TrustMRR API: 7 Product Ideas Indie Hackers Should Build Right Now
TrustMRR just opened its API, giving developers access to verified MRR, churn, and revenue data from 840+ startups. Here are 7 product ideas SaaS founders and indie hackers can build on top of it.
Key Takeaways
- TrustMRR launched a public API with verified revenue data from 840+ startups across 82 countries—MRR, churn, growth rates, customer counts, and more
- The API uses bearer token auth with a 20-request-per-minute rate limit, making it accessible for lightweight tools and dashboards
- The biggest opportunity: a private benchmarking app where founders upload their own metrics and compare against verified TrustMRR data in their category
- From acquisition deal flow tools to revenue milestone bots, the verified data layer unlocks product ideas that weren’t possible when revenue screenshots were fakeable
Fake MRR screenshots have been a plague in the indie hacker community for years. Someone posts an impressive Stripe dashboard, gets thousands of likes, and sells a course on how they did it—except the numbers were fabricated. TrustMRR solved that problem by pulling revenue data directly from payment processors like Stripe, LemonSqueezy, and Paddle. No screenshots. No self-reporting. Just verified numbers from 840+ startups across 82 countries.
Now TrustMRR has opened up its API—and that changes things. Developers can programmatically access verified MRR, churn rates, growth percentages, and customer counts for hundreds of real startups. That's a dataset that didn't exist in this form before. Here are seven product ideas worth building on top of it.
What the TrustMRR API Gives You
The API lives at trustmrr.com/api/v1 and uses bearer token authentication. You generate API keys from the developer dashboard (prefixed with tmrr_), and you get 20 requests per minute. Two main endpoints:
Available endpoints:
GET /startups
Browse and filter startups with sorting, pagination, and revenue filters.
GET /startups/{slug}
Full details for a single startup including tech stack, co-founders, and extended metrics.
Data you get per startup:
MRR
Monthly recurring revenue
Revenue (30d)
Last 30 days
Total Revenue
All-time accumulated
MoM Growth %
Month-over-month
Customer Count
Aggregate total
Active Subs
Current subscriptions
Churn Rate
Customer/revenue churn
Charge Count
Total payments processed
The data updates hourly via cron jobs that re-query payment processor APIs. That means you're not working with stale snapshots—you're getting near real-time verified revenue data. TrustMRR also has category pages (AI, SaaS, Fintech, etc.) and country-level filtering, which the API exposes through query parameters.
7 Products Worth Building on the TrustMRR API
The verified data layer is what makes these ideas work. Before TrustMRR, building SaaS analytics tools meant relying on self-reported data that nobody trusted. Now you have a verified source of truth. Here's what to build with it.
1. Private SaaS Benchmarking App
This is the highest-value idea on the list. Build an app where founders privately upload their own MRR, churn rate, and growth metrics—then benchmark themselves against similar startups in the publicly available TrustMRR data.
A founder running a $5K MRR developer tool could see how their 4% monthly churn compares to the median churn of all dev tools on TrustMRR in the same revenue range. Are they above or below average? How does their MoM growth compare? What does the growth curve look like for startups that broke through $10K, $50K, $100K?
The key: user data stays completely private. TrustMRR data is the public benchmark. The user's own numbers never leave their account. This solves a real pain point—founders constantly wonder "Is my churn rate normal?" and "Am I growing fast enough?" but have no reliable data to compare against.
Why it works: Baremetrics Open Benchmarks proved there's demand for SaaS benchmarking, but it relied on customers opting in to share data. TrustMRR gives you the benchmarks without needing opt-in—the data is already public and verified. Charge $19–$49/month, or offer a free tier that shows basic comparisons and a paid tier with detailed breakdowns by category, revenue range, and geography.
2. SaaS Acquisition Deal Flow Tool
TrustMRR already has an acquire marketplace where startups list themselves for sale with verified financials, asking prices, profit margins, and valuation multiples. Build a deal flow pipeline tool on top of this.
Target micro-PE firms, indie acquirers, and investors who buy small SaaS companies. Pull listings from TrustMRR, let users set filters (revenue range, growth rate, category, asking price multiple), score deals automatically, and send alerts when new listings match their criteria. Think of it as a custom feed for SaaS deal flow—like a Bloomberg terminal for micro-acquisitions.
Revenue model: $49–$99/month for individual acquirers • $199–$499/month for PE firms and funds • Target users: micro-PE, indie acquirers, angel investors
3. Revenue Milestone Alert Bot
Build a Slack, Discord, or Telegram bot that monitors TrustMRR data and sends notifications when startups hit milestones. "ProductX just crossed $10K MRR." "ToolY hit 1,000 customers." "StartupZ grew 50% this month."
Configure alerts by category, revenue threshold, or growth rate. This is valuable for investors tracking potential deals, founders watching competitors, and community managers running SaaS-focused Slack/Discord groups who want automated content. The 20 req/min rate limit is more than enough to poll hourly.
Revenue model: Freemium — free for 3 alerts, $9/month for unlimited • Build time: Weekend project • Target users: SaaS communities, investors, founders tracking competitors
4. Competitor Revenue Tracker
Most SaaS founders know who their competitors are but have no idea what their revenue actually looks like. Build a dashboard where founders pick competitors from TrustMRR's database and track their verified revenue trends over time.
Show MRR trend lines, growth rate comparisons, and customer count trajectories side by side. Add alerts when a competitor's growth accelerates or decelerates. Store historical snapshots so users can see how competitor revenue has changed over weeks and months—not just the current number.
Revenue model: $29–$59/month • Key feature: Historical trend data (TrustMRR only shows current numbers) • Target users: SaaS founders, product managers
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5. Automated SaaS Market Reports
Pull TrustMRR data weekly, aggregate it by category, and generate automated market intelligence reports. "AI SaaS category grew 12% this month. Average MRR is $8,200. Top performer grew 308%." Sell these reports as a newsletter, a dashboard, or a downloadable PDF.
Someone already proved this works—Borja analyzed 1,509 profitable startups from TrustMRR and published 14 findings that went viral on X. Automate that process. Generate weekly category breakdowns, monthly trend reports, and quarterly deep dives. The data refreshes hourly, so your reports are always current.
Revenue model: $29/month newsletter or $99/month dashboard • Moat: Historical data accumulation over time • Target users: VCs, analysts, SaaS founders, journalists
6. Embeddable Verified Revenue Widget
TrustMRR lets founders verify their revenue, but there's no easy way to embed that proof on their own website, landing page, or pitch deck. Build a lightweight embeddable widget—a JavaScript snippet or React component—that pulls live data from the TrustMRR API and displays a verified revenue badge.
"Verified $25K MRR on TrustMRR" with a live link back to the startup's TrustMRR profile. Founders building in public would embed this on their landing pages for instant credibility. Think of it like the "Powered by Stripe" badge, but for revenue verification.
Revenue model: Freemium — free basic badge, $9/month for customizable widgets with historical charts • Build time: 1–2 weeks • Target users: Build-in-public founders, SaaS landing pages
7. Niche SaaS Leaderboard Sites
TrustMRR has a general leaderboard. But nobody has built category-specific leaderboard sites with deeper context. Create "The AI SaaS Revenue Leaderboard," "The Bootstrapped SaaS Leaderboard," or "The Solo Founder Revenue Leaderboard."
Pull verified data from TrustMRR, add editorial context (founder interviews, strategy breakdowns), and build an SEO-optimized site around a specific niche. Monetize through sponsorships from tools that serve that niche, featured listing fees, or a premium tier with deeper analytics. The TrustMRR data gives you a constantly-updating content engine powered by real numbers.
Revenue model: Sponsorships ($500–$2,000/month per sponsor) + featured listings • SEO play: Rank for "top AI SaaS companies," "fastest growing bootstrapped startups" • Target users: Founders, investors, journalists
Why the Timing Matters
TrustMRR has 840+ verified startups, over $1 billion in total verified revenue on the platform, and data from 82 countries. The dataset is large enough to build meaningful products on top of—but the API is new enough that nobody has captured the opportunity yet.
The "build in public" movement is still accelerating. More founders are verifying their revenue on TrustMRR every day because transparent metrics build trust with customers, investors, and potential acquirers. That means the dataset grows organically, and any product you build on top of it gets more valuable over time without you doing anything.
840+
Verified startups
$1B+
Total verified revenue
82
Countries represented
There's a practical consideration too. The API rate limit of 20 requests per minute is enough for dashboards, bots, and lightweight tools. It's not enough for heavy data pipelines or real-time feeds. That means the sweet spot is products that cache data, poll periodically, and display pre-processed insights—exactly the kind of tools indie hackers are good at building.
How to Get Started
Pick one idea. Don't try to build a platform that does everything—start with the simplest version and validate demand before adding features. Here's the fastest path:
Get your API key
Sign up at trustmrr.com/docs/api and generate your tmrr_ API key from the developer dashboard. Save it immediately—keys can't be viewed again after creation.
Explore the data
Hit the /startups endpoint with different filters. Get a feel for what's available—which categories have enough data, what revenue ranges are well-represented, and where the interesting patterns are.
Build the simplest version
For the benchmarking app, that's a single page where a user enters their MRR and category, and sees how they compare. For the alert bot, it's a Telegram bot that checks for milestones every hour. Ship in a weekend.
Validate with the community
Post it on Indie Hackers, X, or the TrustMRR community. The build-in-public audience is the exact target market for every idea on this list. If people use it, charge for it.
Validate Your Idea First
Use our free tools to stress-test your TrustMRR API product idea:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the TrustMRR API?
The TrustMRR API is a public REST API that gives developers programmatic access to verified startup revenue data. It provides endpoints to browse, filter, and retrieve detailed metrics for 840+ startups including MRR, total revenue, churn rates, growth percentages, and customer counts. Authentication uses bearer tokens prefixed with tmrr_.
Is the TrustMRR API free to use?
TrustMRR has not publicly disclosed detailed pricing for the API. API keys are generated from the developer dashboard. The rate limit is 20 requests per minute per key, which suggests the API is designed for moderate-volume use cases rather than heavy data pipelines.
What data can I access through the TrustMRR API?
The API provides verified MRR, 30-day revenue, total revenue, month-over-month growth percentage, customer count, active subscriptions, churn rate, and charge count for each startup. Data is pulled directly from payment processors like Stripe, LemonSqueezy, Paddle, and RevenueCat, so the numbers are tamper-proof.
Can I use TrustMRR data in a commercial product?
The data on TrustMRR is publicly viewable on their website, and the API provides programmatic access to this same data. If you’re building a product on top of TrustMRR data, review their terms of service for commercial use restrictions. Several third-party tools and scrapers already use TrustMRR data for analysis and reporting.
The Bottom Line
- TrustMRR's API gives you access to verified revenue data from 840+ startups. MRR, churn, growth, customer counts—all pulled directly from payment processors.
- The benchmarking app is the biggest opportunity. Founders need a private way to compare their metrics against verified data. Nobody has built this well yet.
- Start small, ship fast. Most of these ideas can be validated in a weekend. The API rate limit favors lightweight tools over heavy data platforms—play to that strength.
- The dataset grows without you doing anything. More founders verify their revenue on TrustMRR every day. Any product built on this data gets more valuable automatically.
Related Reading
- Best Micro SaaS Ideas for Solopreneurs and Indie Hackers — More validated product ideas for solo founders.
- X API Goes Pay-Per-Use: What Indie Hackers Should Build Now — Another API opening up new opportunities for builders.
- a16z Speedrun's 14 Big Ideas for 2026 — What top VCs want founders to build this year.
Sources
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