9 Apps That Make Money in 2026 (and How to Build One)
Garrett Pierson
The apps that make money in 2026 are narrow tools that solve one problem and charge a recurring fee for it, from a one-page website builder pulling an estimated $1.2 million a year to a language app doing $748 million. Almost none of them are clever. They pick a specific person, remove one specific annoyance, and bill monthly.
If you’ve been staring at your phone thinking “surely I could build something that makes money,” this is the list to study. We picked nine apps that actually earn, most of them built by one or two people, and for each one we tell you what it pulls in, how it charges, and whether you could build your own version with today’s AI tools.
The 9 at a glance
The first six started as indie projects and stayed lean. The last three are giants that run these same models at massive scale.
| App | What it does | Est. revenue | Build a version? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrd | One-page websites | ~$1.2M/yr | Yes, a weekend build |
| Nomad List | City directory for remote workers | ~$650K/yr | Yes, mostly data + filters |
| Tweet Hunter | Grow an audience on X | ~$1M/yr (acquired) | Yes |
| Leave Me Alone | Bulk-unsubscribe from email | ~$93K/yr | Yes |
| Bannerbear | Auto-generate images via API | ~$1M/yr | Yes, if you’re technical |
| Home AI | AI interior design | ~$900K in a peak month | Yes, an AI wrapper |
| Notion | Docs + databases | ~$600M/yr | No, but the model copies |
| Calm | Meditation + sleep | ~$210M/yr | No, but the model copies |
| Duolingo | Language learning | $748M/yr | No, but the model copies |
A note on these numbers
Only one figure below is audited: Duolingo files with the SEC. Everything else is an estimate from aggregators like GetLatka and SensorTower, or a number the founder shared publicly. We’ve labeled which is which, because honesty is the whole point. For every app on this list, a hundred others in the same category made almost nothing. These are the outliers that worked. Treat them as proof the model works, not a forecast of what you’ll earn.
1. Carrd — the $1.2M one-page site builder
Carrd lets anyone build a simple one-page website (a portfolio, a link page, a landing page) in minutes, and it started as a solo project. GetLatka estimates it reached about $1.2 million in annual revenue in 2024, up from roughly $600,000 the year before.
It makes money the boring, durable way: a free tier to get you in, then cheap paid plans of a few dollars a month that add custom domains, more sites, and better design options. A huge free user base with a small slice converting to paid adds up.
Why it’s the top of this list: it’s the clearest proof that “simple and useful” beats “impressive.” There’s nothing here a determined non-coder couldn’t build a niche version of, like a one-page site builder aimed at wedding photographers or food trucks.
2. Nomad List — the $650K directory
Nomad List ranks cities for remote workers on cost of living, internet speed, safety, and weather, and charges a membership for access. GetLatka pegs it at around $650,000 a year in 2024.
Under the hood it’s a directory: tables, filters, and a community, behind a paywall. That’s it. There’s no complex app logic. The hard part is sourcing good data and building a community that keeps people subscribed.
Why it made the list: directories are one of the most buildable money-makers there is. Pick a niche people obsess over (disc golf courses, dog-friendly rentals, indie coffee roasters), aggregate the data, and charge for access or listings.
3. Tweet Hunter — the creator tool that hit $1M a year
Tweet Hunter helps people grow and monetize an audience on X with scheduling, content ideas, and analytics. Its cheapest paid plan starts at $29/month, and the founder grew it to roughly $1 million a year in revenue before selling it to lempire (the company behind Lemlist) in 2022.
Creator tools charge more than consumer apps because the customer is trying to make money too. A tool that helps someone grow an audience pays for itself, which is what supports those prices.
Why it earns its slot: it shows how much easier it is to sell to people who are themselves chasing revenue. The same pattern works for LinkedIn, YouTube, Etsy sellers, or newsletter writers.
4. Leave Me Alone — the $93K inbox cleaner
Leave Me Alone does one thing: it finds the junk in your inbox and unsubscribes you in bulk. Founder case studies put it around $93,000 a year. It’s freemium: clean up a handful of emails free, then pay for the rest.
One narrow, universally-felt annoyance. One clear fix. A price. That’s the entire business, and it’s a great template for a first app. You don’t need a big idea. You need one specific irritation enough people will pay to make go away.
5. Bannerbear — the $1M image API
Bannerbear auto-generates images (social posts, e-commerce banners, certificates) through an API, so businesses can produce thousands of graphics without a designer. GetLatka estimates it hit close to $1 million a year in 2024, and the founder publicly documented the whole climb from zero.
It’s a B2B micro-SaaS: businesses pay a monthly fee scaled to how many images they generate. Because it saves real time and money, it can charge business prices, well above what a consumer app could ask.
The catch: this one is more technical than the others, because running image-generation infrastructure at scale is real engineering. It’s on the list because it proves an unglamorous, developer-facing tool can be a million-dollar solo business, but it’s the least beginner-friendly build here.
6. Home AI — the AI wrapper that spiked to $900K in a month
Home AI takes a photo of your room and generates redesigned versions with AI, a classic “AI wrapper” app that sits on top of an image model and sells a specific use case. SensorTower estimated it pulled roughly $900,000 in revenue in a single strong month, through in-app purchases priced from $4.99 to $39.99.
That number is a peak, not a monthly guarantee. AI wrapper apps ride trends and can spike hard, then cool off. But it shows what a focused AI app can do when it catches a wave.
Why it’s here: this is the most “you could build this next week” category on the list. Point an AI image model at one specific job (headshots, product photos, pet portraits, tattoo mockups), wrap it in a clean app, and charge per result. Just watch your margins, because every generation costs you money to run.
The giants — the same models at massive scale
You won’t clone the next three, but they run the exact models the indie apps use: subscriptions, freemium, and a narrow-at-first product that widened over years. They show how high the ceiling goes.
7. Notion — ~$600M a year from docs and databases
Notion is a flexible workspace for notes, docs, and databases, and GetLatka estimates it now earns around $600 million a year. It started as a small tool and grew by letting individuals use it free while teams pay per seat, the same free-to-paid ladder Carrd uses, at a thousand times the scale.
8. Calm — ~$210M a year from helping people relax
Calm is a meditation and sleep app that earned an estimated $210 million in 2025 from about 3.5 million subscribers, according to Business of Apps, though that’s down 24% from the year before, a reminder that even category leaders aren’t immune to churn. It’s pure subscription: monthly and annual plans for a library of audio content.
9. Duolingo — $748M a year, and the one audited number here
Duolingo, the language-learning app, reported $748.0 million in revenue for 2024 in its SEC filing, with $607.5 million of it from subscriptions and the rest from ads, in-app purchases, and its English Test. This is the only officially audited figure on the page, and it shows how a freemium consumer app compounds: free users fuel growth, a small paid slice funds everything, and multiple revenue streams stack on top.
Which one should you build?
The pattern across all nine is the same: a narrow problem, a specific person, and a recurring charge. Here’s how to turn that into your own app.
- Start with the annoyance. Leave Me Alone and Carrd both started with one specific irritation. Steal that approach and look at what you or people around you complain about weekly. Our list of app ideas is a good place to prime the pump, and the 7 Key Criteria Scorecard helps you vet whether an idea is worth building before you spend a minute on it.
- Choose the money model on purpose. Subscription, credits, freemium, in-app purchase: each fits a different kind of app. We break down all seven in how apps make money so you don’t guess.
- Build the first version with AI. You don’t need to code. Tools like Lovable, Replit, and Bolt take a plain-English description and produce a working app, and every one of them costs $25/month or less. See our breakdown of the best AI app builders for the full list. That’s the “build a version for the price of one subscription” claim, made real. If you’re starting from scratch, how to build an app with AI is the step-by-step.
- Expect the long game. Micro-SaaS research puts realistic solo-founder revenue at roughly $2,000–$30,000 a month once an app finds its footing, and it typically takes two to three years to cross $100,000 a year. The winners on this list are years deep. Most apps make little; a focused few make a living.
The bottom line
The apps that make money are rarely miracles. They come down to one clear problem, one specific customer, and one recurring charge, built and shipped by people who mostly weren’t engineers. What used to take a dev team and $50,000 now takes a plain-English description and a $25 monthly tool. The gap between “I could build something that makes money” and doing it is smaller than it’s ever been, and closing it, from idea to product to income, is exactly what Software Secrets 2.0 was written to walk you through. The whole book is free.