3 months building Stripe Fee Auditor: $0 revenue, 5 clicks, 2 real users — here's what I learned
3 months building Stripe Fee Auditor: what actually worked
Numbers after 3 months:
- Google: 4,230 impressions, 5 clicks (0.1% CTR, avg position 26)
- DB: 2 real reports right now (rest expired by TTL)
- Revenue: $0
- PH launch: 4 comments from people who actually used it
What surprised me:
- HN Show HN gave more real users in 3 hours than 3 months of SEO
- PH comments were genuine — people found their real rate was 3.8-4.2%
- Biggest blocker isn't product quality, it's reaching the right people
- Reddit blocked my account early on (low karma)
What I still don't know:
- Whether $12 one-time is the right price
- Whether people care enough to come back for monitoring ($9/mo)
- Which channel actually scales
Built with Next.js, Neon, Polar for payments. Core logic on GitHub.
Open to brutal feedback on distribution specifically.
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Really appreciate the honesty in this post, actual numbers instead of vague "it's going great." That 4,230 impressions at position 26 stat jumped out at me though, that's not nothing. People are searching for something that matches your content, it's just not ranking high enough to get clicked. Pretty different problem than nobody caring.
Makes sense why HN and PH crushed it in comparison, you don't have to out-rank anyone there, just post something good once. SEO's a different game, you're fighting whatever's already sitting at positions 1-10, and three months in, that's probably big fintech blogs and Stripe's own docs you're up against, not a sign your content's bad.
Might be worth digging into Search Console to see what you're actually ranking for. If it's broad stuff like "stripe fees," that's a tough crowd. A more specific, less crowded version of that search could be a much easier win.
the reddit karma block thing is so real, i've been dealing with a suspended account for weeks now lol. HN outperforming 3 months of seo in 3 hours is wild though, kinda validates that distribution > polish at this stage
Hi, actually you need to reach at least 10 th position in google in order to see progress as being in third page in google will not get you the resluts that you wanted
your own numbers already wrote the answer - show HN gave you more in 3 hours than SEO did in 3 months. position 26 is page 3, nobody's ever seeing it, so seo isn't a channel yet, it's a someday. stop feeding it for now.
the "reaching the right people, not product quality" line is the real insight and most people take way too long to admit it. go where stripe fees are already a complaint - people posting about processing costs on X, r/stripe, r/ecommerce, small saas founder groups. not to drop a link, just answer "what's your effective rate" type questions and let them ask what you used. the reddit karma wall is real, spend a week commenting before you post.
and don't touch pricing yet - you can't learn price from 5 clicks. get 100 real users through one channel first, price answers itself once people actually care
The 4,230 impressions are misleading at an average position of 26; that’s barely a distribution test. I’d focus on five high-intent queries and judge CTR only after any reach the top 10, while treating HN as proof of urgency rather than a scalable channel.
The interesting uncertainty isn't whether Stripe Fee Auditor solves a real problem—it's whether you've found a distribution channel where that problem is encountered at the right moment. I'd keep validating channels before pricing or retention, because the answers to those questions become much clearer once you're consistently reaching people who already feel the pain.