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AI form builder that writes a form from a chat prompt · United States

Makeform: Revenue, team and how it was built

Solo founderB2BProductivity

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.Added 1 November 2026

Outcome
US$1K a month, April 2026Revenue flat
Evidence
C the founder's own figures, not verified by anyone else
Launch
2 October 2024
Status
Still running
Team
1 founder, no co-founders and no investors
Outside funding
None
Group
Documents, data and slides
Main channel
Search and AI answers

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.

Makeform: US$1K a month, April 2026. AI form builder that writes a form from a chat prompt, United States, solo founder, evidence grade C.
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01

How much revenue does Makeform 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.

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
FactValueGradeHow we knowSources
Monthly recurring revenue, 11 April 2026US$1,000CFounder'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 figureUS$12,000 a yearcalcCalculated: US$1,000 times 12. This is the headline value.[1]
Monthly recurring revenue, 17 March 2026US$847CFounder's post, quoted on Arrfounder: "Reached $847/mo MRR. 3 weeks ago it was $600."[2]
Monthly recurring revenue, 18 February 2026US$600CFounder's post, quoted on Arrfounder: "makeform just crossed $600 MRR."[3]
Time for each revenue stepUS$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 weeksCFounder's posts of February and March 2026. He wrote "i almost quit at month 6".[3, 2]
Growth between the dated figuresabout +41% in 27 days, then about +18% in 25 dayscalcCalculated: 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 2026US$1,000 a monthCThe 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 pageUS$44 a month, US$528 a yearDDirectory 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 priceUS$19 a month billed yearly (US$228 a year)CPricing page, 1 November 2026. Business is US$59 a month billed yearly.[7]
Paid plan introduced27 October 2025CChangelog: 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 list2 October 2024CThe 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]
Team1 founderCFounder's blog, 19 May 2026: "No investors. No co-founders." and "So I went solo. Truly solo."[5]
Outside fundingnoneCAbout page: "Makeform is built independently — no investors, no growth team, no roadmap committee." The changelog calls it "a bootstrapped company".[8, 10]
How customers arriveGoogle search and word of mouth, no adsCFounder'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 page31,129+ makersCCompany'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 figure18 monthscalcCalculated: 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.

Makeform prices on 1 November 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C)
PlanPer month, billed yearly (US$)Per month, billed monthly (US$)Limit
Free00unlimited forms and submissions
Pro19premium AI models, AI response brief, custom domain, no branding
Business59Pro plus data retention control and role-based access
Pro pass, 30 days29 one-timeno subscription
Pro pass, 90 days79 one-timeno subscription
Business pass, 30 days89 one-timeno subscription
Business pass, 90 days239 one-timeno 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.

02

When did Makeform launch, and how did it grow?

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.

  1. End of 2022CNil Ni leaves his job as a software engineering manager at Credit Karma and Intuit to build his own businesses. [4]
  2. 2 October 2024CHis 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. [11]
  3. 3 October 2024CDay 2 list: a dashboard with submission counts, multi-page forms "for tally like ui" and form logic. [11]
  4. 27 October 2025CForm Builder V3, built on OpenAI's Chat API, and the first Pro plan with GPT-4 and Claude models, custom domains and branding tools. [10]
  5. 21 January 2026CWorkspaces, team access with roles, an inbox view for submissions and a Zapier integration. [10]
  6. 18 February 2026CThe founder posts that monthly recurring revenue crossed US$600, after nine months to reach the first US$100. [3]
  7. 17 March 2026CThe founder posts US$847 a month and a goal of ten times that by the end of the year. [2]
  8. 11 April 2026CThe founder posts "Makeform just reached 1K MRR!" [1]
  9. 19 May 2026COn 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. [5]
  10. August 2026CThe AI Info page, written for AI assistants, describes a hosted MCP server and a REST API so that AI agents can create forms. [9]
  11. November 2026CThe founder's personal site lists Makeform at US$1,000 a month, the same as in April. [4]
03

Why did Makeform work?

Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.

01

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.

02

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.

03

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.

04

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. [10, 9, 6]

  • 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.

Tools named in the sources

Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.

OpenAI APICAnthropic APICNext.jsBVercelBCloudflareBGoogle Search (organic)CPlausibleBGoogle AnalyticsB
04

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.

Died 2011 to 2017Burned US$17M

Canvas

The 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.

Competition
Died 2013 to 2016Burned US$120K

Posmetrics

The 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.

Competition
Died 2008 to 2011Burned US$400K

Frogmetrics

The 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.

Competition
Died 2013 to 2016Burned US$120K

Appcubator

The 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.

Product/Tech Failure

The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.

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.

05

Can one person copy Makeform now?

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.

Where it is still open: Other everyday business tools that still start from an empty screen: invoices, contracts, booking pages, simple internal apps.

  1. 1Pick a common tool that people still set up by hand, and make the AI write the first draft from one sentence.
  2. 2Give away the core product without limits, and charge for what businesses need later: branding removal, custom domains, team roles and better models.
  3. 3Build one free page for each use case (waitlist, survey, quiz) so that search engines and AI assistants can send visitors.
  4. 4Publish an API or an MCP server so that AI agents can use the product as well as people.

What could go wrong for Makeform?

The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.

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".

More in Documents, data and slides

Other businesses in the same group, best evidence first. All 34 stories in the group, 14 with grade-A revenue.

AI presentation generator and Google Slides add-on · India

MagicSlides

Evidence A
$723K total, now $9K/mo

Team of 2 to 10 · 45 months after launch, revenue falling

Said US$19K a monthRecords US$9.6K in JulyDid not hold

It appeared in January 2023 inside Google Slides, a program where people already work, when writing slides from one sentence was new, and users showed it to each other without paid advertising. A blog about presentation topics then brought about 80% of new users from Google search, by the founder's account. Both channels weakened: search traffic fell, and Google added the same function to Slides. The verified total is real, and so is the fall: monthly revenue fell by half between February and July 2026.

7 grade-A facts · 4 that failed before it
AI invoice and receipt collection for small companies and accountants · Spain

Tailride

Evidence A
$19K/mo, then new owner

Solo founder · sold 17 months after launch

It solved one narrow and repeated task that every company has at the end of each quarter: find all invoices and give them to the accountant. It read the invoices where they already were, in the inbox and on supplier websites, instead of asking people to forward them, and it let customers write their own checking rules in plain language. Stripe data shows monthly revenue rising from US$12,631 in November 2025 to US$18,970 in January 2026.

5 grade-A facts · 4 that failed before it
AI presentation generator (web app) · USA

GenPPT

Evidence A
$110.6K in 12 months

Solo founder · 29 months after launch, revenue falling

It is run by a search marketer: its pages target what people type into Google, and its best month came from a list article on another company's blog that ranked there. A US$1 trial that needs a card turns visitors directly into subscribers at US$25 a month or US$99 a year.

7 grade-A facts · 3 that failed before it

Same kind of product, a weaker result

Businesses in the same group whose public claim did not hold, whose revenue is now falling, or whose number is reported but not verified. Each card says which.

AI presentation generator · United Kingdom

Presentia AI

Evidence A
$60K total, now $1.1K MRR

Team of 2 to 10 · 24 months after launch, revenue falling

It sold a simple promise, a finished PowerPoint file from one sentence, at a low price: in 2024 and the first half of 2025 the archived pricing showed unlimited decks for US$9.99 a month. Stripe payments read by TrustMRR add up to US$60,120 since the start. The verified monthly figures also show a steady fall after November 2025, when the plans had moved from unlimited use to slide credits, and the founder put the business up for sale.

9 grade-A facts · 4 that failed before it
AI functions for Google Sheets (add-on) · India

SheetAI

Evidence A
$52K total, now $367 MRR

Team of 2 to 10 · 47 months after launch, revenue falling

It put a language model inside Google Sheets from November 2022, and Google's marketplace brought more than 201,000 installs. Few installs paid: US$52,136 of verified revenue in 47 months is about US$0.26 per install. Its most important result may be indirect: a request for a pitch deck for SheetAI led the founder to build MagicSlides, which by its own verified data earned about 14 times as much. SheetAI's own revenue is now falling, and Google has offered a similar AI function inside Sheets since June 2025.

5 grade-A facts · 4 that failed before it
AI agent inside Excel · France

ElyxAI

Evidence A
$2.8K MRR, listed for sale

Solo founder · 15 months after launch, revenue falling

It does the work in the cells instead of explaining what to paste, and it works in the Excel that people already have, without a Microsoft Copilot license. The founder already taught Excel to a large French audience. The AI models are bought by the request from OpenAI and Anthropic, so one person could build and run it.

9 grade-A facts · 5 that failed before it

Built with the same tools

Businesses whose sources name tools that Makeform also uses: OpenAI API, Anthropic API, Next.js, Google Analytics. Every tool has its own page in Tools.

One subscription for many AI models · USA

Magai

Evidence A
$31.7K MRR on Stripe

Solo founder · 11 months after launch, revenue flat

The founder had written a marketing blog for ten years, so his own readers bought on the first day. He built the first version in 8 weeks with the no-code tool Bubble, because he had no money for developers. He sold one thing that the model makers do not sell: all of their models in one subscription.

1 grade-A fact · 4 that failed before it
AI short-video generator and publisher for social media · France

Revid.ai

Evidence C
$500K/month, down from $680K

Team of 2 to 10 · 29 months after launch, revenue falling

It began as a tool for product launch videos, which a customer needs once. The founder saw customers use it for social videos, which they need every week, and built a second product for that use from the same code. Free tools that rank on Google and his audience on X brought the customers. Credits priced per second kept the price of each video above the cost of the model that made it.

1 grade-A fact · 4 that failed before it
Mac app that answers from your own documents · India

Elephas

Reported, not verified
Reported $150K/yr

Team of 2 to 10 · 43 months after launch

Ayush Chaturvedi said in a Starter Story interview published in January 2026 that the app made US$150,000 a year, and that growth came in two phases: posts in Reddit communities first, then pages that rank in Google. The first version came out in June 2022, months before ChatGPT, as a writing helper that worked inside every Mac app. When chat apps became free, the founders moved the product toward answering from the user's own documents, a job the general chat apps did not do on the computer.

Every number graded · 5 that failed before it

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.

  1. C Arrfounder, news: Makeform Hits $1K MRR (founder's X post of 11 April 2026)
    Read in full. The directory quotes the founder's post https://x.com/_nilni/status/2042831362428932215; X itself was not opened.
  2. C Arrfounder, news: Makeform Hits $847 MRR (founder's post of 17 March 2026)
    Read in full. Quotes the founder's post with the growth steps and his goal.
  3. C Arrfounder, news: Makeform Crosses $600 MRR (founder's post of 18 February 2026)
    Read in full. Quotes the founder's post with the time for each revenue step.
  4. C Nil Ni, personal site: Dad, Husband, IndieHacker, Investor
    Read in full, 1 November 2026. Source for his former job, the current Makeform figure and his other products.
  5. C Nil Ni's blog, 19 May 2026: A Dad With 2 Kids Shouldn't Quit His Job. I Did Anyway.
    Read in full. Source for the solo team, the lack of investors and the SEO channel.
  6. C Makeform home page: Free AI Form Builder
    Read in full, 1 November 2026. Source for the product description, the user counter and the marketing claims.
  7. C Makeform pricing page
    Read in full, 1 November 2026. Yearly prices and passes read; monthly prices load by script and were not read.
  8. C Makeform: About Us
    Read in full. The founder's own statement that he started Makeform in 2024 with no investors.
  9. C Makeform: AI Info, last updated 16 August 2026
    Read in full. Company facts written for AI assistants: founding year, founder, features, API and MCP server.
  10. C Makeform changelog: What's new
    Read in full. Source for the releases of 27 October 2025 and 21 January 2026 and the AI models used.
  11. C Makeform: Build in Public page and the day 1 and day 2 lists of 2 and 3 October 2024
    Read in full, with the two linked forms https://www.makeform.ai/f/ILGS83qM and https://www.makeform.ai/f/sHQOQgUt.
  12. D Arrfounder, product page: Makeform
    Read in full. Undated directory figure of US$44 a month that disagrees with the founder's posts.
  13. C Database of failed startups, local export
    Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.

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