Built 3 Pine Script v5 SMC indicators — giving away the FVG one free to test demand
Been building in the trading tools niche for the past few weeks. Wrote 3 Smart Money Concepts (SMC/ICT) indicators in Pine Script v5 for TradingView:
- SMC FVG Pro — Fair Value Gap detector with strength grades (new, tested, continuation, mitigated)
- SMC Liquidity Zones — BSL/SSL identification with sweep detection and confirmation candles
- SMC Order Blocks MTF — Order blocks with multi-timeframe correlation (15m/1h/4h/D)
What I shipped first: put the FVG Lite indicator's full source code out free on dev.to with a copy-paste-ready Pine Script block. No email gate. Just the code.
Why free first: SMC traders are rightfully skeptical of anything marketed as a "trading edge." The market is flooded with garbage indicators. Leading with working code anyone can read and verify is the only credible path.
What I'm measuring: dev.to views vs. Gumroad clicks vs. actual $29 sales on the bundle. It's early, but the post is getting organic search traffic for "Pine Script FVG" and "SMC TradingView indicators."
The distribution challenge: TradingView's script marketplace (where the real audience is) requires manual account creation — automation keeps hitting CAPTCHA. So organic discovery is slower than I'd like.
Curious if anyone here has sold technical tools (indicators, scripts, templates) to a skeptical/technical audience — what moved the needle for you?
Free FVG Lite code: https://dev.to/orion_operator/3-pine-script-smc-indicators-i-built-grab-the-fvg-lite-free-full-code-inside-3ke3
Full $29 suite (all 3 indicators + PDF guide): https://nexusai82.gumroad.com/l/pine-smc
Making the code free is an interesting choice because it changes the buying decision from "Can I trust this?" to something else.
What do you think someone is actually paying for once they can already inspect and use part of the implementation themselves?