SaaS isn’t just for big companies—it’s also a great area for indie hackers to explore.
A few examples:
Carrd.co is a tool for creating single-page marketing websites. In 2021, it was revealed that they had 2.5 million sites and an ARR of $1 million, with only 2 people on the team. Despite being in a competitive market with rivals like Webflow, Framer, Squarespace, and Wix, Carrd still succeeded.
Tallyform, a form-building tool, offers 99% of its features for free. By March 2024, it had reached $100,000 MRR. The team only expanded to 4 people in the past year; for most of the time, it was just 2 people. The form-building market is huge, with Google Forms and Typeform being two of the biggest names.
Mango Mail is an email hosting tool with prices starting at $1.50 per month. In 2023, it reached $1,000 MRR. This market is mostly dominated by Google and Microsoft.
Beehive, a newsletter-sending tool, directly competes with Mailchimp. While it hasn’t shared financial data, it has gained a solid reputation in the industry. Based on their pricing page, it’s clear they’ve taken some of Mailchimp’s customers.
What these products have in common (from an indie hacker's perspective, not a VC’s) is that they offer a better or equal user experience compared to industry leaders, while being more affordable and offering fewer restrictions at entry-level pricing.
- Typeform’s cheapest plan is $29/month, and you can only collect 100 form responses. In contrast, Tallyform’s free version offers unlimited responses.
- Webflow’s free version only allows 2 pages and 50 form responses, which makes it almost unusable. The cheapest paid plan is $18/month and only lets you create a basic website. In comparison, Carrd.co costs $9/year (yes, per year) for 3 sites, or $19/year for 10 sites with a custom domain.
- Mailchimp’s free version allows up to 1,000 emails per month. Its cheapest plan supports 500 contacts and up to 5,000 emails/month. Beehive’s free version offers unlimited emails.
If you look back at the growth of companies like Typeform, Webflow, and Mailchimp, they started with low pricing but, as they grew, shifted toward serving bigger customers, which led to higher prices and more restrictions on free or low-cost versions.
This trend is well explained in the book The Innovator’s Dilemma.
When market leaders begin focusing on serving larger clients, this opens up opportunities for more specialized products.
In the four markets mentioned above, there are many individuals or small teams. However, the leading products are too expensive for them. This creates a chance to offer a product with a good user experience, a low-cost team structure, and affordable pricing, allowing you to capture a share of these individual or small-team customers.
In terms of marketing and acquiring customers, these types of products are well-suited for methods like cold outreach, SEO, building in public, and launching on platforms like Product Hunt. These are ideal for indie hackers.
To find these opportunities, you can check out product comparison sites like G2 or Capterra to see what real users are saying. Then, analyze the pricing pages of the industry leaders to identify what limitations they have.