People who build AI chatbots, sales agents or voice assistants, either as a product other businesses subscribe to or as a service built for a client. The documented cases include website support bots, WhatsApp sales agents, booking assistants for clinics and agent builders. Figures below are computed from the cases listed on this page and are what each source reports, not typical results.
Support bots, sales agents and AI voice assistants, sold as products or built for clients.
A builder connects an AI model to a business's own information, such as its website, FAQs or booking calendar, so it can answer customers or qualify leads.
Some sell this as a subscription product that any business can set up; others build and maintain bots for individual clients.
The work that matters is accuracy on the client's data, hand-off to a human, and fitting into tools the business already uses.
Products charge monthly subscriptions, often by number of messages or bots.
Service builders charge a setup fee and sometimes a monthly retainer for upkeep.
General guidance is our editorial summary and contains no figures. Every number on this page comes from a linked case.
Figures are as reported by each source, for different periods and metrics. They are not typical results. How we label evidence.
SiteGPT (Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu)
SiteGPT lets businesses create AI chatbots trained on their own website content. Founder Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu says it reached $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue within a month of launch.
Chatbase (Yasser Elsaid)
Yasser Elsaid built Chatbase, which lets businesses create AI support agents trained on their own data. He says the first Stripe payment arrived 30 minutes after he added a pricing page, and that the company reached $9 million ARR with a team of about 30 and no outside investors.
Unnamed marketing consultant (Side Hustle School episode 3075)
A marketing consultant built a chatbot for a skincare client that was spending too long answering the same questions. The client paid $300 to refine and install it. Within a month there were three more clients at $250 to $500 each, then a $50 monthly maintenance fee, and six paying clients by month two.
My AskAI (Mike Heap)
Mike Heap and his co-founder Alex tried several GPT-3 products before My AskAI. They took $5,000 in pre-sales (50 at $99) from a landing page, built the first version on Bubble in two weeks for about $50 in software, and reached about $7,000 MRR within two months.
FlowHunt (Yasha Boroumand)
After two failed products, Yasha Boroumand built FlowHunt, a builder for chatbots and AI workflows for SEO, back-office and sales tasks. He used FlowHunt itself to generate and maintain SEO pages, and it now brings in $10K a month.
Negodiuk AI Consulting (Dmytro Negodiuk)
Dmytro Negodiuk runs a solo AI consulting business in Brooklyn for small and mid-size companies. He first built AI systems for his own businesses, including an AI customer service agent for an Amazon store, a voice bot and a lead research system, then people asked him to build the same for them.
Chatfuel Clinic Suite (Fedor Pak)
Fedor Pak joined Chatfuel in October 2022, a month before ChatGPT launched, and saw its original chatbot product become outdated. From late 2022 through 2025 the team rebuilt it as an AI-native platform that automates scheduling, reminders and messaging across social networks and WhatsApp for clinics and private practitioners. He says the new product brings in about $1M ARR.
Avenue (Tom and his brother)
Tom and his brother built Avenue with a small team. It is a widget that sits on the websites of trades businesses such as electricians and mechanics. Early on they sold it in person, first showing it on an iPhone and then on iPads so owners could see it embedded in a website.
DM Champ (Sohaib Ahmad)
Sohaib Ahmad ran a marketing agency that helped grow a hair transplant clinic. Across clients, he saw the same problem: businesses got floods of leads but could not keep up with messages on WhatsApp, Instagram and web chat. He built DM Champ, an AI sales agent for clinics, restaurants, service businesses and agencies, designed to close deals rather than just answer questions.
Snow Lee (Runbear)
Snow Lee has built startups for 16 years with his co-founder Liam and sold two companies. Runbear helps non-technical teams create their own AI agents. He says it is at $400K ARR after the team dialed in its ideal customer.
Gemma Vincent and Jozef Maxted (Chat Thing)
Gemma Vincent left a corporate job after experiencing sexism and started a design agency. With her husband and business partner Jozef Maxted, she then built Chat Thing, an AI bot generator. Indie Hackers reports it makes nearly $12K MRR.
OpenAssistantGPT (Marc-Olivier Bouchard)
Marc-Olivier Bouchard runs OpenAssistantGPT, started December 2023. Figures: $1,747 MRR, $90,379 all-time.
The other 11 sources do not disclose a startup cost.
Official imageOpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant. In our documented cases it is used to draft reports, brainstorm product slogans, write first drafts of client posts, and generate code for digital products.
Free plan: Yes. Free plan with limits on uploads, image creation, and deep research.
Pricing: Free plan, plus paid Go, Plus, and Pro plans for individuals and Business and Enterprise plans for teams. Exact prices were not shown in the version of the page we could read; check the official page for your region.
Checked October 17, 2026
Official imageAnthropic's AI assistant. Documented cases use it to write long video scripts, draft newsletter summaries, and run client offers on a single monthly subscription.
Free plan: Yes. Free plan for chat on web, desktop, and mobile.
Pricing: Free plan. Pro is $20/month billed monthly or $17/month billed annually. Max starts at $100/month. Team seats start at $20/seat/month billed annually.
Checked October 17, 2026
Official imageA platform for building AI chatbots and agents. A documented no-code chatbot builder used it to deliver website bots for local businesses.
Free plan: Yes. 100 conversations per month, no top-ups or overages.
Pricing: Free plan with 100 conversations per month. Plus $150/month and Team $750/month, both billed annually, with conversation packs available.
Checked October 17, 2026
Official imageA visual automation platform that connects apps into multi-step workflows. Appears in a documented chatbot business and in a construction automation project, where a QuickBooks connection failed mid-build.
Free plan: Yes. 1,000 credits per month.
Pricing: Free plan with 1,000 credits per month. Paid Core, Pro, Teams, and Enterprise plans are billed by credits; exact prices were not shown in the version of the page we could read.
Checked October 17, 2026
No-code platform for building web apps. Documented founders used it to build AI chatbots, a multi-model AI chat platform and an AI Excel formula tool without writing code.
Free plan: Yes. The official pricing page says you can start free.
Pricing: Free plan to start, with paid plans for launching and scaling. Exact prices were not shown in the version of the page we could read; check the official page.
Checked October 20, 2026
OpenAI's developer platform for building GPT models into your own apps. Documented founders use it inside voice-note apps, resume and cover letter tools, writing assistants and support agents. This is separate from a ChatGPT subscription.
Free plan: No free plan listed; usage is billed per token.
Pricing: Pay as you go, priced per 1 million tokens and varying by model. For example, the official page listed gpt-6-luna at $0.10 per 1M input tokens and $0.50 per 1M output tokens (standard), and gpt-6-astra at $10.00 input and $50.00 output.
Checked October 20, 2026
Across the 10 of our 12 sourced cases that report a monthly figure, amounts range from $1,747 to $750,000 a month, with a median of $12,000. These are what each source reports, not typical results.
Only one case discloses a startup cost: about $50 in software for an AI support chatbot built on Bubble. 1 of 12 cases disclose a startup cost.
From about 30 minutes after a pricing page went live to within the first month, in the cases that say. This comes from what our cases report.
ChatGPT (1 case), Botpress (1 case), Make (1 case), Bubble (1 case), Claude (1 case). Only tools named in the sources are counted.
1 of 12 cases are independently documented, meaning a news outlet says it reviewed records. 11 are self-reported. Every case links its source.
Model providers and large platforms ship built-in chatbots. Wrong answers in front of customers can damage a client relationship. Usage-based model costs grow with every conversation.
5 of 12 cases state a time to first revenue. For example: SiteGPT (Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu): "Within the first month"; Chatbase (Yasser Elsaid): "About 30 minutes after the pricing page went live"; Unnamed marketing consultant (Side Hustle School episode 3075): "First paid project ($300) shortly after a free test build". The rest do not say, so treat any single timeline as one example, not a norm.
12 of 12 cases list limitations or risks drawn from their sources. Examples: SiteGPT (Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu): Growth relied on a rare viral launch week; Chatbase (Yasser Elsaid): Very competitive market for AI support agents; Unnamed marketing consultant (Side Hustle School episode 3075): Law firms raised privacy concerns. Each case page lists them in full.
Yes. The IRS says that whether or not you receive a Form 1099-K, you must report all income from selling goods or services on your tax return. Payment apps and online marketplaces must send a 1099-K when payments for goods or services total over $20,000 in more than 200 transactions, but they may send one for lower amounts. Source: IRS, "Understanding your Form 1099-K" (irs.gov/businesses/understanding-your-form-1099-k), checked 2026-10-20. General information, not tax advice.
According to the IRS, you must pay self-employment tax and file Schedule SE if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more. The rate is 15.3% (12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare), and you may need to pay estimated taxes quarterly. Source: IRS, "Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes)" (irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employment-tax-social-security-and-medicare-taxes), checked 2026-10-20. General information, not tax advice.
Each issue covers a sourced case study, the tools used, and what the evidence does and does not show.