I built an AI regex tool for overseas users – here’s the stack and what’s working so far
Hey IH đź‘‹
I built Forge Regex: describe a pattern in plain English → get a working regex, with live testing, explanations, replace preview, and code export.
đź”— https://regex.ststudio.top
Why I built it
I was tired of the “ChatGPT writes regex → paste into regex101 → tweak → repeat” loop. I wanted one place that both generates and lets you verify.
What’s live
- NL → JS-compatible regex (DeepSeek)
- Live match highlighting + short explanations
- Replace preview
- Export to JS / Python / Go / Java / .NET
- Free: 5 gens/day
- Pro: $9/mo via Paddle (MoR) – unlimited + share links
- Email magic-link login to keep Pro across devices
Stack
Next.js, DeepSeek, Paddle Billing, SQLite, Resend, self-hosted
What’s hard / what I learned
- Payment for a China-based indie: Stripe / Lemon Squeezy were painful; Paddle worked better as MoR.
- Checkout price bugs are easy: UI said $9 while Price ID still pointed at a $1 test price. Always verify the live Price ID.
- “Paid but plan not showing” needs email login + webhook sync, not only a browser cookie.
- Shipping CN WeChat/Alipay early was a distraction – I’m focusing on overseas customers first.
Where I need feedback
- Is $9/mo reasonable vs free 5/day?
- What’s the #1 feature you’d need before paying?
- Any dealbreakers vs regex101 + ChatGPT?
Thanks – happy to share more on Paddle, quota design, or SEO.
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The pricing question may depend less on whether $9 feels reasonable and more on what actually pushes someone past the free workflow.
Have you seen any pattern yet in what frequent users are doing that makes 5 generations/day meaningfully limiting, rather than enough for most regex work?
Looks nice!
My #1 feature would be a history or library I generated.
Many things I need multiple times, but with time between and building a library in the tool would be important to come back to the tool and continue using it