Building ExpenseSpy solo, no funding — launching June 17 on iOS & Android
Hey IH 👋
I've been lurking and commenting here for a bit, figured it's time to share what I'm building.
ExpenseSpy: snap a photo of a receipt, AI extracts the merchant, date, amount, and line items, and you export to Excel, CSV, or PDF in one tap. Multi-currency, built for one-person workflows.
A bit of honesty on the "why": I'm not someone drowning in receipts myself. But I kept watching freelancers, frequent travelers, and small business owners fight the same boring problem — manual entry, lost receipts, currency mess. Most expense tools are built for 50-person finance teams. I wanted something light enough for a single person.
The stack: Flutter (iOS + Android), OpenAI Vision for extraction, RevenueCat for subscriptions, Firebase backend. Bootstrapped, solo, first product.
Launching June 17. Right now I'm in the messy pre-launch stretch — Product Hunt scheduled, store listings in review, and a lot of second-guessing.
Two things I'd genuinely love input on:
- For those who've launched solo — what's the one pre-launch thing you wish you'd done differently?
- Freemium model (10 receipts/month free, then $4.99/mo). Too generous? Not enough?
If you want to follow along or get notified at launch: expensespy.com
Happy to answer anything about the build. Thanks for having me. 🙏
The thing I'd be careful with is that receipt capture is rarely the reason someone pays.
A lot of products in this category can extract receipts. The harder question is what specific situation makes a solo user decide their current workflow is no longer acceptable.
That feels more important than the exact free limit or launch checklist.
I'd be cautious about treating this as a pricing decision before you're sure you're solving the right buying moment.