Hit my first $1k with a "simple" YouTube transcriber. Now I have 23k users, huge API bills, and a big dilemma.

Hey everyone,

I recently hit a huge milestone: my first $1,000 earned from a simple YouTube transcription browser extension! 🎉

It’s been an exhausting 1.5-year journey full of highest highs and lowest lows. I wanted to share a bit of my story and ask for some advice, because honestly, I'm at a crossroads right now.

The Paywall Reality Check

For a long time, the app grew steadily and entirely organically via SEO, reaching about 30,000 users. However, reality hit hard when I finally introduced a paywall. My user base dropped from 30k down to 23k.

Now I’m facing a tough decision:

Do I show the paywall less frequently to retain users (and accept making even less money)?

Or do I keep the paywall strict and start hunting for new traffic sources outside of SEO to replace the churn?

The "Simple App" Illusion

On the surface, my tool looks incredibly simple—just paste a link and get text. But under the hood, an enormous amount of work has been done. I’ve fixed countless bugs, refined the UX, and engineered several creative workarounds to drive down operational costs.

The Elephant in the Room: API Costs

Despite all the optimizations, the lion's share of my revenue still goes straight to the transcription API provider. It’s completely eating my margins.

This brings me to my main strategic dilemma. I need to make a move, and I see two main options:

Sell the app: Maybe someone with deeper pockets or existing infrastructure can run this more profitably.

Build an in-house solution: Pivot away from the third-party API and host my own transcription models (like Whisper).

My Question for You

Has anyone here successfully moved away from paid APIs to host their own transcription/AI models? How do you actually do this cost-effectively without your own GPU server costs dwarfing the API savings?

Any advice, technical tips, or strategic pointers would be hugely appreciated! Thanks for reading.