How to make money with AI

Most of the 35 AI businesses we track make money in an ordinary way. AI is what they sell or how they make it. It is not the business model.

Figures below are gross revenue, before fees and costs, with a proof label and a date. None is a promise of what you will earn. The list without this narrative is AI business models compared.

Synthesia's audited 2025 accounts show $113.2M a year (Verified, filing, year to 31 Dec 2025). Postiz read $350,207 a month (Verified, Stripe, 1 Nov 2026). MailCheap, from $19 a month, read $2,244 a month (Verified, Stripe, 2 Nov 2026). Chatbase lists Hobby at $40 and Basic at $150 a month. Its revenue figure is a snapshot, because the listing was removed.

Skillry mainly sells a subscription. A founder post on 2 Nov 2026 lists Pro at $19.90 a month or $158 a year, and the revenue profile lists Founding Lifetime at $169 once. The checked reading that day is $4,297 a month (Verified, Stripe). Other named prices: Low Content AI at €390 to €990 a year, Tapesearch at $16.66 to $60 a month, and GEHIRN.md at €9 to €399 a month.

Lovable states $600M a year (Claimed, 24 Sep 2026). Base44's verified figure is a sale to Wix of about $80M (Jun 2025), and plans checked 15 Oct 2026 are $16 to $160 a month. Builder.ai is Contradicted.

What these cases suggest: a subscription for one job shows up at every size here, and the plan price is not the same thing as the checked month. A sale price, as with Base44, is a different number again.

Most started for under $500. Channels range from the founder's X audience (Skillry, MailCheap) to Google Ads (Tapesearch) and enterprise sales (Synthesia).

ToonThis, $6.99 a week or $24.99 a year, read $554 a month (Verified, RevenueCat, 26 Oct 2026). Imposter AI read $20,067 a month (Verified, RevenueCat, 15 Oct 2026). Cal AI is $30M+ a year, Claimed (MyFitnessPal to TechCrunch, 2 Mar 2026), with App Store prices of $2.99 to $29.99 checked 19 Oct 2026. Wasabi read $5,186 a month (Verified, RevenueCat, 15 Oct 2026) after paid ads stopped. VibeSail is about $100 a month, Claimed, Jun 2026. AI Dungeon is $7M+ a year, Unverifiable. Talefy is from $1.99.

What these cases suggest: small charges to many people can add up to a checked month, but the largest app figure here is a claim.

ToonThis, Imposter AI and Talefy started for under $500. Channels include App Store search for ToonThis, TikTok and Instagram for Imposter AI, and paid posts and ads for Cal AI.

White Glove Content, founded in Apr 2026, sells faceless short videos from $54 a month and read $71,992 a month (Verified, Stripe, 15 Oct 2026). AEO Engine names Growth at $1,597, Scale at $2,997, and Enterprise from $10,000 a month, and read $157,959 a month (Verified, Stripe, 15 Oct 2026). Reddit Agency read $46,005 a month as a 12-month average (Verified, Stripe, 15 Oct 2026).

What these cases suggest: a client paying for the finished work can be a large checked month, and the retainer named on the page is not that month. AEO Engine was already an agency, with a Stripe account from 2018, before the offer was described as AI search.

White Glove Content and AEO Engine started for under $500, and Reddit Agency started for under $100.

Every figure here is Claimed. The Rundown AI states $10M+ a year (podcast, 6 Oct 2026), from sponsorships and Rundown University at about $1,000 a year. Superhuman AI states $100K a month (founder post, May 2024). HubSpot acquired Mindstream about 16 months after launch, at a claimed $20K to $30K a month (podcast). Ben's Bites states $1M+ a year (Sep 2024 interview).

What these cases suggest: these businesses give the publication away and charge a sponsor, or they sell training beside it. None of these figures is checked.

The Rundown AI, Superhuman AI and Ben's Bites started for under $100. The Rundown AI and Superhuman AI already had an audience on X, and Mindstream used paid acquisition and referrals.

Both figures are Claimed. Maker School charges $184 a month (checked 15 Oct 2026) and the founder states $300K a month as of Sep 2026. Nate Herk lists AIS+ at $129 a month and agency clients at $5,000 to $20,000 a month. The claim is $100K+ a month for the consultancy, as of Aug 2026. Both teach on YouTube.

What these cases suggest: the YouTube lesson is the front door, and the community or the agency is what the founder says brings the money.

Maker School and Nate Herk both started for under $100. Both found customers through YouTube.

There's An AI For That launched in Dec 2022. A secondary interview puts a submission around $300, and a beehiiv report (Apr 2025) puts a sponsorship at $6,000 to $8,000. Romanian filings aggregated by bizindex.ro show $4,873,548 of turnover for FY2025 (Verified). We did not read the primary filing.

What these cases suggest: the visitor is not the customer, because the tool maker pays for a listing and a sponsor pays for the newsletter. The filed turnover is the checked number, and the submission price is a secondary report.

It started for under $100. Customers came through search and a large newsletter. The visitor and subscriber counts on its website are the company's own claim.

GrowingUpVideo sells one video at a time, from $4.90 to $55.90, and read $3,597 in the past month (Verified, payment data, 2 Nov 2026). TypingMind moved its one-time license from $9 to $19, then $29, then $79, with a team plan beside it (founder thread, Jun 2024), and claims $210K+ in one month (Dec 2025).

Uizze sells a design library at $9 a month or $99 once. The last reading is $1,828 a month on 17 Oct 2026 (Verified, snapshot), and the listing was later removed. Skillry's subscription and $169 lifetime option are in the software section.

What these cases suggest: a one-off price can be the whole product, as with GrowingUpVideo, a license, as with TypingMind, or a second way to pay, as with Uizze. The checked month and the sticker price answer different questions.

GrowingUpVideo started for under $500, and TypingMind and Uizze started for under $100. TypingMind used the founder's audience on X, and Uizze used search and word of mouth.

Builder.ai presented about $180M of revenue for 2023. Its own provisional accounts restated that to about $45M (Contradicted, per the Financial Times, 22 May 2025), and the company entered insolvency. The Chatbase and Uizze listings were removed, so their last readings stay as snapshots. GojiberryAI's feed has been stale since 14 Aug 2026. More of that record is on What didn't work.