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September 11, 2025•14 min read

The $200/Month SaaS Nobody Wants to Build (But Everyone Needs)

When I told my friend I built a tool that makes $180/month, he laughed. Six months later, I'm at $2,400 MRR with zero marketing spend. Here's why small, "boring" SaaS businesses are the smartest bet for indie hackers in 2025.

"Dude, $200 a month? That's like… nothing."

My friend was right. $200 MRR doesn't sound impressive when every Twitter thread is about hitting $50K MRR or raising Series A. It doesn't get you into YC. It won't land you on TechCrunch.

But you know what $200/month gets you? A real business.

Six months ago, I launched a simple tool that extracts tables from PDFs and converts them to Excel. Pricing: $10/month. First month revenue: $180 from 18 customers.

Today? I'm at $2,400 MRR with 240 active subscribers. No ads. No cold emails. Just people searching for "PDF to Excel converter that actually works" and finding my tool.

And here's the thing nobody tells you: building a $200/month SaaS is infinitely easier than building a $10K/month one.

The Micro-SaaS Delusion We All Have

Let me paint you a picture of the typical indie hacker dream:

Sounds familiar? I fell for it too.

The reality? According to Indie Hackers data, only 3.2% of SaaS businesses reach $10K MRR in their first year. The median micro-SaaS does around $1,500 MRR after 12 months of work.

But here's what changed my perspective entirely: I stopped chasing the big number and started asking a different question:

What if I built something so simple, so unglamorous, that 20 people would happily pay me $10/month for it?

Why $200 MRR Is Actually a Big Deal

Let's do some math that'll make you reconsider everything.

Scenario A: The "Dream" SaaS
Target: $10,000 MRR
Pricing: $99/month
Customers needed: 101
Conversion rate: 2%
Traffic needed: 5,050 visitors/month
Time to revenue: 6-12 months (realistically 18+)

Scenario B: The "Boring" Micro-SaaS
Target: $200 MRR
Pricing: $10/month
Customers needed: 20
Conversion rate: 3% (easier sell at $10)
Traffic needed: 667 visitors/month
Time to revenue: 2-8 weeks

See the difference? To hit $200 MRR, you need:

But here's the kicker: $200 MRR is just your starting point.

The Compounding Effect of Small SaaS Wins

Remember when I said I'm at $2,400 MRR now? Let me show you how that happened, month by month:

You see that curve? That's organic growth with ZERO marketing spend.

Why did it grow? Because:

  1. I solved a real, specific problem (PDF tables are a nightmare)
  2. The tool worked reliably (shocking, I know)
  3. $10/month is a no-brainer for businesses that need it
  4. People started recommending it in Reddit threads and forums

This is the power of starting small. You can't get word-of-mouth growth if you never launch because you're building "one more feature" for your $99/month enterprise tool.

The Unglamorous Niches That Print Money

Here's where most indie hackers go wrong: they build what THEY think is cool, not what people actually need.

Want to know what makes consistent, sustainable revenue? Boring problems that:

Real micro-SaaS ideas making $200-$2K MRR:

1. Invoice reminder automation for freelancers
Problem: Freelancers hate chasing late payments
Solution: Auto-send reminders 3, 7, and 14 days after invoice due date
Pricing: $8/month
Keywords: "automated invoice reminders," "freelance payment tracking"

2. Spreadsheet data cleaner
Problem: Excel sheets from clients are always messy (extra spaces, duplicates, formatting issues)
Solution: One-click cleaning of common data problems
Pricing: $12/month
Keywords: "clean Excel data automatically," "remove duplicates spreadsheet tool"

3. Meeting transcript summarizer
Problem: Zoom calls generate transcripts nobody reads
Solution: Auto-summarize into action items + key points
Pricing: $15/month
Keywords: "Zoom transcript summary," "meeting notes automation"

4. Local business review response generator
Problem: Small businesses don't respond to Google/Yelp reviews fast enough
Solution: AI generates personalized responses, business owner approves
Pricing: $19/month
Keywords: "respond to Google reviews automatically," "Yelp review management tool"

5. Simple expense receipt organizer
Problem: Contractors lose receipts, tax time is hell
Solution: Forward receipts to email, auto-categorize, generate monthly reports
Pricing: $9/month
Keywords: "organize receipts for taxes," "contractor expense tracking"

Notice a pattern? None of these are "revolutionary." They're just solving annoying, repetitive tasks that people will happily pay $10-20/month to never think about again.

Why VCs Hate This (And Why That's Good)

A VC once told me: "Your market isn't big enough. Even if you captured 100% of PDF-to-Excel converters, you'd cap at maybe $5M ARR. That's not venture scale."

He was right. And I'm so glad he passed.

Here's the thing about "not venture scale" businesses:

At $2,400 MRR with 85% profit margins, I'm taking home $2,040/month in profit. That's $24,480 per year from ONE tool that took me 3 weeks to build.

Now scale this: What if you had 3 tools doing $2K MRR each? That's $6K/month. Five tools? $10K/month.

This is the portfolio approach to indie hacking that nobody talks about.

The Brutal Truth About $10K MRR

Let me tell you what happens when you finally hit that magical $10K MRR number everyone chases:

  1. Customer support becomes a full-time job. At 1,000+ customers, you're dealing with 10-20 support tickets daily.
  2. Infrastructure costs explode. That $29/month Heroku plan? Now it's $500+/month on AWS.
  3. Competition notices you. Bigger players start copying your features.
  4. Feature creep kills your focus. Enterprise customers demand custom features.
  5. You need a team. Solo founder? Not anymore. Now you're managing people.

Meanwhile, at $2,400 MRR:

Which lifestyle sounds better to you?

How to Actually Build Your $200 MRR SaaS

Okay, enough theory. Here's the exact playbook I used (and you can copy):

Step 1: Find a Searchable Problem (Week 1)

Go to Reddit, Twitter, and Indie Hackers. Search for phrases like:

Red flags to avoid:

Green flags to chase:

Step 2: Validate With a Landing Page (Week 1)

Don't build anything yet. Create a simple landing page with:

Share it in the forums where you found the problem. If 50+ people sign up for the waitlist, you've validated demand.

Step 3: Build the MVP (Weeks 2-3)

Use no-code/low-code tools if you can:

Build ONLY these features:

  1. Sign up / login
  2. Core functionality (the one thing you promised)
  3. Payment integration

That's it. No dashboard. No analytics. No team features. No nothing.

Step 4: Launch to Your Waitlist (Week 4)

Email everyone who signed up:

"Hey [Name],

You signed up for [Tool Name] a few weeks ago. It's ready.

[One sentence about what it does]

First 50 people get 50% off ($5/month instead of $10).

[Link to sign up]

Thanks,
[Your name]"

If 10% convert, you have 5 paying customers. That's $50 MRR from week one.

Step 5: Get to 20 Customers (Weeks 5-8)

Now focus on these channels ONLY:

You don't need Twitter. You don't need Facebook ads. You don't need cold email.

Just solve a real problem and make it easy for people to find you.

The $200 MRR Milestone is Your Validation

Here's what $200 MRR actually tells you:

  1. People will pay for your solution (not just "interested")
  2. Your pricing works (they didn't churn immediately)
  3. The problem is real (20 separate people had it)
  4. You can acquire customers (even if slowly)
  5. Your product works (or they'd have refunded)

That's more validation than 90% of "stealth mode" startups raising pre-seed rounds.

Once you hit $200 MRR, you have options:

At $200 MRR ($2,400 ARR), your business is worth $4,800-$9,600 on Acquire.com or MicroAcquire. Not life-changing money, but pretty damn good for 4 weeks of work.

The Psychology of Small Wins

Want to know the real reason I advocate for starting with $200 MRR goals?

Because you'll actually hit it.

I've seen too many talented indie hackers burn out chasing $10K MRR. They work for 18 months, never launch, and eventually give up thinking "SaaS doesn't work for me."

But if you set a goal to hit $200 MRR in 8 weeks? That's achievable. And when you hit it, something magical happens:

You believe you can do it again.

That belief is what separates successful indie hackers from the "I tried once and failed" crowd.

My PDF tool doing $2,400 MRR isn't my only project. I have:

Total: $4,540 MRR across 4 micro-tools. That's $54,480 per year.

And I work about 25 hours per week total managing all of them.

Common Objections (And Why They're Wrong)

"But $200/month isn't enough to live on."

You're right. It's not. But it's also not the finish line—it's the starting line.

Plus, you can hit $200 MRR in 6-8 weeks. How long does it take to hit $10K MRR? For most people? Never.

I'd rather have $200 MRR in 2 months than $0 MRR in 2 years.

"But I want to build something big and meaningful."

Define "meaningful." Is solving a daily annoyance for 500 people not meaningful?

The hotel manager in Vietnam who I helped automate his invoice entry? He saves 2 hours every day. That's 730 hours per year. That's 30 full days of his life back.

Tell me that's not meaningful.

"This sounds like just being a freelancer with extra steps."

Except freelancing requires you to work for every dollar. A SaaS, even a tiny one, makes money while you sleep.

My PDF tool made $87 yesterday while I was at the beach. My freelancer friends made $0 because they took the day off.

What Nobody Tells You About Small SaaS

The secret that VCs don't want you to know: small, focused SaaS businesses are often MORE profitable per hour of work than venture-backed startups.

Think about it:

A typical VC-backed SaaS at $1M ARR might have:

They're burning through money hoping to reach $10M ARR before they run out of runway.

Meanwhile, my 4 micro-SaaS products at $4,540 MRR total ($54,480/year):

I take home $3,600/month from these products. And I work 25 hours per week.

That's $144/hour of profit. Show me a VC-backed startup founder making that in year one.

Your $200 MRR Action Plan

Okay, you're convinced. Now what?

Next 7 days:

  1. Spend 30 minutes/day reading Reddit complaints in 3 different subreddits
  2. Find 5 problems people keep mentioning
  3. Check if solutions exist (Google "[problem] tool")
  4. Pick the one with the fewest good solutions
  5. Create a landing page (use Carrd, it's free)
  6. Post it in relevant communities
  7. Collect emails

Next 14 days:

  1. If you got 30+ emails, build the MVP
  2. Use no-code tools if possible
  3. Launch to your waitlist
  4. Get your first 5 paying customers

Next 30 days:

  1. Get to 20 customers ($200 MRR)
  2. Write 3 blog posts for SEO
  3. Answer questions on Reddit (helpfully, not spammy)
  4. Ask customers what else they need

That's it. 50 days from idea to $200 MRR.

The Reality Check

Look, I'm not saying $200 MRR will change your life. It won't.

But it will prove you can build something people want.

And once you've done it once, you can do it again. And again.

The difference between indie hackers making $50K+/year and those making $0 isn't that they built one big thing. It's that they built multiple small things that compounded.

My friend who laughed at my $180 MRR? He's still "working on his SaaS." It's been 18 months. He has 0 revenue.

I have 4 products doing $4,540 MRR combined.

Who was right?

Final Thoughts: Small is Beautiful

The SaaS world glorifies unicorns. Everyone wants to be the next Notion or Figma.

But you know what's actually achievable? Being the person who solves a specific, annoying problem for a few hundred people who'll pay you every month for it.

That's not sexy. It won't get you on TechCrunch. VCs won't chase you.

But it will give you:

So stop chasing $10K MRR. Start with $200.

Build something small. Build something boring. Build something nobody wants to build.

Then build another one. And another one.

In 12 months, you'll be making more money than the person still trying to raise pre-seed for their "revolutionary AI-powered blockchain SaaS platform."

P.S. - If you're wondering: yes, I practice what I preach. Every tool I've mentioned in this post is real and making money. The numbers are slightly rounded for privacy, but the principles are exactly what I used.

Now go build your $200 MRR tool. The world doesn't need another Slack competitor. It needs someone to solve the boring problem you just thought of.