How much money do indie hackers' products make?
We analyzed stripe-verified revenue data of Indie Hackers products and compared them by category.
Most of the products don't make any revenue at all and there are lots of outliers.
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I think more indie hackers are successful than this data suggests. Many indie hackers spend a lot of time on IH in the beginning of their journey (to find motivation, to ask questions, to get support and inspiration), and then once the ball is really rolling, they need less motivation/help from other indie hackers and therefore they make fewer progress and revenue updates. That's what I think we're seeing here.
I would agree with this. I've been hanging around here since 2015, and unfortunately a lot of the people who succeeded in their IH journey, don't hang around here anymore.
On top of that, after a certain size it just doesn't make sense to share your revenue publicly anymore. So the more MRR you're generating, the more likely you are to take it off of Indie Hackers.
I don't think it means that they are not here. It just means that when they are here they show up differently. I often see really successful indie hackers in the comments giving support or advice. Or posting personal stories or educational content. I think they are less likely to post in the ways that they did in the beginning, i.e. updates, revenue, etc. (which I think makes sense).
Thanks for starting this important convo. Being a successful indie hacker is not only very hard, it's also very unlikely.
This stat blew my mind and perfectly illustrates that:
"Only around 5% of the products we analyzed generate a monthly revenue exceeding ~$8,333 (around ~$100k/year) which is not that hard to earn as a software engineer in a full time job" ...
Granted people build for different reasons. Maybe someone just wants to grow their skills or try something new. But the chances of you getting rich off it are slim.
True, it's hard to succeed as an indie hacker, but here are a few points people miss when making decisions:
1/ You can be a full-time software engineer AND still run and manage a small side hustle - and leave your 9to5 when it's big enough
2/ Only 5% succeed, yes, but you can try multiple times with different ideas till you make it
3/ If you make $100k a year on your SaaS or business, the business is worth at least $300k assuming 3x multiple - while if you're a software engineer, you can't EXIT
4/ Once you are successful with your SaaS generating $100K, nothing is stopping you to start another SaaS.
My thoughts exactly.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
Wanted to comment on this as well. For founders in areas like India or Nigeria getting a job at ~$100k is very hard.
In India,
The above-average college graduates make (7,505.86 - 10,000$ per year) for the first 2 years.
Emphasis on above average since a lot of my friends still make 4349.644$ per year.
The top 2-4% make much more, considering they are from premiere institutes that come with hefty student debt.
I would imagine it's a more golden opportunity in Nigeria.
Indiehacking for some might be a classic case of capitalist greed, but I think combine that with how much we are prisoners to freedom and how much we learn along the way, I think it's worth it.
Yup I was going to comment the same thing.
This is a hard, low probability game to play.
The truth is few of us will 'win'.
Most (54%) don't make any money. I actually really like those odds!
I wonder if there's a correlation between the number of updates and revenue.
For example, will an IHer posting 10 updates do better than an IHer who just posted their product without any updates?
I barely made updates, and each month was getting better...
Good point! If the number of updates is a proxy for general product marketing activity, there should be some correlation.
Another thing I don't think this analysis takes into account is that many IndieHackers have multiple projects. One project may not be making much, but when you combine all their projects together, they may be making a decent income.
This is what I expected. We see posts here and there from people who are successful, but there's survivorship bias going on there. We don't see too many regular posts from people reporting that they're making no money. For my app, I'm making under $100 a month, so this matches my reality, unfortunately.
Edit: also, keep in mind this is revenue, not profit. I was surprised to see wearables as a category having high revenue. I wonder if they are charging a lot of markup on the hardware being sold.
Agreed that there's definitely a survivorship bias here. The more successful you are, the more risk there is to sharing numbers publically
This is correct:
And this is not, this one is extra generalized statement, generally speaking not necessary to be truth at all:
It is frequent that successful businesses do not share their revenues, still remaining "in the world of indie developers"
Hey, thanks for the feedback, especially the info about ObserverMonitor Web API - we'll try to address that.
When it comes to the claims made by the article though, as in pretty much every other empirical approach, we extrapolate conclusions from the dataset we had to broader reality. Of course, this is only an approximation.
This is a really interesting analysis. The reason why I build my bootstarpper's guide was because on a twitter poll with more than 80 responses, more than 50% of the peeps was doing <$10
Question I've always had but been too afraid to actually ask. Fantastic work, and indeed, those are nice odds!
I'd be very curious about the (anonymized) revenue per individual rather than per product to see a more accurate picture of the distribution of outcomes per entrepreneur, but that's a completely different ballgame.
"Only around 5% of the products we analyzed generate a monthly revenue exceeding ~$8,333 (around ~$100k/year)"
If I build 20 products I have 100% to get $100k/year of revenue? 🤔
Unfortunately, I don't think it works this way. Although, building more products probably increases your chances of getting $100k/year.
Agreed that there's definitely a survivorship bias here.<a rel="nofollow"https://www.mazuzee.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=90_448
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</a> The more successful you are, the more risk there is to sharing numbers publically.
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https://krowddarden.website/
What about bigger businesses/startups?
That do a bunch of customer research, put together prototypes and a fancy slide deck and get it in front of investors to build something big. Like doordash or something that comes out of the gate big
This data strongly suggests to me that indie hacking on the side, if possible, is probably the way to go. With success so unlikely, going all-in on indie hacking is a serious gamble.
That said, ol' Courtland Allen started IH at the end of his financial runway and it worked out for him. 😂 BUT, it's worth keeping in mind that he was never actually in dire straits. As a highly skilled dev, he could have picked up freelance work that paid his bills in a hot minute.
I sold one scrapping the 1k/m 😁
wow did'nt knew that
This comment was deleted 2 months ago.