AI Side Hustles
Business Model

AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps

Founders of AI apps that save people time: note takers that turn lectures or meetings into notes, voice dictation and voice-note apps, email assistants, and a real-time call assistant. Most are sold as subscriptions to individuals. Figures below are computed from the cases listed on this page and are what each source reports, not typical results.

AI note takers, dictation apps, email assistants and call helpers.

Social preview image from usevoicy.com, the official site.
Social preview image from audiopen.ai, the official site.
Social preview image from parakeet-ai.com, the official site.
Startup Cost in Our Cases
Under $10 in the one case that discloses a cost
Time to First Revenue in Our Cases
Seven yearly subscriptions in the first week, in the one case that says
Published Cases
10 Published
Independently Documented
0 of 10

Strengths Seen in Our Cases

  • Saving time is an easy benefit to explain
  • Users who rely on the app daily tend to keep paying
  • A small first version can be built quickly

Known Risks

  • Large platforms keep adding built-in AI notes and email features
  • AI model costs grow with usage
  • Crowded market with many similar apps
Gallery

Images and videos from AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps cases

Social preview image from usevoicy.com, the official site.Image: usevoicy.com
Voicy (Kourosh)
Social preview image from audiopen.ai, the official site.Image: audiopen.ai
AudioPen (Louis Pereira)
Social preview image from parakeet-ai.com, the official site.Image: parakeet-ai.com
ParakeetAI (Jure Sotosek)
Social preview image from talknotes.io, the official site.Image: talknotes.io
Talknotes (Nicolas Jeanne)
Turbo AI social preview showing the Turbo AI note-taking app.Image: Turbo AI
Turbo AI (Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan)
Social preview image from getinboxzero.com, the official site.Image: getinboxzero.com
Inbox Zero (Elie Steinbock)
Social preview image from voiset.io, the official site.Image: voiset.io
Voiset (Denis Kirichenko)
Social preview image from marblism.com, the official site.Image: marblism.com
Ulric Musset (Marblism)
Image published with the cited giovannibrees.com article about Giovanni Brees (Meet Oscar).Image: Giovanni Brees
Giovanni Brees (Meet Oscar)
Wave social card reading Press a button, Catch every word, with a phone screen showing a new recording waveform.Image: Wave
Wave AI (Josh Mohrer)

How the model works

General guidance

AI turns speech, lectures, meetings or email into notes, drafts and summaries.

Founders often start by solving their own problem, then launch a small first version.

Growth in the cases comes from launches, search ads, social posts and word of mouth.

How it earns

General guidance

Monthly or yearly subscriptions, often with a free tier.

Some apps offer annual plans to lift cash up front.

General guidance is our editorial summary and contains no figures. Every number on this page comes from a linked case.

Reported results

What the cases report, and how well it is backed up

Figures are as reported by each source, for different periods and metrics. They are not typical results. How we label evidence.

Case Studies

AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps Cases

10 case studies
Social preview image from usevoicy.com, the official site.
Image: usevoicy.com
October 14, 2026
1 source

A dictation app built for his dad makes $16K to $20K a month as a side project

Voicy (Kourosh)

Kourosh grew up in Tehran, studied business in London and worked as a fintech product manager. While he was sick in hospital, he watched his dad type slowly all day and wished he could give him good dictation everywhere. He launched Voicy as a Chrome extension two years ago, then built Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android apps. It runs as a side project next to his nine to five and, he says, makes $16K to $20K a month, with about 1,400 active subscriptions.

Read original source
Reported figure
$16K to $20K a month(revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:
Inspect Case
Social preview image from audiopen.ai, the official site.
Image: audiopen.ai
February 17, 2026
1 source

A non-technical builder turned a half-day hackathon project into an AI voice-to-text app earning $15K to $20K a month

AudioPen (Louis Pereira)

Pereira says he has no technical background but has built online tools for years. AudioPen started as a project built in half a day at a hackathon. He has grown it for about two years, and he told Indie Hackers it now makes between $15K and $20K a month. He charges only annual and two-year subscriptions, with no monthly plan.

Read original source
Reported figure
$15K to $20K a month(revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Social preview image from parakeet-ai.com, the official site.
Image: parakeet-ai.com
September 23, 2026
1 source

A former Microsoft engineer bootstrapped a real-time AI call assistant to more than $1 million in monthly revenue

ParakeetAI (Jure Sotosek)

Sotosek, a Slovenian software engineer who studied at King's College London and worked on Microsoft Teams, launched more than ten products before one worked. A hardware product for car fans taught him short-form video marketing. He started ParakeetAI in 2024 and says it has grown, without outside funding, to more than $1 million in monthly revenue and over 1.5 million users with a very small team.

Read original source
Reported figure
More than $1 million a month(revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Social preview image from talknotes.io, the official site.
Image: talknotes.io
April 4, 2024
1 source

A self-taught coder's AI voice notes app makes about $5,000 a month

Talknotes (Nicolas Jeanne)

Nicolas Jeanne learned to code in 2022, shipped 17 apps in a year and sold one for $65,000. Talknotes cost him under $10 to build, mainly OpenAI API calls, and reached about $5,000 a month with 5,000 users.

Read original source
Reported figure
~$5,000 per month(revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:
Inspect Case
Turbo AI social preview showing the Turbo AI note-taking app.
Image: Turbo AI
June 29, 2026
2 sources

Two college students' AI note-taking app crossed $13 million in lifetime revenue

Turbo AI (Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan)

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, friends since sixth grade, built Turbo AI as freshmen at Northwestern and Duke to take better class notes. They launched in January 2024, both dropped out, and say the app has passed $13 million in lifetime revenue with about 10 full-time employees.

Read original source
Reported figure
$13M+ lifetime revenue
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Social preview image from getinboxzero.com, the official site.
Image: getinboxzero.com
October 16, 2025
1 source

An AI email assistant built to scratch the founder's own itch passed $10,000 MRR

Inbox Zero (Elie Steinbock)

Elie Steinbock spent too much time on email while running a previous business. He built Inbox Zero, an AI executive assistant that organises email, drafts replies and helps users reach inbox zero, and reports $10K+ MRR.

Read original source
Reported figure
$10K+ MRR(recurring revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Social preview image from voiset.io, the official site.
Image: voiset.io
December 21, 2025
1 source

A software developer built an AI planner that turns voice notes into tasks and says it reached 5,000 euros MRR

Voiset (Denis Kirichenko)

Denis Kirichenko spent years managing projects alongside his main job and found switching between planning tools on the move frustrating. Once AI became practical, he built a one-button prototype that turns a spoken sentence into a task. Voiset now serves entrepreneurs, field workers and people with ADHD who prefer to plan by voice.

Read original source
Reported figure
5,000 euros MRR(recurring revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Social preview image from marblism.com, the official site.
Image: marblism.com
April 3, 2025
1 source

Marblism, a suite of AI employees, hit $250K ARR quickly, then had to pivot and rebuild

Ulric Musset (Marblism)

Ulric Musset and Cyril Pluche sold their fintech startup Vauban to Carta and started Marblism, a suite of AI employees: an email assistant, a social media ghostwriter, an SEO blog writer and a sales assistant. He says they quickly hit $250K ARR, then had to pivot and rebuild the customer base.

Read original source
Reported figure
$250K ARR before a pivot(recurring revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:none named in the source
Inspect Case
Image published with the cited giovannibrees.com article about Giovanni Brees (Meet Oscar).
Image: Giovanni Brees
January 15, 2026
1 source

A founder says Meet Oscar, an AI email assistant built with Lovable, reached $45,000 MRR in 60 days

Giovanni Brees (Meet Oscar)

Giovanni Brees says he built Meet Oscar, an AI email assistant, without writing code and scaled it to $45,000 in monthly recurring revenue in 60 days. He describes using Lovable to create over 200 landing page variations aimed at 15 customer profiles, from lawyers to insurance agents.

Read original source
Reported figure
$45,000 MRR(recurring revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:
Inspect Case
Wave social card reading Press a button, Catch every word, with a phone screen showing a new recording waveform.
Image: Wave
February 3, 2026
1 source

A non-developer vibe coded an AI note-taking app and says it is at about $7M ARR as a one-person company

Wave AI (Josh Mohrer)

Josh Mohrer is not a developer, but Mixergy describes how he vibe coded Wave AI into a $7 million a year note-taking company. The app records what you say in meetings, on calls or straight into your phone, then transcribes and summarizes it. He says that over about three years a few people helped with higher-end engineering and marketing, but he has done most of the engineering and all of the support himself.

Read original source
Reported figure
About $7M ARR(recurring revenue)
Evidence levelSelf-Reported
Tools:
Inspect Case
Startup costs

What the cases say they spent

The other 9 sources do not disclose a startup cost.

Risks

Challenges reported in these cases

Tools

Tools for AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps

ChatGPT logo and wordmark on a blue and orange gradient.Official image

ChatGPT

AI Assistant

OpenAI'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

Used in 54 documented casesView Profile
Claude logo and wordmark on a cream background.Official image

Claude

AI Assistant

Anthropic'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

Used in 46 documented casesView Profile

Cursor

AI Coding

AI code editor with an agent that writes and edits code. Several documented founders say they built their apps with it, often with little or no prior coding.

Free plan: Yes. Free plan with limited agent and chat requests.

Pricing: Free $0/month with limited AI usage. Plus $8/month, Premium $30/month, Super $100/month, Ultra $200/month, Teams from $30 per user per month. Third-party model usage is billed separately at API list price. Plans are sold together with X and Grok features.

Checked October 20, 2026

Used in 26 documented casesView Profile

Lovable

AI App Builder

Chat-based AI builder for websites and web apps, aimed at people without technical knowledge. A documented teen founder used it to build a video clipping app.

Free plan: Yes. 5 build credits a day (up to 30 a month) plus 20 Cloud credits a month.

Pricing: Free plan, plus paid Pro, Business and Enterprise plans priced by credits rather than seats. Exact plan prices were not shown in the version of the page we could read; check the official page.

Checked October 20, 2026

Used in 4 documented casesView Profile

OpenAI API

AI Model API

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

Used in 14 documented casesView Profile
Dark Claude Code Docs preview card reading Getting started, Overview, and a line describing Claude Code as an agentic coding tool.Official image

Claude Code

AI Coding Agent

Anthropic's agentic coding tool. It reads a codebase, edits files and runs commands from the terminal or an IDE. Documented founders say they used it to build mobile apps, a data API and a store builder, and to run daily content and client routines. This is separate from chatting with Claude itself.

Free plan: No. The official comparison lists Claude Code on Pro and Max, not on Free.

Pricing: Included in the paid Claude plans, not the Free plan. Pro is $20/month billed monthly or $17/month with annual billing; Max starts at $100/month with higher usage.

Checked October 27, 2026

Used in 12 documented casesView Profile
Product Hunt logo, an orange P in a circle beside the name, on a plain white background.Official image

Product Hunt

Launch Platform

A community site where makers launch new products and users vote on them each day. Nine documented AI product founders used a Product Hunt launch for early users, first sales or backlinks, and several reached #1 Product of the Day.

Free plan: Yes. Launching a product is free.

Pricing: Free. Product Hunt's launch guide says it is 100% free to use.

Checked October 27, 2026

Used in 9 documented casesView Profile
FAQ

AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps: common questions

How much do people make with AI Productivity & Note-Taking Apps and AI?

Across the 5 of our 10 sourced cases that report a monthly figure, amounts range from $5,000 to $1,000,000 a month, with a median of $45,000. These are what each source reports, not typical results.

How much does it cost to start?

Under $10 in the one case that discloses a cost. 1 of 10 cases disclose a startup cost.

How long until the first dollar?

Seven yearly subscriptions in the first week, in the one case that says. This comes from what our cases report.

Which AI tools do these cases use most?

Claude (2 cases), Cursor (2 cases), OpenAI API (2 cases), ChatGPT (1 case), Product Hunt (1 case). Only tools named in the sources are counted.

How reliable are these income figures?

0 of 10 cases are independently documented, meaning a news outlet says it reviewed records. 10 are self-reported. Every case links its source.

What are the main risks?

Large platforms keep adding built-in AI notes and email features. AI model costs grow with usage. Crowded market with many similar apps.

How many of these cases say when they made their first dollar?

1 of 10 cases state a time to first revenue. For example: Talknotes (Nicolas Jeanne): "Seven yearly subscriptions in the first week". The rest do not say, so treat any single timeline as one example, not a norm.

What went wrong or held these cases back?

10 of 10 cases list limitations or risks drawn from their sources. Examples: Voicy (Kourosh): The figures are self-reported; AudioPen (Louis Pereira): Self-reported range with no records reviewed; ParakeetAI (Jure Sotosek): Self-reported figure with no records reviewed. Each case page lists them in full.

Do I have to report this income to the IRS if I never get a 1099-K?

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.

Do I owe self-employment tax on side hustle income in the US?

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.

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Playbook

Step-by-step playbook for this model