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Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

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Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#91

Post by mickael-kerjean »

I launched Filestash [1] as my response to the infamous “Dropbox should just be FTP” comment. Once I had a decent FTP experience, I kept going: adding support for pretty much every storage protocol, plugins to expose Dropbox (or anything else) over FTP, SFTP, MCP, or S3, and all the features I wished Dropbox had, with plugins to customize everything.

The base product is open-source and I make money from custom builds, additional plugins, paid support, and the occasional extra feature for companies with specific needs. It's a bit more than noodle profitable but quite under a normal salary.

[1] https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#92

Post by djmips »

strongpigeon wrote: post #11

https://fivethreeone.app/ a weightlifting app for 5/3/1 has been earning me ~$1000 a month for over two years now. I'm actively working on a successor that allows you to create your own custom workout programs using formulas: https://vis.fitness

This app is not available for your device

I have a Pixel 6 Pro. That's not thaat old.

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#93

Post by bradyriddle »

Not quite a side project, but I launched CoPlay about 3 years ago. Slow but steady growth up to 6k MRR for 2025. I think we will just about double that in 2026.

CoPlay is a platform for managing fleets of gaming consoles, users and subscriptions for pediatric hospitals. Think of it as an mdm for Xbox devices/users that does managed subscriptions

https://coplay.io/

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#96

Post by djmips »

crobertsbmw wrote: post #54
whitefang wrote: post #48

Formester started as a side hustle but today we make $7000/month. All I wanted was to build a good product which our users feel like using. Help them with exceptional customer service and build a team and a company worth waking up to.

But you didn’t say what you are making!

https://formester.com/ Easiest way to build powerful forms

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#97

Post by [deleted] »

crobertsbmw wrote: post #54
whitefang wrote: post #48

Formester started as a side hustle but today we make $7000/month. All I wanted was to build a good product which our users feel like using. Help them with exceptional customer service and build a team and a company worth waking up to.

But you didn’t say what you are making!

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#98

Post by kaizenb »

upmostly wrote: post #35

https://dbpro.app I’m building DB Pro, a modern desktop database client for developers who want a fast, local-first workflow. I started in October 2025, launched v1 at the end of November, and just crossed $1k MRR. I also post devlogs of life building and marketing DB Pro and am about to post devlog #4. The latest one is here if anyone’s curious: https://youtu.be/-T4GcJuV1rM Still very early, but it’s been fun seeing…

Loved the design, looks better then the most tools I've tried. I'm using Prisma + Supabase in one of my side projects and having constant db issues. Can I integrate DB Pro? Will it replace Prisma or what?

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#99

Post by wonderfuly »

Last year, I came across NotebookLM and immediately noticed a pain point: importing the web pages I was browsing into NotebookLM required several steps. So in less than a day, I developed this Chrome extension: NotebookLM Web Importer[1], which allows for one-click importing. As NotebookLM has gained popularity this year, my extension has also seen great growth. So, in July, I added paid premium features to unlock additional features. It exceeded my expectations and quickly went over $500 a month. It now has over 100,000 users and is still growing.

[1] https://notebooklm-web-importer.com

Re: Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2025 – Show and tell

#100

Post by hemmert »

About 8 years in, Escape Team steadily keeps growing, which surprises me (I didn’t add any new missions for about 5 years):

https://www.escape-team.com

It‘s making about $700 on iOS and $300 on Android, solely from $2.99 IAPs for the later missions in the game (the first 2 missions are free).

I think a main reason for this is that escape rooms (and games) don’t „saturate“: you play them only once, because then you know the solutions. So another escape room (place, game, app) doesn’t cannibalize the market - it may rather strengthen the others by fostering it as a group activity.

I also put 0$ into ads- it solely spreads itself by being a group activity (3-5 people are best) and through its mission editor (people can make their own missions, used in school and for birthdays etc).

Curious to see where it goes next!

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