OpenBudget: Revenue, team and how it was built

Team of 2 to 10 · 16 months after launch, revenue growing

Every team that builds with AI models ends up with several provider accounts, keys, invoices and SDKs. One gateway with open code replaces them, and a developer can read the code before sending traffic through the hosted version. In 2026 the founders added DevPass, a flat monthly price for coding agents with an allowance of up to three times the price in model usage. The verified monthly receipts grew from US$57,994 in January 2026 to US$249,922 in August 2026; TrustMRR does not split them by product.

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.

Team of 2 to 10 · sold 14 months after launch

Gemini Notebook had more than 30 million users and no folders, no export and no public API for personal accounts. Kortex sold the missing half for a few dollars a month, found its users in the Chrome Web Store, where Google marked it Featured, and in two lifetime-deal launches. The founder wrote that more than 100,000 users came 'without a single ad'. Most of the verified revenue arrived in February and March 2026, when a US$49 lifetime licence was on sale.

Team of 2 to 10 · 42 months after launch, revenue falling

The plugin lives inside Obsidian's community plugin store, which the founder says gave it organic growth with no ads or paid creators: 300,000 downloads by the end of 2024, 1 million by February 2026 and 2 million by October 2026. The code is free, so there was nothing to sell until the company added a managed layer on top: hosted models, web search and tools that work without any setup. One-time lifetime plans, first Believer and then Supporter, brought large payments in single months. TrustMRR, reading the company's Stripe account, shows US$913,644 of revenue in total and US$17,899 of monthly recurring revenue from 1,356 subscriptions on 27 October 2026, after a fall of about 51% from the best month, February 2026.

Solo founder · 6 months after launch, revenue falling

People already pay for an assistant and already ask it for pictures and video. CreativeClaw sells inside that conversation, so it needs no interface of its own, no sales calls and no provider accounts on the customer's side. Revenue stayed under US$5,300 a month for five months, then rose about 18 times in September 2026, after the founder had packaged the server for ChatGPT and prepared its entry in the plugin directories. He has not published the cause of the rise.

Solo founder · 25 months after launch, revenue falling

A normal chat window is one long thread, and a side question either breaks that thread or is never asked. The founder sold a fix for that one problem to heavy AI users. The subscription version earned little; the one-time licence that followed sold to many buyers, and Stripe data on TrustMRR shows US$131,070 in total. Sales then fell, because each one-time buyer pays only once.

Team of 2 to 10 · 11 months after launch, revenue falling

It took a narrower job than the general AI design tools, mobile apps only, for people who build apps without design skills. The three founders reused what they had learned from four earlier design tools, built it in three weeks, and showed finished designs on X before the launch. Each new Gemini model gave them a better result and a new demo to post.

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.

Solo founder · 11 months after launch, revenue falling

It named a problem that many builders saw in 2025 and 2026: screens written by AI coding tools look alike. It sold the fix inside those tools, as an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor and other coding agents, first published on 29 March 2026. Stripe revenue in April was 12.2 times March. Since April revenue has fallen, and September was 37.2% below it.

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.

Solo founder · 7 months after launch, revenue growing

It went where the users already were: an app in ChatGPT's app store, a plugin in Claude's directory and in Claude Code, and setups for Cursor and Codex, in the months when these directories were new. It charges per tool call instead of a share of ad spend, so a small advertiser starts at US$49 a month. And it applied to the platforms' own API programs; the company says Google approved it in June 2026 and Amazon admitted it to its partner network.

Team of 2 to 10 · 34 months after launch, revenue falling

It entered a market where people already paid for tools such as Taplio, and did the one core task better: writing the post. The founders' public posts brought the first customers and a lifetime-deal platform, and that deal paid for growth without investors. Subscriptions, partnerships with LinkedIn influencers, affiliates and a move to team plans came after.