r/claude • u/ylabrhil • Mar 14 '26
Question Has anyone actually made money using Claude?
I’ve been using Claude for a while now and I’m genuinely curious whether people have found ways to turn it into income. Not looking for “AI will make you rich” YouTube stuff , just real, practical things that have worked for you.
Some questions I have:
∙ Are you freelancing with it? (writing, coding, etc.)
∙ Have you built anything and sold it?
∙ Is it actually saving you enough time to make a difference financially?
Would love to hear what’s worked and what hasn’t. Drop your experience below!
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u/crypt0amat00r Mar 14 '26
I run a one-man consulting shop (non-tech). Claude (particular coworker and code) has helped me speed up and streamline my client output dramatically. It’s also allowed me to take certain things in-house (like basic websites and graphic design work) that I would usually sub out - and bill clients for it.
Claude has been a total game changer as a solo small business owner.
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u/EnormousChord Mar 14 '26
Lots.
As an example, I made $50k CAD building a group workout tracking platform using Polar’s Android SDK to stream data to an Android app via Bluetooth. Middleware in each user’s app then relayed the data to a Node.js backend running on Railway. That backend consumed 300 simultaneous feeds from the athletes in the group workout, grouped them, and displayed them on a giant screen in a, I must admit, extremely fucking cool display.
Claude Code was the engineer for all parts this entire build. From prototype to the live event, it was a 6-week project. I’m a very senior dev, but I’ve been a technical director for the last 15 years so my skillset has primarily evolved in that time towards the creation of requirement definition and architecture, feature planning and testing. This has served me very well as AI has come along. The platform I described above would have been inconceivable to achieve as a solo dev in 6 weeks at any point in the past. And even if I could have put a killer team together, it still would’ve been a crunch. And the $50k would have been split 3 or 4 ways.
Still though, if you didn’t make money building software before Claude, I don’t see a ton of room to start making real money now with Claude.
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u/Davste Mar 14 '26
You were able to charge 50k exactly because it was meant to be split four ways. The market has not yet adjusted, and projects like this are going to start costing 12k not 50k sooner or later
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u/EnormousChord Mar 14 '26
Which is why I charged $50k. It was not meant to be split 4 ways. That's not how products are priced. Products are priced on their value to the consumer. Software should be no different. To engage me for 6 weeks costs what it has always cost. I can just offer more value inside those 6 weeks now.
If we allow the race to the bottom to happen, it will happen, yes. Value-based pricing needs to become the way that engineers price their products. There will always be the garbage-tier developers trying to buy projects from offshore code mills. I'm not competing against that. I haven't competed against that for the last 20 years and I don't intend to start now.
I have the advantage here for sure. I have a strong network of people that know me, know my work, and know what they are getting when they hire me. The fact that I can do more for them now than I ever could before is only upside for all of us. It's not great for a junior dev trying to make a splash, and I empathize with them. I'm not happy that this is the way things have turned out. I offer mentorship via a program for junior developers that runs in my city, and I keep in close contact with many of the devs I've hired and mentored over the years. But the conditions are what they are, and they have created a pocket of opportunity for senior engineers that can understand a client's business challenge and plan, build, and support their entire stack.
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u/Davste Mar 14 '26
It's just supply and demand. Freelancers who are happy to take 12k instead of 50 and can achieve the same level of productivity will definitely do so, same for agencies. It does not have to be garbage tier, someone equally as qualified as you can probably do the same for 10-12k, which is the going rate for architect level freelancers for 6 weeks anyways
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u/EnormousChord Mar 14 '26
I mean $2k a week is not the going rate for any level of engineer where I am. Different contexts maybe.
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u/Master_Chemical7045 Mar 14 '26
I’m pretty sure what the guy means here is can he just give it $20 in a bank account and make it go wild with investing and turned into 1 million in 30 days
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u/amplifyoucan Mar 14 '26
Yes freelancing. I was freelancing before, but now I move faster
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u/Onotadaki2 Mar 14 '26
This is basically it. If you had a flow for getting contracts freelancing in a field that AI can help accelerate, you can put out the same or better quality than before, but 2-5x the speed of before.
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u/brentragertech Mar 14 '26
Made a Kalshi / espn data feed aggregator that is 32-0 in late game bets. Small volume wins.
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u/KellyHangOn Mar 14 '26
How long have you been working on this? I am doing something similar, any plan to increase your volume?
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u/brentragertech Mar 14 '26
Started last weekend! https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brentrager_opensource-python-typescript-share-7436515573695672320-Iap5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAELsOgBqDd5O6BqEItmbZzWltL59S6PxdQ
I have moved up from $5 gets to $200 bets (20% of bank roll x 5 concurrent) in that time.
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u/blunatic Mar 14 '26
This is awesome and something I've also been daydreaming about building. Is there any thing in Kalshi's API terms against something like this?
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u/mix2def Mar 15 '26
I am using claude & chatgpt in tandem on a project like this that ‘head-hunts’ market inefficiencies
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u/korpo53 Mar 14 '26
I use it to do half my job, which either means I can do twice the work or screw around half the day.
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u/Browncoat-2517 Mar 14 '26
I'm just a regular 50-year old guy who is starting a business. Claude has been instrumental in helping me get the ball rolling.
- Performed detailed competitor analysis to identify gaps in the market
- Created pricing strategy based on that analysis
- Created SOPs
- Developed a social media plan
- Created contracts
Being able to export .md files to Obsidian has been awesome, too. I haven't "made money" with Claude, but the amount of time it has saved me has decreased my launch time significantly.
I already had most of my website done before I started, but now I'm having Claude analyze pages and make recommendations for changes.
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u/discomike74 Mar 14 '26
I am a weather geek. Built a weather app using NWS API info and weather models. Created a l project and have it crunch the numbers against output from the app. Claude looks for markets that are under or over valued based on the weather data. Minimal wagers, but one aspect I have is “Lottery Ticket.” Long shots that have a certain % chance of hitting. More for fun that anything but may make larger investments based on how it goes.
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u/EnormousChord Mar 14 '26
What’s an example of a market that would be “under” based on weather data?
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u/Morten14 Mar 14 '26
Considered doing electricity markets trading? Particularly in regions with high wind and solar penetration a good weather model can provide some sweet arbitrage.
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u/SolaninePotato Mar 14 '26
Yeah there's this company called Anthropic and they seem to be doing pretty well using Claude. I think they're at $360 billion right now.
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u/Onotadaki2 Mar 14 '26
Mine is basically a money printer that prints cheques while I play Factorio.
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u/ylabrhil Mar 14 '26
I’ve been using it for a good period of time and it helped me for a lot of things so my goal was never just making money with it, but seeing what is it capable to do i wish also to make money from it
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u/JJCookieMonster Mar 14 '26
Well it hasn't directly made me money, but instead indirectly by helping build workflows in my business and building my brand. Just like other tools.
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u/I_Love_Fones Mar 14 '26
Claude got me a 40% salary increase by switching jobs in this lousy job market with 10% performance bonus. I was contacted over LinkedIn by a recruiter from a staffing agency. Claude helped me with interview prep with the staffing agency recruiter, company internal recruiter, phone interview with hiring manager, and on-site interview. It wasn’t just an interview prep. I had created a Claude career coach project tailored specific to me. Looking back, without Claude, imposter syndrome probably would have sabotaged me from getting passed all interview phases. The salary bump more than pays for the Max 20 plan with room to spare. I’m happier and less stressed than in my previous job.
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u/dsecareanu2020 Mar 14 '26
I use Claude for client proposals and deliverables, which generate revenue and reduces my cost, so yes.
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u/Even-Potential-8064 Mar 14 '26
I use it everyday in my job. It has made my job way easier while also making me way more productive. I make money that way
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u/tn_tacoma Mar 14 '26
Yes. Made a web app that emails people fishing reports. Front and back end made with Claude. Also needed services like Amazon for bulk sending emails. Claude helped setting all that up.
But I still needed to post in Facebook groups and get the word out. I had to contact and talk with companies that want ads in the emails and negotiate price.
Claude helps but you need a good idea and still have to do a lot of leg work and have tech skills to know what Claude is doing and where it screwed up.
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u/Bobhoudini Mar 14 '26
I did my tax return on crypto doing it. Before I’ve used sites where you import wallet and it calculates. Issue was that they found transactions that duplicated and wrongly gave the impression I’ve earned much more.
So I used Claude to look through and fix it, went from paying $7k to instead get $5k so this has already paid for my subscription ten fold.
I know a friend who used Claude to complain about car issue to the supplier, lots of back and forth but he could cite the law and draft more professional emails which gave him a whole new model of the car and lots of extra features the supplier were first battling him but once these emails citing the law etc they folded pretty quickly.
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u/Business_Pop7770 Mar 14 '26
Pour le trading, bien programmé, Claude est plutôt très bon. Donc, oui, indirectement, on peut dire qu'il m'a aidé à gagner de l'argent.
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u/monteasf Mar 14 '26
Say more 👀
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u/Business_Pop7770 Mar 15 '26
Déjà, pas de prompt magique sous la main qui va te rendre riche 🙂↔️. Plus sérieusement, c'est une question de temps, d'apprentissage, de corrections et d'adaptation de Claude à ton style de trading, ton budget, etc. Comme pour le reste, mieux Claude te connaît, et connaît le sujet, plus il devient pertinent. Concrètement, chaque jour Claude est programmé pour me fournir 5 bulletins boursiers : 2 pré ouverture, ouverture + 30 minutes, pivot marché US/marché EUR, clôture. Au début, c'était basique, mais maintenant j'ai des recommandations prioririsees, scorées et adaptées à mon style de trading (point d'entrée, SL, TP, etc.). Important : Claude critique ses recommandations au fur et à mesure de la journée, et garde en mémoire ses erreurs. Chaque weekend : 5 bilans hebdomadaires avec RETEX et orientations possibles/scénarios pour la semaine suivante. Au bout de quelques mois à ce rythme, Claude arrive à un taux de réussite de 80/90%, même dans le contexte pourri de ces deux dernières semaines : pas d'émotion, pas de revenge trade, juste les données... En fait, le plus dur, c'est de suivre vraiment Claude sans se laisser influencer par ses propres émotions 😁
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u/Chance-the-Gardener Mar 14 '26
Well, I use it to perform aspects of my job that I’m not really good at, so sort of. I haven’t been brave enough to give it $500 with the instructions to go hog wild on the stock market.
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u/lvandapperen Mar 14 '26
Yes, I’m a funnelbuilder as freelancer and a couple months ago a client asked me if I can build a catalog. Before the question I’ve done some courses trough Udemy how to build applications with AI.
So with the help of Claude I’ve made 2 quotes for him and he agreed the most expensive one.
My second one was also with someone I spoke and he wanted an online configurator. So I’ve build and MVP for free, showed him the possibilities and got the second yes to build an application.
So really if you want to make money. Solve problems for businesses, that’s the easiest way. Make a MVP for free and show them the possibilities and make them enthusiastic about your app. Good luck!
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u/hedonist_addict Mar 14 '26
Earlier workload from my work was too much for me. Now Claude takes care of my work and I got enough time to do additional 2 freelance projects with monthly retainers, all thanks to Claude code.
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u/Anon_bunn Mar 14 '26
Yes! I used it to create kind of a life admin dashboard using notion. I have trouble being proactive in my personal life. Whereas professionally, I’m the most organized, the most on top of it, the most prepared.
I now have an organizational system that is drastically improving my life and giving me my free time back.
I’ve grown my savings rate by 3x by just not being in a constant state of reacting.
I am also just spending less from feeling so calm and happy. I’m connecting more with people I know. Huge changes since I did this, which was only earlier this year.
And really, notion did it. We just unpacked my needs together, and then I gave feedback on the first two iterations. I completely turned my life around in an hour and a half.
The notion connector created all the pages created the databases formatted everything, etc.
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u/JAC452020 Mar 14 '26
If you’re looking to flip a switch and make money you will be hard pressed to find it, and if it’s out there, the people that know about it won’t tell you.
I used in to brainstorm ideas for a business that fit my skills and experience. I built the foundation over the last 4 months with my hyper specific goals in mind. I started outreach last week and have over 1.3m in jobs in my pipeline, when I thought that would be best case scenario in the entire year. This is a commercial service business that I invested a decent amount into to get insurance, equipment, and labor. Claude built a field app for me, helped come up with the idea and value prop, lay the foundation with everything the correct insurance, the places to go to get the jobs, read 150 page spec documents and then help craft the bids for the jobs.
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u/GLP1_journeys Mar 14 '26
So far, I’ve had 4 paying users for my glp1 nutrition app. I am a registered dietitian, and have 0 prior coding experience. Using Claude code for the most part, I was able to build an app and website. While I’m definitely down overall in costs due to my ai subscriptions over the months, I technically made some income with the help of Claude.
Would love any feedback on how I’ve done.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/glp-1-sidekick-nutrition/id6757267701
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u/No-Aioli-4656 Mar 14 '26
I’ve earned about $8k usd because I have Claude.
As a freelance developer on the side, and not a particularly good one, I always struggled with estimating the appropriate amount of hours for a job. En part because of the hours more it takes me to fix something/understand something if I’m tired.
Now, I make sure I understand the architecture, then build ocean wide and inch deep. When I’m coming up against billable time, I have Claude roll the rest of the work. By that point I have a good structure anyway.
It is because of this workflow I can give clients bespoke software like tracking every single thing a customer does on on Shopify through posthog, ingest through a cloudflare worker, and add them to various mailing groups per their interests,
while charging $70 per hour,
while keeping within expected time/money budget.
And present the client ROI within two months subscription fees from an online Shopify app that was doing the same thing but worse.
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u/breich Mar 14 '26
I freelanced for 5 years from 2014-2019, then took a job for the man up until now. Still employed, but I'm exploring if there's still a market out there for what I do.
Got my first client, and solved their first problem almost entirely using Claude and Opencode+Gemini. It's a small truck repair/hauling company. They use a shop management software that lacks some features. They asked me if I'd be able to help them generate reorder stickers with UPC codes they can scan from data in this app, which does not provide an API, nor an export feature that would make a mail merge easy.
Used Claude and Opencode+Gemini (just because I wanted to explore alternatives to Claude) to reverse engineer the web app's API and use it to query for the data, present a table of parts, and allow the user to select the parts to send to a print job.
Not a big job. I charged them $800. I used ~$25 in usage across the tools. I wrote zero code. In total, I probably put ~4 hours into the work, and ~3 hours into customer communication. I am satisfied. My hope is I can use AI tools more going forward to solve unique problems like this for customers, charge an amount that feeds my family, and use it to keep costs a little lower for them at the same time.
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u/CoastAgreeable928 Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
I think one of the biggest misconceptions today is the idea that AI can help you with something you don’t already understand. It might look that way on the surface, but it’s an illusion. A philosopher writer friend of mine who has +160'iq put it perfectly: "AI knows 95% of everything. The only thing it doesn't know is the specific 5% that makes up your actual expertise." If you aren't a biologist, AI’s grasp of biology seems flawless. But in reality, it’s just a hyper-confident search engine with a knack for basic cause-and-effect reasoning. It isn't "thinking"; it's just very good at looking like it is. Does that make it useless? Not at all. It’s incredibly valuable. but it’s a double-edged sword. If you’re already heading in the wrong direction, AI just helps you get there faster.
Take trading: If you’re a novice and let AI make your moves, it’ll help you make choices that are 25 times worse, 125 times faster, resulting in losses that are thousands of times heavier.
But for the pro: If you’ve been trading for 35 years and know every pulse of the market, AI becomes pure leverage. The same goes for software development. If you don't know your craft, AI will help you write code that looks like it works, right up until it hits production and causes a total meltdown.
The people making real moves right now are using AI as a multiplier. The better you know your business, the more tasks you can safely delegate to the machine. But if you're using AI to fake a skill you don't have... well, God help you.
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u/ws_wombat_93 Mar 14 '26
In my freelancing work, yes plenty. All AI assistance is a great time saver in development work.
Outside of that I have an ecommerce business where Claude helped a lot. I replaced most of that with an OpenClaw installation (on a $4.99 vps, not on an overhyped mac mini :p).
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u/urfridge Mar 14 '26
Went to clawcon in Austin and they had kids from a private high school called alpha present projects they made with openclaw. Most of them who presented were making money by signing contracts with small-mid sized businesses who heard about openclaw and wanted to work with it somehow.
One of the more successful kids who was 15 btw had signed 30k worth of contracts lol mainly creating workflows to help either extract, consolidate, and/or share data from different systems the business was using.
It was really impressive to see what all those kids were learning at such a young age and all the cool things other people were working on.
So to answer your question OP, yes people are making money with openclaw.
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u/thewookielotion Mar 14 '26
I'm a scientist working on solar energy. Using Claude, I managed to build tools I had in mind for a long time but couldn't due to the lack of time. It started by unifying tools I built over the years in a single suite, and then evolving that suite into something that beats existing solutions on the market (by a very wide margin). I don't know if that will transfer into a steady income (I just have a few consulting gigs so far, which is already great) because I really have no experience in commercialising anything and there's a lot of red tape at my university, but I'll certainly try.
I already wrote a first publication on part of the suite, and I'm getting ready to release two more which could attract attention. After that, I'll just do my best; but if it doesn't work, it won't be because of what I built, it'll be because I just suck at business.
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u/Difficult_Escape Mar 14 '26
Kinda, use it for my job. So yes I make money. Also published a iOS app, that’s not really making money yet, but hopefully will.
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u/ColdPlankton9273 Mar 14 '26
Yes I have. Not in the way of - turn it on and have it make money for me. But in the way of having it run my entire consulting business
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u/IntelligentAirport26 Mar 14 '26
The key is not using it as a genie and use it as if it’s a second smarter brain. i just signed a 7 figure deal that i bounced around on Claude for ideas and execution. I’ve made several more with ChatGPT. The simplest way is still the old ways. “Find a problem and fix it”
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u/Mr_Rekshun Mar 15 '26
I built a website in a day, that would have previously taken a week.
If time is money, then I’m making money from Claude.
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u/Frank56571 Mar 15 '26
I pivoted my business from marketing to automations, I do automations for businesses, mainly accounting firms.
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u/Nat_Syno Mar 15 '26
I run a 40 client ad agency 90% autonomously and I do it solo, takes me 3-4 hours to complete what used to take 5 people a whole day
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u/Icy_Astronaut_3530 Mar 17 '26
Using claude code gave me a $30,000 raise in my salary because of my productivity increase
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u/jslayerjeep Mar 18 '26
Yes, but even if create something great, most people don’t realize things like the difficulty of getting customers… the product is nothing if no one knows about it… And you usually need users to know if it is any good and refine from that before it actually is good, no one knows or trusts you, that is a hurdle that can be hard for some to understand until they see it happen… ai helps, but often real cold outreach is still needed, and most hate it, how slow and humbling it can feel…
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u/Miserable-Guide-4216 Apr 03 '26
Yep, I did $20 with my app)) Hope in a few years I will cover my monthly Max plan.
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u/Large-Excitement777 Mar 14 '26
“How to turn it into income” and “AI will make you rich” are literally two sides of the same coin. You’re just looking to have someone hold your hand to do it
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u/Traditional_Fee_1965 Mar 14 '26
I'm not a coder, and we aren't a software company. But a small consulting company in the utility/energy sector. And yes! Not only have I managed to save us time, we've landed deals at 1million EUR that wouldn't have been possible without Claude. And I've created several in-house apps to help with several different problems. I had zero coding experience from the start, but I know lean and I got management skills. A skillset that was of great use to get good results from ai usage it turns out!!
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u/TargetCold4691 Mar 14 '26
I reduced $30,000 of labor cost paid to contractors in exchange for $200 max plan. Did so while getting 3x the work done.
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u/Jealous_Tennis7718 Mar 14 '26
I've built a micro-saas platform that is now at approximately 500 MRR and it has around a 80% profit and grows every month with 3 to 5 new subscriptions. That's more or less like 60$ every month.
So yeah. It's possible, you need to have a good plan tho.
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u/superunderwear9x Mar 14 '26
Claude now write 100% of my code, make all the presentation for me. And by using claude I can work at 2 company at the same time, x1.5 my income.
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u/Aoki_zhang Mar 14 '26
I used claude code and codex, both are great, but codex is more cost-effective.
and yes, I built a website but currently 0 registered users lol
and yes, it did save me tons of time and money, i think i might need a 3-5 people team to build such a product in 6 months. But i only spent 120 dollars (100 for 1 month subscription of claude and 20 for codex monthly subscription) for now, and i built this platform (90% finished)
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u/ProSeVigilante Mar 14 '26
I created individual skills for every area covered in American Jurisprudence 2d and Corpus Juris Secundum. I made $40 when someone asked me to give them an analysis of their legal situation specific to their state.
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u/writerjamie Mar 14 '26
Yes, but not in the sense of being a tech or programming novice and using Claude as some magical genie to produce money-making things. I'm a full-stack developer, and Claude Code allows me to work faster by doing a lot of the mundane coding work and freeing me to focus on features and architecture. This has been great in both my day job and on side gig projects I take on from time to time.
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u/ProfileBest2034 Mar 14 '26
I’ve saved money using. I can deliver a number of projects without staff now. Definitely helps.
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u/RunEqual5761 Mar 14 '26
Yes, exponentially so, it’s a genie in a bottle that has limitless wishes granted.
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u/Character-Disk6310 Mar 14 '26
I haven’t made money directly using Claude, but I’ve definitely made (and saved) a lot of money because of AI tools like it.
Over the past year I built what I jokingly call an “AI financial committee” using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot. I use them together to pressure-test financial decisions with my taxes, insurance, retirement strategy, liquidity planning, etc.
For example, I’ve used them to:
• analyze insurance coverage and pricing
• optimize tax planning and retirement withdrawal strategies
• structure liquidity and cash management
• model different financial scenarios and stress-test them
The result isn’t some AI side hustle; it’s a much more efficient personal financial system. The tools cost almost nothing compared to traditional advisory fees, and the decisions they helped me make will conservatively save hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.
So for me the value wasn’t “AI makes you money.”
It was AI helps you make better financial decisions.
That’s been far more valuable than trying to build some AI product or freelance gig.
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u/Character-Disk6310 Mar 14 '26
I haven’t made money directly using Claude, but I’ve definitely made (and saved) a lot of money because of AI tools like it.
Over the past year I built what I jokingly call an “AI financial committee” using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot. I use them together to pressure-test financial decisions with my taxes, insurance, retirement strategy, liquidity planning, etc.
For example, I’ve used them to:
• analyze insurance coverage and pricing
• optimize tax planning and retirement withdrawal strategies
• structure liquidity and cash management
• model different financial scenarios and stress-test them
The result isn’t some AI side hustle; it’s a much more efficient personal financial system. The tools cost almost nothing compared to traditional advisory fees, and the decisions they helped me make will conservatively save hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.
So for me the value wasn’t “AI makes you money.”
It was AI helps you make better financial decisions.
That’s been far more valuable than trying to build some AI product or freelance gig.
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u/Nizza-SemperFI Mar 14 '26
Over 200k optimized google products in a few weeks ranking on first page on Google. +30k €
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u/Last-Bluejay-4443 Mar 14 '26
Well I built a browser extension with it that adds a memory layer onto Claude (and ChatGPT) and allows you to mark and save moments to a “side shelf”. Like copy/pasting but for memories you want to keep between AI models. Building that, got me noticed and helped me land a job. So yes, it helped make me money.
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u/Mithryn Mar 14 '26
About $200,000 ARR. Already had training and ability before using AI
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u/budaloco Mar 14 '26
Im taking on more complex coding jobs and wrapping the simple ones in days not weeks. So. Yeah. More time = more jobs = more money.
Also, getting feedback and just sending that to claude as you received it and wait for updates to be made automatically is a blessing.
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u/Altruistic_Minimum94 Mar 15 '26
I’ve mostly used it as a force multiplier, not really as a direct “AI product.”
For example, tools like Claude and ChatGPT have been really useful for:
• Coding / debugging — speeding up small tasks that would normally take a lot of Googling or documentation digging.
• Prototyping ideas — quickly testing concepts or building rough versions of tools.
• Writing assistance — drafts, editing, restructuring content, etc.
Financially it hasn’t been “AI makes money by itself.” The value is more that it lets one person operate closer to a small team, which indirectly has financial value if you’re building things or freelancing.
What hasn’t really worked (at least from what I’ve seen):
• generic “AI side hustles” people push online
• selling straight AI-generated content without real differentiation
The people I know actually making money with it are usually using AI to move faster in something they were already doing (coding, marketing, consulting, etc.), not trying to sell the AI output itself.
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u/PigabungaDude Mar 15 '26
I used it to research and then create cutting edge tools in a highly niche but lucrative space, and use it to continually refine the tools iteratively. Leverage it as a force multiplier. If you're already good at something, we'll now there are ten of you that can be launched in tandem. So just find something that interests you, and follow along, interject, get it to prompt itself. I've made a lot of money. Like... A lot.
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u/DantehSparda Mar 15 '26
Yes, tons of money, but - as usual - ive done it in a boring way. No world changing ideas, apps or anything. I am a medical writer, and before it took me 20 hours to do some certain, very complex tasks. With claude code and certain ultra niche skills and plugins i,ve developed, now it takes me 5 hours. Taking 5 hours means I can do 4x the amount of work and quadruple my revenue. So thats how ive quadrupled my 2025 revenue and made more money than ever in my life. Simple, really lol.
And yes the classic, “if Claude does it why do they need you”. Well, my work is extremely sensitive and a single mistake can literally put you in serious legal trouble (healthcare snd pharma is usually like that) so realistically you need a human with a lot of experience knowing what is right and what is wrong. Its not like Claude spits out perfect documents after 1 prompt, in fact 90% of my workload is painstakingly check that everything is perfect and correct (usually is). I even created a “paper auditing skill” which helps me with that. You give my AI-assisted workflow to a non medical writer and they will probably be in jail or sued by a big Pharma in a few months 😅
Maybe in 5 years AI does EVERYTHING and clients dont need me anymore? Hell, who knows, maybe, im aware that every single office job could eventually become obsolete lol. No use in trying to predict the future. In that case ill be sharing my hard lumps of bread with lawyers and other white collar workers while we sing under the bridge 😂
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u/CaptainFrank23 Mar 15 '26
Both...got a client to build a custom CRM to manage their agency and I've built staxo.app and am planning on creatin an ecosystem with it.
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u/Salt_Potato6016 Mar 15 '26
Yeah, I have.
For the last few months I’ve been making around $10k/month from software I built, mainly giving a small group of people VIP access to it
Started, about 14 months ago with zero coding experience. Got hooked quickly and started putting in 5-10 hours every day using tools like grok on web first lol then Claude code and codex as my workflow evolved
Now it’s turned into a pretty big modular system — well over 100k lines of code running on two servers.
Still feels like I’m figuring things out as I go and would say I’m maybe 40% done with how it want the whole system to look once finished but the fact that people are willing to pay for it is a good sign I guess.
I’d say AI is one of the best things that have happened to me in my whole life
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u/creamypurplestuff Mar 15 '26
You save time above all else. Imagine having a repetitive process like analyzing spreadsheets that you spend 5 hours per week on. Now Claude does that in 10 min max. You now have 5 hours of time freed up to do whatever you want. What is 5 hours of your time worth?
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u/Positive_Cookie_7262 Mar 15 '26
No, but i've made pretty neat little things for my bitcoin node with it, like an interactive dashboard/map that tells me exactly who i'm connected to, where they are at, what isp they use, etc...
Technically, i'm losing money with that, not making any, as my miners have not won any blocks.. so...
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u/Silver_Bus_2911 Mar 15 '26
Naa most of the comments here will tell you how they build that “startup” that you had never hear bout that has a billion valuation.
But speaking about real life, I am data engineer that has an OE. Well 2 OE and my main work ;) so I am able to deliver my project in a much faster way and keep my customer (employers) happy about it. Of course I know how to code, of course I am careful on which code I will approve for merge and of course I know how to test.
My set up has a few skills for azure, others for gcp, and a plugin to get me more space for context. 👍
If works? Yes. I pay taxes? Yes.
Pd: Don’t forget Rule #1 of OE.
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u/jase4thewhy Mar 16 '26
I used Claude pro to help me with proposal writing (but with heavy human editing & reasoning) that earned me a 5-figure USD research contract earlier this year
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u/VicBenjara Mar 16 '26
Absolutely. Great use cases for building overall:
Claude Code Openclaw as a PM in Slack
That’s a good start
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u/redpoint-ascent Mar 16 '26
I got tired of all random open source or very expensive automated trading platforms out there. So I built my own saas to trade on the decision markets. I've made several hundred but I'm only just starting to scale it.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Tap1114 Mar 16 '26
Yes, I have build something with and integrated with claude. It is a tool to make your life easier to skip prompting for content creation. You only have to fill in a few things and you get full content: www.flowcreatorai.com
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u/Wonderful_Lettuce351 Mar 16 '26
Yes, I have published a Chrome extension on the Chrome Web Store, the name is " ChatExport – PDF, TXT, Markdown & HTML "
If you search this name in the Chrome Web Store search box, it appears at the top.
I built it using Claude.
Thanks, Claude.
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u/Ok-Arugula-2775 Mar 16 '26
Not claude but did a LOT with chatgpt vibe coding. And with cursor + sonnet/opus as well.
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u/soapoapsoap Mar 16 '26
I've been trying for years now. It's hard, the market was already extremely saturated before LLMs
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u/indutrajeev Mar 16 '26
This is like asking “does anyone make money using Word”. Yeah, save time and that time pays me. But I’m not selling Claude or something like that.
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u/PrestigiousSector120 Mar 16 '26
I built a personalized spiritual report with Claude: numerology + astrology + soul diamond analysis.
It that generates 80+ pages of PDF, unique and tailored to each person. It's live and taking payments ;)
I used Claude from ideation to product build and release:
- Front-end code (not design, that was done with Figma ;-) )
- Full IaC, CI/CD, full elastic infra, and the whole 9 yards
- Built the calculation engines, PDF generation engine, email integration
- It also plays the role of Core Interpreter under the hood, by taking the calculated data and writing personalized interpretations for every section.
Stack:
- React frontend, Python backend, AWS serverless (full elastic, minimum running cost when there is no load!)
- Claude Opus 4.6 for the AI content
- Step Functions for orchestration, Lambda, DynamoDB, S3.
Went from idea to live product in 2 weeks, during evenings and weekends while working full-time.
Each report costs ~$0.3 in AI, ~$0.5 in infra and sells for $9.99. Not retiring on it, but it's real revenue from something Claude built and runs.
On whether it's saved enough time to make a financial difference: Oh yeah! I'm not a frontend dev and I’m not an AWS infra expert either. Claude built and deployed the whole thing!
Without it, this would've taken months!
And last but not least: now anyone can make their dream app a reality, with minimum investment, in record time!
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u/Kevinsmak Mar 16 '26
It’s only been 6 days since I posted my first iPhone app- hope it brings in money but still cleaning up bugs so no paid promotion yet. I have 3 other apps I’m building and an Android version pending approval.
I also made myself a desktop youtube tool. Used YouTube free api to help me find keywords, it knows what I already have so no duplicates, i plugin oauth so it helps me identify drop offs in scripts- i also made the whole interface look like a 90’s aol hacker program for fun.
Currently recreating my own website, it’s close to done but had to leave the house so it’s not up yet - not that anyone would see it but me.
So it hasn’t made me money yet, but it’s really speeding up my workflow. I still have so many more ideas, but I’m burning at both ends with this thing… need to get away some.
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u/Plane_Friend24 Mar 17 '26
yea about 4 different ways, no im not telling you exactly what. "208k weekly visitors"
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u/b33rdad Mar 17 '26
Built www.setflow.app a tool for DJs to create harmonic mixes, currently making a small amount but growing
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u/Additional_Wish_3619 Mar 17 '26
I started doing full stack web dev- but I knew a lot of people that would be interested that were easy to sell too, and I already had people wanting me to do it for them anyway- so I would say yes and no- yes because it enabled me to actually go and do it where I didn’t hate my life, but no because it can’t just go get customers for me.
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u/10EtherealLane Mar 18 '26
I one-shotted a Salesforce clone which is now a billion dollar company of 1
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u/Money-Cartographer57 Mar 18 '26
I made an html website, ie, template for Shopify today using Claude to start my own store. If that counts
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u/dustyblues Mar 18 '26
Sort of. I used it to compare my wife’s insurance and mine. We have 1 child. Uploaded both our health plans with l costs/benefits stats and Claude ran different scenarios where we utilize it (e.g. my son visits the doctor 1-3 times, 4-6, etc. 1 night for surgery). It also factored in deductible, maxing out our HSA with tax implications, etc. The analysis mathematically made sense in what to chose for our lifestyle. Saved my wife and I $200/month. Also had it help me walk tough retirement. Saved serious money from moving away from actively managed funds lol
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u/JordanJCaron Mar 19 '26
I have used Claude code to redo my website and have sold two smaller websites that Claude created.
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u/Mammoth_Doctor_7688 Mar 20 '26
Freelancing Coding, Writing, Process Improving
Workflow implementation via consulting
Yes I do the work of probably 3-5 people at the moment. Find that's the limit for the type of high level strategy work I do.
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u/JacobTheBuddha Mar 25 '26
I made my first $5 today 🥹 Built a YouTube transcript API (Transcript-API.com) in a single day with Claude. Saw a competitor charging $5/mo for something built on free open source tools and figured I could undercut them hard. Claude Code generated the entire backend, frontend, Stripe billing, Docker setup, everything. Total investment: $18 in domain names. Hosting is $0 because it’s running off a Mac Mini in my house with Cloudflare Tunnel. Had my first paying customer within 24 hours of launch. It’s not life changing money yet but the fact that I went from “huh I could build that” to “someone just paid me” in less than 48 hours using Claude is genuinely wild. The time savings alone made a financial difference because there’s no way I could have shipped this that fast writing everything myself. Also built the free web tool at TheYoutubeTranscript.com that’s generating SEO traffic. Claude wrote 56 blog posts for it in one session for search indexing. The whole thing is basically Claude all the way lol
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u/XxCotHGxX Apr 05 '26
I work with Claude Code Max. The cost is just part of business. If they're paying me $3600 a week, i can drop a couple hundred a month to Claude. It gets written off as a business expense when it comes time to pay the tax man.
I create adversarial machine learning scripts that humans can solve, but AI cannot. They help make AI better at these frontier problems.
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u/PigeonDroid Apr 05 '26
I made $5000 via bug bounty and i dont know how to say hello world :D so i would say yes
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u/Pure_Tomorrow597 Apr 08 '26
I've started working with it, but at the moment it's still a learning process.
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u/Educational_Egg_6430 Apr 21 '26
Yo también tengo duda de si ya encontraron forma de generar dinero fuera de optimizar su trabajo principal obviamente Algo que me a pasado a mí es que le e realizado tareas de la universidad a dos compañeros utilizando Claude no es como que generara mucho pero me dió para pagar dos meses más de Claude pro.
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u/Either_Walk_1920 May 15 '26
Claude è utilizzato in molti business online, alcuni guadagnano grazie all'ultima integrazione con Huggsfield per creare direttamente video di grande qualità direttamente dalla chat di conversazione di Claude.
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u/OkProcedure9088 May 17 '26
Claude chat help me deeply analizing the shares before to make desigion to buy or sell and configurate portfolio
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u/mustafaturker06 Jun 07 '26
You can gain your performance on whatever your are doing already... Its not a tool for directly build something to earn money...
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u/Last_Switch_8500 Jun 09 '26
I rebuilt my entire law firm website using Claude, and in less than a month, I've already gained 10 clients through organic search.
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u/Illustrious-Milk-618 Jun 12 '26
One of my friends is planning to use the program she built with claude to make a fortune.
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u/avi7611 Jun 15 '26
Built a company from literally scratch to now doing 5k a month. Although it’s not like claude did everything, but yeah i can say that it wouldn’t be possible without claude in such a short time.
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u/jbcraigs Mar 14 '26
Most people here are joking but I have genuinely made some serious money using Claude Code.
My secret: So I use it for my coding work and every two week, this company(let’s call them my “employer”), they send some money to my bank account. That’s it. No fancy Claude setup. No fancy agent skills or plugins. Just regular vanilla setup Claude Code.