Sprout - AI Job Search
Sprout, first released as Prep AI, is a job-search app sold by Magnifex AI Inc. in the United States. You swipe through job listings as in a dating app. For each job you like, it writes a resume and a cover letter for that job and then an AI agent, a program that uses a language model to operate a web page step by step as a person would, fills in the form on the employer's website and submits it. Most large employers receive applications through an applicant tracking system (ATS), the hiring software behind a company's careers page, such as Workday, Greenhouse or Lever; Sprout's comparison page with the rival app Massive lists "Auto-applies across Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and easy-apply" for Sprout. When a site blocks it with a CAPTCHA or another anti-bot tool, the company's help page says Sprout stops and returns the application credit.
Nicole Cheung built it while she was a psychology and economics student at Claremont McKenna College, after her first app, the AI beauty app Glam Up, reached one million users and US$150,000 in MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription money that comes in every month) in 2024. In a Starter Story video interview published on 20 May 2026 she said Sprout reached US$250,000 MRR in October 2025, as shown in RevenueCat, a service that counts in-app subscription revenue, about eight months after it started, and that it has since held at around US$200,000 MRR. The Superwall Podcast's notes of 13 May 2026 give the same US$250,000 in eight months. She says she does everything that is not code; her co-founder writes it.
The growth came from UGC (user-generated content: short videos made by paid creators who look like ordinary users) on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, not from ads. She said that at the peak she managed about 200 active creators and that one seven-day period brought 400 million views. All revenue figures here are the founder's own statements, grade C; no payment processor has published them. The page also shows what readers may question: the app is built to send many applications fast, and employers are not told that a program filled in the form.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly recurring revenue, October 2025 | US$250,000 | C | Founder in the Starter Story video of 20 May 2026: "I recorded this in October of last year We were at 250K MRR on our revenue cat". The Superwall Podcast notes of 13 May 2026: "Sprout reaching $250K MRR in eight months". The video's machine transcript once says "250K ARR"; the X post quoted at the start, "three million ARR in eight months", matches US$250,000 a month. | [1, 2] |
| Run rate from the October 2025 figure | US$3 million a year | calc | Calculated: US$250,000 times 12. This is the outcomeUsd on this page. | [1] |
| Monthly recurring revenue, May 2026 | around US$200,000 | C | Founder in the same video: "we have steadily been growing at around 200K MRR". AI Dev Cases (June 2026) and BigGo (May 2026) both read it as settling at about US$200,000. | [1, 3, 4] |
| Change from October 2025 to May 2026 | about 20% lower | calc | Calculated: US$200,000 divided by US$250,000 is 0.8. The trend on this page is therefore "falling". | [1] |
| Time from start to US$250,000 MRR | about 8 months | C | Founder and the Superwall notes say eight months. The start month on this page, February 2025, is calculated back from October 2025; the earliest App Store reviews seen are dated 4 March 2025. | [1, 2, 6] |
| Combined revenue of her two apps, May 2026 | over US$400,000 a month | C | Superwall Podcast notes: "The last two pulled over $400K a month combined" (Glam Up and Sprout). | [2] |
| Views, late 2025 | about 100 million a month; 400 million in one seven-day period | C | Founder in the Starter Story video. She says the apps now get 400 to 500 million views a month across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. | [1] |
| Creators at the peak | about 200 active creators | C | Founder: "we were managing around 200 maybe a bit more active creators at the same time". More than 50% of creators who finish her course go viral within two weeks, she says. | [1, 2] |
| Paid advertising | none | C | AI Dev Cases: "With no ads and no VC it hit $250K MRR in 8 months". The founder's thesis says the same of Glam Up. | [3, 12] |
| Users | "Used by 750,000+ job seekers" | C | Company home page, October 2026. Its About page says 150K+ active job seekers and 1M+ jobs applied. | [7, 17] |
| App Store ratings | 72K ratings, average 4.6 | C | US App Store page read 25 October 2026. On 28 April 2025 the page showed 1.2K ratings. | [5, 6] |
| Where it applies | on the employer's website | C | App Store text: "our AI agent completes the application directly on the employer's website for you". The founder: "we will just automatically apply for you on the company website". No Sprout page says it applies through LinkedIn; its comparison pages present "Beyond LinkedIn Easy Apply" as a difference from competitors. | [5, 1, 15] |
| Email used on applications | a Gmail alias of the user, or an @whisperpost.io address made by Sprout | C | Help center. Sprout reads that address to handle verification codes and portal setup links, and forwards employer replies to the user. When an employer's site needs an account, Sprout creates it and stores the password. | [9, 16] |
| Team | 2 co-founders, creator managers and 200+ creators | C | The founder names Aaron, met at a San Francisco startup, as her co-founder for Glam Up and says she does everything that is not coding; BigGo's summary of the interview lists the same co-founder for Sprout. In July 2025 she told her college she was "building a team". No source gives a staff count. | [1, 4, 11] |
| Outside funding | none reported | C | AI Dev Cases: "Fully bootstrapped — no ad spend, no VC". Not confirmed by a company filing. | [3] |
How to read this table: a grade C value is a statement by the founder, the company's own pages, or a reviewer or retelling that says where it comes from. A grade X value was calculated on this page from the rows it names. No value is grade A or B.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free download | 0 | 0 | browse jobs; applying needs a plan |
| Weekly | 19.99 a week | 50 applications a week; about US$86.62 a month if kept | |
| Monthly | 39.99 | 200 applications a month | |
| Quarterly | 26.66 | US$79.99 every 3 months, 600 applications per 3 months |
Every plan includes the same features; plans differ only in the number of applications (credits). A credit is returned when a submission fails. The App Store page lists ten in-app purchases still named Prep AI, from US$9.99 to US$39.99, mostly without the period. JobCopilot, a competitor, read Basic US$19.99 for 80 applications, Pro US$39.99 for 200 and Ultra US$79.99 for 600 in March 2026. AI Dev Cases read the same three prices as weekly prices in August 2026. The quarterly plan is shown as "70% off" US$239.99; the real reduction is 66.7%. An App Store reviewer complained that there is no free trial; the company replied that inviting 3 friends gives 5 free credits.
The timeline
From an interview-practice app to a swipe-to-apply job app with an AI agent, in about eight months. Each entry carries its grade.
- April 2024CNicole Cheung and her co-founder launch Glam Up, an AI beauty app, while she is a senior at Claremont McKenna College. [11]
- May to November 2024CGlam Up passes one million users and US$150,000 MRR without paid ads or funding, as her senior thesis records. [12]
- February 2025calcCalculated start of the job app, eight months before the October 2025 figure. It starts as Prep AI, an AI interview-practice app, while the team looks for buyers with more money than beauty-app users. [1]
- 4 March 2025CThe earliest App Store reviews seen describe swiping right on jobs and letting the app apply. [6]
- 17 April 2025CVersion 1.7.4. The App Store page shows "NEW! Swipe to Apply" next to mock interviews with AI feedback, and 1.2K ratings. [6]
- 21 July 2025CHer college reports that she is scaling her second app, Prep AI, and "building a team". [11]
- 26 August 2025CVersion 1.9.4: "Prep AI is now Sprout! Same great app, new name." [5]
- October 2025CUS$250,000 MRR in RevenueCat, according to the founder. About 100 million views a month from about 200 active creators. [1, 2]
- 13 January 2026CVersion 2.0.0, rebuilt: "Millions of new jobs", job-specific questions before each application, and tracking across mobile and web. [5]
- 13 and 20 May 2026CInterviews on The Superwall Podcast and Starter Story. She says Sprout holds at around US$200,000 MRR and that two newer apps are near US$200,000 in annual recurring revenue. [2, 1]
- 25 October 2026CThe App Store page shows 72K ratings at 4.6; the website says 750,000+ job seekers. [5, 7]
Why it worked
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
One swipe replaces one application
The slow part of applying is typing the same facts into a new form for each employer and rewriting the resume. Sprout turns that into a swipe: the language model writes the resume and cover letter for that one job, and the agent fills in the employer's form. The April 2025 App Store text said "just like Tinder!" and the website now says "Basically, Tinder for jobs."
Credits sold by the week
A plan is a number of applications. The weekly plan costs US$19.99 for 50, which makes each application cost about US$0.40; the quarterly plan brings it to about US$0.13. The paywall comes right after the onboarding questions. The Superwall notes list two of her tests: a hard paywall right after onboarding beat letting people explore first by 50% in conversion, and a 20% price rise raised conversion.
A creator system, not ads
She recruits creators through application forms and outreach, interviews them, and trains them with her own course of videos and quizzes for each app. For the later stages she describes regular feedback calls, referral rewards for creators and growth dashboards. She says more than half of those who finish the course have a viral video within two weeks. At the peak about 200 creators posted at the same time.
The same system, a second time
Glam Up was the first app run this way. Sprout reused the creator system in a different market with buyers who pay more. She says two further apps in stealth are on the same path. The asset is the creator system, not the code.
How it was built
These details come from the founder's interviews and the company's own pages. They are grade C. [1, 5, 9, 10, 18]
- The app is built with React Native, one code base for iPhone and Android; the company's terms name Expo and Google Play Services as third-party services in it.
- RevenueCat counts subscription revenue and Superwall runs the paywall screens. PostHog is named for analytics.
- SideShift is named as the place to recruit creators, and Attio as the CRM (customer relationship management) system.
- The AI writes a resume and cover letter per job from the profile plus answers to job-specific questions; the user can review and edit, or skip review. No source names the language model.
- The agent fills in forms on employer career sites. It stops when a CAPTCHA or anti-bot tool blocks it and returns the credit.
- Applications use a Gmail alias of the user or an address on whisperpost.io, so the app can read verification codes and track employer replies.
- The founder does design, onboarding, paywalls and creator management; her co-founder writes the code.
The dead that came before
Four companies in the Loot Drop database tried to make job hunting or resumes simpler and failed. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
Jobr
The promiseTinder for jobs: swipe right on a job in a mobile app.
Why it diedLinkedIn and Indeed kept the job seekers, and the swipe alone did not keep users coming back.
Jobspice
The promiseGood-looking resumes in minutes for people who are not designers.
Why it diedIt did one task, and LinkedIn and free resume tools did the same task for nothing.
WantRemoteJob
The promiseA job board only for remote IT jobs.
Why it diedIndeed and LinkedIn added remote filters, and a one-founder board could not match their listings.
Monster Worldwide
The promiseEvery job and every resume in one online database.
Why it diedLinkedIn's network and Indeed's search traffic took the job seekers; the database had no reason to be visited.
What changed
Jobr had the same swipe idea in 2014, but a swipe only expressed interest; the job seeker still had to fill in each employer's form and write each cover letter, so the swipe saved little. Jobspice made one document faster and was beaten by free tools. The job boards died when bigger networks held the job seekers.
Two things are different for Sprout. First, language models can now write a document for each job and an agent can complete the employer's form, so the swipe does the whole application, which is the work people will pay to skip. Second, it does not try to win job seekers away from LinkedIn with search traffic; it buys attention with hundreds of trained creators on short-video apps. What has not changed is the dependence on others: on employers' sites letting the agent through, and on video platforms continuing to show the creators' videos.
Can one person copy it now?
The creator system, yes. The bulk-apply product, with care.
The part others can copy is the distribution method: find a format that goes viral, then hire and train many creators to repeat it, and design the app so its screens make good videos. The founder had done it once already. The product itself is crowded (the company's own site compares it with about twenty rivals), and an app that sends many applications for people raises questions from employers and job sites that a new builder has to answer.
Where it is still open: Other dull, repeated forms that people pay to skip, in markets where short videos reach the buyers: benefits applications, apartment rentals, scholarship applications, insurance claims.
- 1Pick a problem that is painful, common and easy to show in a 20-second screen recording.
- 2Test formats yourself or with two to ten creators until one goes viral, then write a course that teaches it.
- 3Scale the creator group with interviews, feedback calls, referral rewards and a dashboard.
- 4Put a hard paywall after onboarding and test prices up as well as down.
What to watch
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
Only the founder's word
The US$250,000 MRR for October 2025 and the US$200,000 for May 2026 come from the founder in two interviews in May 2026; she showed a RevenueCat screen in the video, but no payment processor or app-data profile publishes Sprout's revenue. AI Dev Cases labels its figure "Monthly (est.)" and cites her own LinkedIn profile.
Revenue is below its peak
By the founder's own numbers, revenue was about 20% lower in May 2026 than in October 2025, while the creator system still brought 400 to 500 million views a month. Growth this dependent on views stops when the views stop.
Volume applying, and employers are not told
Sprout's blog teaches how to "mass apply" and says the swipe screen "lets you bulk apply to jobs by moving through 100+ roles in a single session". One App Store review says "60 apps in one night"; another says the app "serves to inflate the number of applicants per posting". The FAQ answers "Will employers know if I used Sprout?" with "No", and applications go out from an alias or a Sprout-made address. The company says it does not bypass ATS systems and stops at CAPTCHAs. Whether each employer's career site allows automated applications was not checked.
Team size not public
The seller is Magnifex AI Inc. The founder names one co-founder; she also hires creator managers and pays 200+ creators, and the company blog has its own writer. No source gives the number of employees when the US$250,000 figure was reached.
Prices that move
Three different price lists exist: the company's page (weekly, monthly, quarterly), the App Store list still named Prep AI, and reviewers' Basic, Pro and Ultra tiers. A weekly plan kept for a month costs about US$86.62, which reviewers of an app for unemployed people call too high.
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.
- C Starter Story, 20 May 2026: My Two Apps Make $150K/Month Each (video with transcript, host Pat Walls)Read the page and the full transcript. Founder interview. Source for the US$250,000 MRR in October 2025, the US$200,000 since, the views, the creator system, the co-founder and the tools.
- C The Superwall Podcast, 13 May 2026: Nicole Cheung - she makes $400k/mo from ai apps (while in college), show notes in the podcast feedRead the episode's show notes in the feed. Did not listen to the audio. Source for the US$250,000 MRR in eight months, the combined US$400,000 and the paywall tests.
- C AI Dev Cases, 28 June 2026 (figures checked 21 August 2026): Sprout, the Tinder for jobs built by a non-engineer in collegeRead in full. A compiled case page that cites the founder's interviews and LinkedIn profile and labels its figure an estimate. Source for no ads and no venture capital.
- C BigGo Finance, 17 May 2026: Nicole Built Two $150K/Month Apps Without Writing CodeRead in full. A retelling of the Starter Story interview. Used only for its reading that the same co-founder writes Sprout's code and that revenue settled near US$200,000.
- C Apple App Store, US: Sprout - AI Job Search, seller Magnifex AI Inc., read 25 October 2026Read in full: description, ratings, reviews with developer replies, version history and in-app purchase list.
- C Wayback Machine copy of the App Store page, 28 April 2025: Prep AI - Get Your Dream JobRead in full. Source for the earlier name, the swipe-to-apply feature as new, the 1.2K ratings and the earliest reviews.
- C Sprout home page, read 25 October 2026Read in full, including the FAQ. Source for the product flow, the user count and the FAQ on employers.
- C Sprout pricing page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the pricing table.
- C Sprout Help Center: Why is the email on my job applications not my personal email?Read in full. Source for the Gmail alias and whisperpost.io addresses.
- C Sprout Help Center: Why did Sprout fail to submit my job application?Read in full. Source for the CAPTCHA and anti-bot stops and the credit refunds.
- C Claremont McKenna College news, 21 July 2025: Nicole Cheung '25 co-founds AI beauty app, achieves milestoneRead in full. Source for the Glam Up launch date and the work on Prep AI in July 2025.
- C Nicole Cheung, senior thesis, Claremont McKenna College, 2025: From 0 to 1 Million Users in 6 Months: How I Built My Viral AppRead the abstract page; the thesis itself is campus only. Source for the Glam Up figures.
- C JobCopilot, 10 March 2026: Sprout AI Job Search Review (2026)Read in full. Written by a competitor. Source for the earlier Basic, Pro and Ultra prices and for how applications reach employers.
- C Sprout blog, 22 April 2026: Can You Apply to Multiple Jobs at Once?Read in full; also read the blog post How to Mass Apply for Jobs in February 2026. Source for the bulk-apply wording.
- C Sprout comparison pages: Sprout vs Massive, vs LazyApply and vs BulkApplyRead the three pages in full. Source for the ATS list (Workday, Greenhouse, Lever) and "Beyond LinkedIn Easy Apply".
- C Sprout Help Center: How Do I View Login Credentials?Read in full. Source for accounts created on employer sites.
- C Sprout About page, read 25 October 2026Read in full. Source for the 150K+ active job seekers and 1M+ jobs applied.
- C Sprout Terms of Service, last updated 15 June 2025Read in full. Source for Magnifex AI, Inc. as the provider and for Expo and Google Play Services as third-party services.
- C Loot Drop database export, 1,749 failed startupsLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.