I built a free no-login tools site — and it quietly made ~$90 with AdSense this month
Hey Indie Hackers đź‘‹
I’m Kai, a full-stack developer.
A while ago, I started building geekskai.com — a small collection of free, browser-based tools for developers and creators.
No signup.
No paywalls.
Just tools that solve small, annoying problems.
Why I built it
Honestly, this wasn’t meant to be a business at first.
I kept building tiny scripts and utilities for myself — converters, generators, quick calculators — and thought:
“Why not put them online so anyone can use them instantly?”
A lot of tools on the web today require accounts or subscriptions.
I wanted the opposite:
fast, free, and zero friction.
A small but interesting surprise
I enabled Google AdSense mostly as an experiment.
From Jan 1 to now, the site has:
- ~$87 in ad revenue this month
- ~$46 in the last 7 days (+64%)
- ~3.25K pageviews
- ~$14 Page RPM
Nothing huge — but for a site that’s:
- free
- no login
- no paid marketing
…it felt like a meaningful signal.
What I learned so far
- Small tools compound faster than blog posts
- Developers value “instant utility” more than fancy UX
- You don’t need massive traffic to validate an idea
- Free tools can still lead to sustainable monetization
What’s next
I’m continuing to:
- add more developer-focused tools
- improve organization & discoverability
- listen closely to real usage feedback
I’m not rushing to turn this into a SaaS — I want to earn trust first.
I’d love your feedback 🙏
- What kind of tools do you personally bookmark?
- Would you prefer a niche focus or a broader toolbox?
- At what point would you consider paying for something like this?
If you’re curious:
👉 https://geekskai.com
Thanks for reading — happy to answer any questions!
This really resonates. Small, no-login tools solve real problems fast, and that trust compounds quietly. ~$90 may sound small, but it’s strong validation for zero-friction products done right.
The "instant utility" insight really resonates. I've bookmarked a bunch of these minimal tool sites, and what makes them sticky is exactly what you described — zero friction.
Curious about a few things:
Traffic sources: Are most visitors coming from Google search? If so, are there specific tools that dominate traffic? I've noticed with utility sites, 1-2 tools often drive 80%+ of pageviews.
$14 RPM is actually solid for developer tools. Are you seeing higher RPM on certain tools vs others? Tools with more "decision-making" intent (like converters before a deployment) might perform better for ads.
On the "niche vs broad" question: I'd personally lean toward depth in one area first (like dev utilities), then expand. Makes SEO easier and builds a clearer mental model for users.
For the "would pay" question — I'd consider paying for CLI versions, batch processing, or API access for automation. The web interface stays free, but power users get paid options. That's basically how devhints.io and similar sites evolved.
Nice progress on a quiet project. The 64% week-over-week growth suggests you're onto something.