Indie hacking revenue benchmarks

People ask for a benchmark because they want to know if a month is behind, normal, or a fantasy. The public record can answer a narrower question. It can say what a named dataset measured, for whom, and in which year. It cannot say what an “indie hacker” earns on average. That average would need a definition of the population and a reason for non-posters to report. Neither exists.

This page keeps four outside datasets and a handful of founder-reported anchors. The anchors are examples. The datasets are the benchmarks. Mix them and you will invent a number.

Formation is not revenue

Carta’s Solo Founders Report 2025 says solo founders were 23.7% of new U.S. startups on Carta in 2019 and 36.3% in the first half of 2025. Carta is cap-table software. The population is companies that use it, mostly U.S. startup paperwork, not a scrape of Gumroad pages. The benchmark is about who starts alone. It is silent on what they earn.

Use it when someone claims the scene is shrinking. The formation share moved the other way. Do not use it when someone claims the typical solo founder makes a living. It did not measure that.

A first customer got faster

Stripe Atlas, in its 2025 year in review, says 20% of Atlas companies reach a first paying customer within 30 days of incorporation, compared with 8% in 2020. Atlas companies are a particular way of incorporating, with Stripe in the loop. The benchmark is speed to a first dollar from a customer. It is a good benchmark for “did the checkout work.” It is a bad benchmark for “can I quit.”

Faster first revenue is what you would expect when building is cheaper. It is also what you would expect if more companies launch something tiny and charge one friendly user. The statistic does not split those cases.

A million dollars of ARR stayed uncommon

ChartMogul’s SaaS growth report looks at subscription companies on its platform and asks how many reach $1 million in ARR within three years. Newer cohorts do slightly worse than the 2016–2019 group. The 2021 cohort is called out at 10.1%. The population is SaaS businesses that connected ChartMogul, which already selects for companies that care about subscription analytics. It is not a census of vibe-coded side projects. It is the best public benchmark this record has for “odds of a scaled subscription business,” and the odds are a minority.

Do not invert it. “Only about one in ten of a 2021 cohort hit $1 million ARR in three years” is not “90% make nothing.” Many companies in the middle are real businesses under that line. The report is about a high bar. MRR at a living wage sits far below $1 million ARR and far above zero. ChartMogul does not hand you that middle as a single indie number.

The verified-revenue feed is a pyramid

Steal What Works compiled a TrustMRR snapshot in which 67.8% of businesses were under $1,000 in lifetime revenue and 0.9% were over $1 million lifetime. Read the nouns. Lifetime revenue, not MRR, not ARR. A snapshot of a feed that founders join on purpose. Young projects pile up at the bottom because a new Stripe account has not had time to collect. The live percentages move. TrustMRR is not obligated to match this paragraph next month.

Even with those limits, the shape matches every other view of low-barrier attempts: a large bottom, a thin top. It is the right antidote to a timeline of five-figure months. It is the wrong tool for shaming a specific founder who never connected Stripe. Absence is not a zero. Presence at $0 lifetime is a real, common state for listed projects.

Do not average the column of figures. They are not the same unit. The money page uses this table's substance without turning it into a salary.

Anchors, not benchmarks

These are founder-reported or Stripe-connected examples already documented here. They show what the top of a public conversation looks like. They are not a quartile.

Levels, 30 May 2019: Nomad List and Remote OK together about $83,333 in a month, his post. Four years in. Later operating revenue, in his September 2026 telling, still sits around $200,000–$250,000 a month, while a $10 million headline includes investment gains. Do not benchmark against the ten.

Lou, March 2026: $78,120 for a portfolio month, his LinkedIn recap, with TrustMRR and DataFast ahead of ShipFast. His 2025 letter’s $1,032,000 includes investing and X. His book page’s $3 million is about a decade and 36 startups. Three windows, three mixes.

Tony Dinh, November 2024: TypingMind past $1 million in the trailing twelve months, about twenty months after launch, his newsletter. October 2025: about $130,000–$160,000 a month, his range.

Postiz, 15 September 2026: about $222,851 MRR on TrustMRR. Stronger than a screenshot. Still one company. The July founder-reported ~$143k is an earlier checkpoint, not a fight with September.

SuperX, 25 September 2026: TrustMRR about $19,756 MRR the morning of the course pre-sale, bio about $22,000. A small SaaS that is public because attention is the product. A course balance from the same week is not this row.

If your month is $300 MRR, you are not “behind Levels.” You are in the large region the TrustMRR snapshot says is normal for listed projects, and you may be early. If your month is $30,000 MRR, you are in rare company in that same snapshot’s logic, and you still should not describe yourself as the benchmark.

What to use instead of an average

Pick the decision. If the decision is “is a first sale a fantasy,” Atlas says a minority get one inside a month and that minority grew. If the decision is “is $1 million ARR the plan for year two,” ChartMogul says that plan loses most of the time even among analytics-connected SaaS. If the decision is “am I the only one at a small lifetime total,” the TrustMRR shape says you are in the majority of people willing to list. If the decision is “what do I pay myself,” none of these are a personal budget. Costs, tax, and the rest of your life are not in the datasets.

$1,000 MRR is a cultural milestone, about $12,000 a year if it holds. It is not in the table above because it is not what those studies measured. Treat it as a stage marker. Treat the table as the outside evidence. Treat a stranger’s screenshot as a story, which is what the 2026 state is full of.

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