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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

#151

Post by rahulmax »

laurentiurad wrote: post #135

I built and run several SaaS platforms: - https://dave-bot.com -> a full-stack AI platform where you can generate videos, images, music, code, 3d objects with frontier Gen AI models. - https://headsnap.io -> a platform that you can generate images of yourself based on 4 selfies. - https://quantiq.live -> a service providing financial and historical data for stocks, as well as government trades. - https://aivestor.tec…

Headsnap is such a scammy and/or crappy website. I paid to purchase credits for $5, tried to train a model to generate a headshot. Nothing. It just refreshes and comes back with nothing. Will not recommend.

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

#152

Post by emil-lp »

So, if these posts come at the same time each year, and IDs are consecutive, then

    year,id
    2025,46307973
    2024,42373343
    2023,38467691
    2022,34190421
    2021,29667095
    2020,24947167
    2019,20899863
    2018,17790306
    2017,15148804
And the delta is

    year,delta
    2025,3.9M
    2024,3.9M
    2023,4.2M
    2022,4.5M
    2021,4.7M
    2020,4.0M
    2019,3.1M
    2018,2.6M
Has HN peaked?

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

#153

Post by iceboy »

Wanted to teach my little brother about logic gates. Saw that for him to truly grasp the idea of it, he needed some "hands on" experience to develop the intuition about it. I decided to develop a PCB board that basically turns-on-off the lights based on the inputs. He was like "cool" and kind of threw it in the corner. Rather than just leave it, I decided to further develop it and make it as a learning tool for myself as well(web design, marketing, BOM optimization etc).

Then I started to get feedback on the initial project which was quite helpful(universities, EEVBlog and colleagues) and based on that made a "Logic Trainer" which is like very advanced version of the initial idea. It has so many features and it kind of has taken off in a sense that 2 universities want to buy it for themselves. Also I didn't expect it but most people who buy it do it for their kids. IMHO its way too complicated for kids, but practice and feedback that I have gotten shows that it really isn't. I haven't made any profits from the project yet (due to high development cost) but hopefully in the future it help to pay my rent :).

Check out the website at https://logicgat.es

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

#154

Post by Etheon »

internet_points wrote: post #149
Etheon wrote: post #143

I created Multy 5 years ago. Thanks to a post on HN at that time, it was a small success ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25870504 ) Since then, I continue to maintain the website and I have around 50k lists, 8k users, and around 400€ MRR (ads and subscriptions). I'd love to see more users, but I'm glad of what I did with multy ! If you want to check: https://multy.me

how do you deal with spam/abuse?

Dashboard and moderation. I created an admin dashboard to check users and lists and can easily delete / ban users.

Right now it's fine with the number of lists created per day

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

#155

Post by zandert »

skwee357 wrote: post #145

I run a dead-simple, one-time, online fax service called JustFax Online[0]. While I don't have a recurring revenue as I operate one one-time payment, for the past months I have been consistently grossing over €500/mo. This also brings tears to my eyes, as I remember[1] browsing these threads and being amazed (still am) by all the people who make side projects and make money from them, and at the same time thinking th…

That's super cool, how do you run it? Are you using some other service under the hood, and just abstract their annoying pricing model?

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

#157

Post by written-beyond »

nhatcher wrote: post #124

I was hesitant to add my own but I think you might find it interesting as we make money not from clients but from grants. We have IronCalc[1]. We don't make money from customers as we don't have a finalized product yet. But we have an ongoing grant from the NLnet[2]. You can have a look at the kind of projects they are granting money. It's always a source of inspiration. That being said IronCalc takes a lot of time f…

This is lovely! I'm surprised I had never heard of it before today

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

#158

Post by laurentiurad »

rahulmax wrote: post #151
laurentiurad wrote: post #135

I built and run several SaaS platforms: - https://dave-bot.com -> a full-stack AI platform where you can generate videos, images, music, code, 3d objects with frontier Gen AI models. - https://headsnap.io -> a platform that you can generate images of yourself based on 4 selfies. - https://quantiq.live -> a service providing financial and historical data for stocks, as well as government trades. - https://aivestor.tec…

Headsnap is such a scammy and/or crappy website. I paid to purchase credits for $5, tried to train a model to generate a headshot. Nothing. It just refreshes and comes back with nothing. Will not recommend.

When did you do it? The minimum package is $8. If you did this in the past, why didn't you reach out for support? I get more than 100 customers per day and rarely have issues.

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

#159

Post by technusm1 »

Here’s my own side project that’s been earning a bit on the side:

I built DedupX, a macOS app for finding duplicate and visually similar files fast - especially useful for photographers and anyone with big local storage collections.

What it does

- Exact duplicate detection using incremental hashing so it doesn’t have to fully load huge files.

- Perceptual image matching finds similar images even if they’re resized or lightly edited (not just byte-for-byte duplicates).

- Native macOS integration with a Finder right-click scan.

Why I built it: My brother kept running out of space because of tons of photos, and every existing tool I tried either missed similar images or was slow and clunky - so I spent a couple of weekends building something that felt fast, accurate, and native.

Business side

- Free trial (no CC required).

- Paid tiers: ~$5.99/yr or ~$16.99 lifetime.

Got positive feedback and 100+ paying users shortly after launch. Been growing steadily ever since.

Link: https://maheepk.net/projects/dedupx/

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

#160

Post by laurentiurad »

laurentiurad wrote: post #158
rahulmax wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headsnap is such a scammy and/or crappy website. I paid to purchase credits for $5, tried to train a model to generate a headshot. Nothing. It just refreshes and comes back with nothing. Will not recommend.

When did you do it? The minimum package is $8. If you did this in the past, why didn't you reach out for support? I get more than 100 customers per day and rarely have issues.

ah now I see you generated your pics 8 minutes ago. You can now see them on your account page. I have a clear disclaimer that says it can take up to 30 mins to generate the photos and that you will get an email once the photos are ready.
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