Finance · Do this yourself

Recover wrongful retailer deductions for small consumer brands.

In short: an AI-agent-run business you oversee about an hour a week. Tools cost $30–$150/mo, agent setup is intermediate, and the source reports Just over $10K MRR from 7 customers (self-reported, r/SaaS) (self-reported).

How it makes money: Charge consumer brands $499/mo to check retailer deductions and draft disputes for the invalid ones.

Agent setup: Intermediate · Connects several tools (Lovable, Supabase) with payments and simple data. How we rate this

💰 u/crazylocks makes about $10k a month doing this. Just over $10K MRR from 7 customers (self-reported, r/SaaS)

🔥 31 posts this week · 1 likes

Based on u/crazylocks on Reddit (opens in new tab)

Where this came from (Reddit)

Retailers and distributors subtract fees, shortages and promo charges from what they pay brands, and small finance teams rarely have time to check and fight each one.

The threads (in our words)

  • A cofounder of a vertical AI company for mid-market consumer-goods brands reports 7 paying customers and just over $10K MRR after about seven months, automating finance work such as catching improper distributor deductions; leading with recovered dollars instead of “AI agents” is what made sales work. Read the thread on r/SaaS ↗ (opens in new tab) May 19, 2026 · u/crazylocks · upvotes not available

Reddit blocks automated reads, so we couldn’t record upvote or comment counts. Revenue figures are the poster’s own claim (self-reported), not verified. The business below is our own design inspired by these threads.

Who it’s for

Food, beverage and household brands that sell through distributors and big retailers.

Adapt it to your industry

  • Start with one niche or customer type, then expand.
  • Ask your first 10 customers what they would pay before you build more.
  • Keep a human check on anything sent in a customer’s name.

Step by step

  1. Collect remittance files, deduction codes, promo calendars and proof of delivery for the last 90 days.
  2. Have the agent match each deduction to a promo, a contract term or a delivery record.
  3. Flag the lines with no match and draft a dispute with the evidence attached.
  4. A finance person approves each dispute before it goes into the retailer’s portal.
  5. Charge a monthly fee or a share of recovered money through Stripe.
  6. Send a monthly report: deductions checked, disputed, won and dollars recovered.

Ready-to-copy prompt

Here is a remittance with deduction lines [paste] and our promo calendar [paste]. Match each line to a promo or contract term, list the unmatched ones, and draft a short dispute for the largest.

Start with AI

Opens the AI with this guide and the prompt filled in.

Open in ChatGPT (opens in new tab)Open in Claude (opens in new tab)Open in Grok (opens in new tab)
Time
2–6 weeks for a first versionOur estimate

Your autonomous stack

Autonomy: Reminders and reports run on a schedule from connected accounts. Your part: Weekly: check exceptions the agent flags (about 30 minutes).

Every layer an agent-run business needs, in order. Prices are public list prices, checked Oct 16, 2026.

  1. Agent (the brain): Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot runs the business day to day: writes, answers, decides small things and reports to you. Claude Code or Codex are alternatives.
  2. Build and hosting: Lovable (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Pro $25/mo), Supabase database (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Pro from $25/mo). The product or service your customers use.
  3. Payments: Stripe payments (opens in new tab) (No monthly fee · 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment). Automatic checkout and receipts. Other options: PayPal Checkout (3.49% + 49¢) or Lemon Squeezy (5% + 50¢, handles sales tax).
  4. Customer acquisition: Buffer (scheduled X posts) (opens in new tab) (Free plan (3 channels, 10 queued posts each) · Essentials $5/mo per channel, billed yearly), beehiiv newsletter (opens in new tab) (Free up to 2,500 subscribers), Apollo (find business emails) (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Basic $65/mo). Agent-written SEO pages, scheduled X posts and a weekly newsletter, plus cold email to businesses that follow CAN-SPAM/GDPR (real sender, opt-out link, no bought consumer lists).
  5. Delivery: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). A Grok Bot routine delivers the product or result as soon as someone pays.
  6. Support: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot answers the support inbox; anything unclear is flagged for you.
  7. Monitoring and schedule: Grok Bot (agent + scheduled routines) (opens in new tab) (Included with The X Subscription Premium $30/mo (Super $100/mo for more usage; Plus $8 does not include Grok Bot)). Grok Bot scheduled routines run each day: send, check for failures, alert you if something breaks.
  8. Analytics: Google Analytics (opens in new tab) (Free). Tracks visits, signups and sales so the agent can report what works.
  9. Human checkpoint: Weekly: check exceptions the agent flags (about 30 minutes).
  10. Price: charge $499 per brand (monthly plan per brand). Offer the first 3 customers a founding price for honest feedback.
Monthly cost$30–$150/monthFree tiers → paid plans of the tools above. Card fees come out of each sale.
What you could earn · EstimateEstimate: 6 brands × $499 = $2,994/moOur estimate, not a fact or a promise. It’s simple math if you land these customers at this price.
Details: source, numbers and tags

What they did

An agent matches every deduction on retailer and distributor remittances against promo plans, delivery proof and contract terms, then drafts disputes for the ones that look invalid. We designed this business from real Reddit threads; it is an idea for you to build, not a description of the posters’ businesses.

How it went

Found on Reddit in r/SaaS (1 thread). Upvote and comment counts weren’t retrievable, so none are shown. On X, 31 posts matched our search for this idea in the 7 days to 2026-10-19.

Worth knowing

Dispute only through each retailer’s official process and with real evidence; a person approves every claim; never contest charges that are valid.

Difficulty
BeginnerOur rating
Time to build
Not reportedOur estimate
Monthly cost
Not reported
Revenue
Just over $10K MRR from 7 customers (self-reported, r/SaaS)Self-reported: The founder’s own claim; not verified by us
Engagement
No public countThe source shows no number
X buzz
14.8 · 31 posts in 7 days1 likes, 0 reposts, 2 replies, 0 quotes on 7 top posts · fetched Oct 19, 2026 · query: (deductions OR chargebacks) (CPG OR retailer OR retailers OR distributor OR distributors OR UNFI OR KeHE) -is:retweet lang:en

Posted · Added Oct 19, 2026

Original builder recipe

  • ChatGPT
  • Claude
  1. Collect remittance files, deduction codes, promo calendars and proof of delivery for the last 90 days.
  2. Have the agent match each deduction to a promo, a contract term or a delivery record.
  3. Flag the lines with no match and draft a dispute with the evidence attached.
  4. A finance person approves each dispute before it goes into the retailer’s portal.
  5. Charge a monthly fee or a share of recovered money through Stripe.
  6. Send a monthly report: deductions checked, disputed, won and dollars recovered.

Tags

Read the original

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