Dev with 10-year-old AI research tool asks: sell the service or the whole stack?
Basics7 · reddit · 2026-08-18
A Reddit user shares a monetization dilemma: over 10 years he built a research tool for a very specific niche, adding AI in the last 4-5 years to cut research time. Used 8+ hours daily with thousands of custom adjustments, with nothing comparable on the market; a near-retirement domain expert repeatedly asked him to run entries, validating its value.
His concern: the tool chains multiple AI subscriptions (ChatGPT, n8n, and three more) across steps, and selling it outright would expose his 10-year "recipe" to low-quality vibe-coded clones. He leans toward selling the result (clients pay him to run the process manually) rather than selling the package and making customers manage multiple subscriptions.
He asks the community where to validate the market and which form of sale makes sense — a classic case of productizing a self-built tool.
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