Coding · Do this yourself

Sell a real-time phone, email and IP validation API.

How it makes money: Charge developers and growth teams $29/mo plus usage to validate phones, emails and IPs by API.

Agent setup: Advanced · Needs custom code (Cursor) and hosting you maintain. How we rate this

💰 1Lookup makes about $265k a month doing this. $265,182 MRR, verified via Stripe on TrustMRR (synced 2026-10-16)

No X data

Based on Robby Frank on TrustMRR (opens in new tab)

Who it’s for

People who build or maintain software, and non-developers who want a small tool made for them.

Adapt it to your industry

  • Shop owner: a small script that exports orders to a spreadsheet every night
  • Agency: a reusable starter template for client websites
  • Healthcare or legal office: a simple internal form that saves to a shared sheet

Step by step

  1. Write down one problem a specific group of people pays to solve (for example “gym owners losing members”).
  2. Open ChatGPT, Claude or Grok and paste the prompt below to sharpen the idea and list what the first version must do.
  3. Use Cursor or Claude Code to make the first version of the product for one type of customer.
  4. Create a Stripe account and a Payment Link so people can pay from day one.
  5. Make a one-page website that explains the problem, the fix and the price.
  6. Show it to 10 people from your target group and change what confuses them.
  7. Launch where those people already gather, then ask every new user for feedback.

Ready-to-copy prompt

Write the docs page for an email-validation endpoint: request, response fields, error codes, rate limits and three code samples.

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: Agents ship fixes, answer users and post updates. Your part: Weekly: approve releases and read the support log (about 1 hour).

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: Cursor (opens in new tab) (Free tier · Plus $8/mo · Premium $30/mo), Vercel hosting (opens in new tab) (Hobby free · Pro $20/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). Agent-written SEO pages, scheduled X posts and a weekly newsletter.
  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: approve releases and read the support log (about 1 hour).
  10. Price: charge $19 per user per month (monthly subscription for a small tool). Offer the first 3 customers a founding price for honest feedback.
Monthly cost$30–$85/monthFree tiers → paid plans of the tools above. Card fees come out of each sale.
What you could earn · EstimateEstimate: 10 users × $19 = $190/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

1Lookup is an API business: developers and growth teams send a phone, email or IP and get back validation and risk data, billed by usage.

How it went

TrustMRR shows $265,182 MRR, verified via Stripe (last sync 2026-10-16).

Worth knowing

TrustMRR pulls this figure from the payment provider’s API; the product description is the founder’s own. Revenue can change month to month. This is a data/API business more than an AI product; agents can run docs, support and monitoring.

Difficulty
AdvancedOur rating
Time to build
Not reportedOur estimate
Monthly cost
Not reported
Revenue
$265,182 MRR, verified via Stripe on TrustMRR (synced 2026-10-16)Verified: Calculated by TrustMRR from payment-provider data (as the TrustMRR page states)
Engagement
No public countThe source shows no number
X buzz
No X data

Posted · Added Oct 16, 2026

Original builder recipe

  • Validation data providers
  • A metered API
  • Usage billing
  • Stripe
  1. Open the repo in your coding agent and describe the goal and constraints.
  2. Ask for a plan first, then let it implement in small, reviewable steps.
  3. Run the tests or the app after each step and feed errors back.
  4. Review the diff before merging.

Tags

Tool Stripe

Read the original

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