://arrfounder.com/product/makeform (grade D). Read in full. Undated directory figure of US$44 a month that disagrees with the founder's posts. 13. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.