aiCarousels
aiCarousels is a web tool that makes carousel posts, social media posts made of several slides that the reader swipes through, for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok. The user gives a topic, a text, a web page or a YouTube video. The OpenAI API, a paid interface through which a program sends requests to OpenAI's models, writes the slide text, and the editor places it in fixed layouts with text that resizes itself. On LinkedIn a carousel is a PDF document that LinkedIn shows page by page.
Fernando Pessagno, a product designer from Argentina who lives in Malmö, Sweden, built it in ten days in May 2023, in public on X and YouTube, after he heard that he might lose his job. It went live on 15 May 2023. On 28 November 2023 he told Starter Story that it made US$5,000 in MRR, monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions, with 95% of it profit, and two days later he posted a billing dashboard card that showed US$4,918.40. He works alone, and no source mentions outside money. In December 2024 he said that his two products, aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online, made US$180,000 a year together, and at the end of 2025 he wrote that his MRR had doubled, without a number.
Every money figure on this page is the founder's own statement, grade C, and the last figure for aiCarousels alone is from November 2023. The page also shows what happened to earlier companies that made content and design tools that depended on a bigger platform.
The numbers, graded
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recurring revenue per month (MRR), November 2023 | US$5,000 | C | Founder interview with Starter Story, 28 November 2023, six months after launch. 95% of it was profit. | [1] |
| MRR on his billing dashboard, 30 November 2023 | US$4,918.40 | C | An Outseta MRR card attached to his post on X. It is a screenshot, so it is still a founder statement. | [2] |
| Run rate from the November 2023 figure | US$60,000 a year | calc | Calculated: US$5,000 times 12. This is the headline figure on this page. | [1] |
| Profit per month at that point | about US$4,750 | calc | Calculated: 95% of US$5,000. | [1] |
| Goal he had set for the first twelve months | US$2,500 a month | C | He reached twice the goal in half the time. | [1] |
| Revenue of his two products together, December 2024 | US$180,000 a year, or US$15,000 a month | C | Post on X, 3 December 2024, and the Starter Story video of 2 December 2024. aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online together; no split between them is given. US$180,000 divided by 12 is US$15,000. | [3, 4] |
| Change in MRR during 2025 | doubled | C | Post on X, 30 December 2025. No figure, and no product named. | [5] |
| Paying users on launch day, 15 May 2023 | 5, or US$50 MRR | C | Founder interview. | [1] |
| Product Hunt launch, May 2023 | 9th of the day, 154 upvotes, 64 comments | C | Founder's Medium post and interview. He offered 50% off to Product Hunt users and had 23 sign-ups on his coming-soon page. | [6, 1] |
| Product Hunt launch of version 2.0, 6 November 2023 | 11th of the day, 240 upvotes, 50 comments | C | A third-party record of the launch. | [15] |
| Time to build the first version | 10 days | C | A public challenge during his vacation, posted day by day on X, YouTube and Medium. | [1, 6] |
| First price, 2023 | US$9.95 a month | C | Time Saver PRO in the public plan list of the billing service, created 18 April 2023. Pro at US$14.95 and Team at US$59 were created on 21 June 2023. | [13] |
| Largest source of traffic, November 2023 | search engines | C | Founder interview. He credits the domain name and the backlinks from the launch coverage. | [1] |
| LinkedIn followers, November 2023 | about 3,000 | C | Founder interview. | [1] |
| Affiliate commission, October 2026 | 40% of every payment, for life | C | Affiliate page: US$48 upfront for each yearly referral, which is 40% of the US$120 yearly Pro price. In September 2025 he wrote that "the affiliate program" had brought more headaches than revenue, without naming the product. | [14, 22] |
| Team | 1 person | C | About page: a one-person team. Latka counts 1 person on LinkedIn in October 2024. In August 2026 he writes about running a solo business in Sweden. | [11, 16, 24] |
| Outside funding | none found | C | No source mentions investors. In November 2024 he asks other bootstrapped founders in Sweden to contact him. | [25] |
| Latka's revenue estimate, October 2024 | US$15,200 a year | C | A third-party estimate, marked as such. It is about a quarter of the founder's run rate of November 2023. | [16] |
| AI model | OpenAI API; GPT-4o from May 2024 | C | Founder interview and post on X. No later model is named in the sources. | [1, 9] |
| Time from launch to the November 2023 figure | 6 months | calc | Calculated: 15 May 2023 to 28 November 2023 is 197 days. | [1, 8] |
How to read this table: a grade C value is a founder statement in an interview or on X, a company page, or a third-party estimate that says so. A "calc" value was computed on this page from the rows above it. No value is grade A or B.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 0 | 3 AI carousels and 10 AI pictures in total, 5 projects, watermark |
| Pro | 10 | 14.95 | 1 seat, 60 AI carousels and 100 AI pictures a month, no watermark |
| Team | 39 | 59 | 5 seats, 300 AI carousels and 400 AI pictures a month |
Pro and Team are subscriptions. The editor page shows Pro as US$15 a month; the billing service lists it at US$14.95. The yearly prices are US$120 for Pro and US$468 for Team, shown here per month. The free plan and the yearly Team plan were created on 6 October 2026, two days before the rebuilt product went live. The first paid plan, in 2023, was Time Saver PRO at US$9.95 a month.
The timeline
From a ten-day challenge during a vacation to a product rebuilt from zero in October 2026. Each entry carries its grade.
- July 2022BLinkedIn tests a native carousel post. Since 2019, PDF documents attached to posts show as slides that readers swipe, and users have made carousels that way. [17]
- April 2023CStarter Story gives April 2023 as the start. The first paid plan in the billing service, Time Saver PRO at US$9.95 a month, has the creation date 18 April 2023. [1, 13]
- May 2023CA day before his vacation, Pessagno hears that he may lose his job. He starts a ten-day challenge on X and YouTube to build and launch a product, and picks carousels because they are popular on LinkedIn and slow to design. [1, 6]
- 15 May 2023CLaunch on Product Hunt: 9th product of the day, 154 upvotes and 64 comments. Five people pay on the first day, US$50 in MRR. [1, 6, 7, 8]
- 29 May 2023CHis Medium post about the ten days appears in Startup Stash. By November it has almost 20,000 views, and his build updates have reached the front pages of Indie Hackers and HackerNoon. [6, 1]
- 21 June 2023CTwo new plans appear in the billing service: aiCarousels PRO at US$14.95 a month and TEAM at US$59 a month. [13]
- September 2023CHe has lost his job and works full-time on his own products. He marks the third anniversary on 1 September 2026. [26, 1]
- 4 October 2023CCanva launches Magic Studio, its set of AI design tools. [19]
- 6 November 2023CaiCarousels 2.0 on Product Hunt: 11th of the day, 240 upvotes. A carousel can now start from a topic, a text, a web address or a YouTube video. [15]
- 28 November 2023CStarter Story interview: US$5,000 MRR six months after launch, 95% of it profit, against a goal of US$2,500 in twelve months. Search traffic is the largest source of users. Both of his products are listed for sale. [1]
- 30 November 2023CHis final MRR post on X, with an Outseta card that shows US$4,918.40. He writes that he will not share more MRR updates. [2]
- December 2023BLinkedIn removes image carousels from normal posts, according to Guiding Tech, and leaves them to advertisers. PDF documents still show as carousels. [18]
- 13 May 2024CaiCarousels moves to OpenAI's GPT-4o model. [9]
- 15 May 2024CVersion 3.0, one year after the first launch: from a carousel generator to a set of AI tools for creators, such as a quote card maker and a LinkedIn post writer. [8, 11]
- 11 June 2024CA yearly Pro plan at US$120 is added. [13]
- July 2024CHe pays the affiliates, who get a 40% commission on every customer they refer. [27]
- 2 and 3 December 2024CA Starter Story video titled I Make $15K/Month With 2 AI Apps says that his two products make more than US$15,000 a month. On X he writes US$180,000 a year in recurring revenue for aiCarousels and ResumeMaker.Online together. [4, 3]
- 5 December 2024CHe writes that the first version had the full Google Fonts library and many color combinations, which users found hard, and that users want fewer options. [31]
- 28 January 2025CHe writes that he is building free tools instead of videos, and tools without AI, to keep the cost close to zero. [28]
- 30 December 2025CHe writes that his MRR doubled in 2025, with no figure and no product named. [5]
- 5 February 2026CHe writes that a competitor with venture funding copied some of his free tools and left in the text that praised aiCarousels. [21]
- 6 to 8 October 2026CA free plan and a yearly Team plan are created in the billing service. On 8 October he posts that the new aiCarousels is live, rebuilt from zero after almost a year of work. [13, 23]
Why it worked
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
Speed
He gave himself ten days, the length of his vacation, and built in public on X and YouTube so that he could not stop. The first version was basic and had many bugs, but by his account it was the first carousel tool with an AI writer, and five people paid on the first day.
Launch attention turned into search traffic
Coverage after the Product Hunt launch gave the domain backlinks, and by November 2023 search engines sent the most users. He then built free tools for LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok users, a method called engineering as marketing: each free tool is a page that people search for, and some of its users move to the paid product.
Fewer choices than Canva
Instead of competing with template libraries such as Canva or Envato, he aimed for few design choices: fixed positions and text that resizes itself. In December 2024 he wrote that the first version still had too many options, such as the full Google Fonts library, and that users who are not designers want fewer options and a usable post quickly.
Bought parts, low costs
Outseta handles accounts, billing through Stripe and support tickets, and the OpenAI API writes the text, so he built only the editor. With no staff, 95% of revenue was profit in November 2023.
How it was built
These details come from the founder's interview, his Medium post, his posts on X and the company's own pages. They are grade C. [1, 6, 9, 10, 29, 23]
- The first version was built in ten days without a framework: HTML elements styled with CSS, and a small JavaScript script on the landing page. The founder says he has no formal programming education.
- Outseta, a no-code service, handles accounts, billing and support tickets, and connects to Stripe for the payments. The login on the site still goes through aicarousels.outseta.com in October 2026.
- The OpenAI API writes the slide text. The product moved to GPT-4o in May 2024.
- The tools listed on his Starter Story page include GoDaddy for hosting, Figma for design, Pexels for stock images, Ahrefs for search research, Rewardful for the affiliate program and TrustSpot for reviews.
- Users come from search traffic, free tools, Product Hunt launches, his posts on LinkedIn and X, pitches to the press, and Reddit. A Chrome extension is linked from the home page.
- The product was rebuilt from zero over almost a year and relaunched on 8 October 2026, with a free plan.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
The dead that came before
Five companies in the Loot Drop database made content or design tools that depended on a bigger platform or competed with one. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.
LiveLoop
The promisePowerPoint with real-time collaboration.
Why it diedMicrosoft bought it in 2015 and then built the same features into Office.
Invision
The promiseDesign and prototype tools for product teams.
Why it diedFigma offered real-time collaboration in the browser and took the users.
Mixed Media Labs
The promiseCreate and share digital stories made of several kinds of media.
Why it diedIt stayed on the web while Instagram took the mobile users.
Qwiki
The promiseAutomatically generated multimedia stories instead of text search results.
Why it diedHigh costs and little demand from users. Yahoo bought it, and Google and mobile video kept the audience.
Koji
The promiseA no-code builder that lets creators make interactive content.
Why it diedIt was caught between Webflow and Bubble and could not turn free users into paying customers.
What changed
Each of the five made a content or design tool that depended on a bigger company or competed with one. Microsoft bought LiveLoop, which improved PowerPoint, and then built the same features into Office. Invision lost designers to Figma. Mixed Media Labs and Qwiki made tools for telling stories while Instagram and Google owned the audience, and Koji could not turn free creators into paying customers. aiCarousels has the same exposure: LinkedIn decides how carousels appear in the feed, and Canva sells AI design tools to the same users.
Two things differ. First, the costs: one person, bought accounts and billing, and an AI model paid per request, so US$5,000 a month was already a profit of about US$4,750, and the product did not need a large market to pay its owner. Second, the AI writes the content, which is the slow part for these users; the earlier tools only made layout or sharing easier. A feature change at LinkedIn or Canva can still hurt a product this small, but it does not need to win the market to survive.
Can one person copy it now?
The method, yes. The first place in the market, no.
Building in ten days in public, with bought accounts and billing and an AI API, is repeatable by one person. Being the first AI carousel maker is not: in 2026 there are many, including funded ones that copy his free tools.
Where it is still open: Other formats that people make by hand for one platform: quote cards, infographics, slide decks and video versions of posts, as the founder's own later tools show.
- 1Pick a post format that people on one platform already make by hand, and automate the slow part.
- 2Build the first version in about ten days, in public, and buy the accounts, billing and AI model as services.
- 3Launch on Product Hunt, then turn the attention into search traffic with free tools for the same users.
- 4Keep the design choices few, and answer every support ticket yourself.
What to watch
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
One old figure, self-reported
The only figure for aiCarousels alone is from November 2023, and he stopped posting MRR after that. Later figures are for two products together (US$180,000 a year in December 2024) or have no number (doubled MRR in 2025). Latka's estimate for 2024 is about a quarter of the November 2023 run rate.
LinkedIn controls the format
LinkedIn carousels are PDF documents that LinkedIn shows page by page, a feature from 2019. LinkedIn tested a native carousel post in July 2022 and, according to Guiding Tech, removed image carousels from normal posts in December 2023. Each change in how LinkedIn shows documents changes how many people need a carousel tool.
Canva and the platforms
Canva launched Magic Studio, a set of AI design tools, on 4 October 2023, five months after aiCarousels went live. Canva already sells templates to the same users and has far more of them. The founder's answer is fewer options, and that answer is easy to copy.
Many competing carousel tools
Competitors such as PostNitro publish their own articles about AI carousel generators that promote their tools. The founder wrote in February 2026 that a competitor with venture funding copied some of his free tools. The Product Hunt topics where aiCarousels 2.0 launched hold more than 176,000 products.
One person, several products
He also runs ResumeMaker.Online, GeneratePPT and PreviewMyProfile, and in November 2023 both of his main products were listed for sale. He said then that working on aiCarousels alone had shown him the value of a single focus. The rebuilt product of October 2026 adds a free plan, and its effect on revenue is not known.
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- C Starter Story, 28 November 2023: I Accidentally Built A SaaS in 10 Days & Quit My 9-5, interview with Fernando PessagnoRead in full. Founder interview. Source for the ten-day build, the launch results, the US$5,000 MRR with 95% profit, the traffic sources and the tools list.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 30 November 2023: final MRR update, with an Outseta MRR cardRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com and viewed the attached image, an Outseta MRR card for aiCarousels that shows US$4,918.40.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 3 December 2024: US$180K ARR with two SaaS businessesRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com. The figure covers two products together.
- C Starter Story on YouTube, 2 December 2024: I Make $15K/Month With 2 AI AppsRead the title, the description and the publication date on the video page. The video itself was not watched.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 30 December 2025: 2025 has been kind, doubled MRRRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It gives no figure and names no product.
- C Fernando Pessagno on Medium (Startup Stash), 29 May 2023: From Zero to SaaS, Building And Launching a SaaS in 10 DaysRead in full. The founder's day-by-day account of the build and of the Product Hunt launch.
- C Indie Hackers product page: aiCarousels, with the post Launch! of 15 May 2023Read the product page and its first post.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 15 May 2024: aiCarousels v3.0, 365 days after the first launchRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It dates the first launch to 15 May 2023.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 13 May 2024: aiCarousels now runs on GPT-4oRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 May 2024: where the users of aiCarousels come fromRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com. A reply to a question about how he finds users.
- C aiCarousels About page, read 14 October 2026Read in full. Source for the founder's background and the one-person team.
- C aiCarousels editor page, plan settings in the page source, read 14 October 2026Read the plan settings in the page source (app version 2026.10.0): prices, seats and limits of the Free, Pro and Team plans.
- C Outseta public plan list for aiCarousels, read 14 October 2026Read the JSON list of seven plans with their prices and creation dates.
- C aiCarousels affiliate program page, read 14 October 2026Read in full.
- C Hunted.space: aiCarousels 2.0 Product Hunt launch overview, 6 November 2023Read in full. A third-party record of the launch rank, upvotes, comments and topics, with the founder's launch comment.
- C Latka company page: aiCarousels revenue estimate and headcountRead in full. A third-party estimate and a headcount from LinkedIn.
- B Social Media Today, 21 July 2022, by Andrew Hutchinson: LinkedIn Launches Native Carousel Posting OptionRead in full. A trade journalist's report of the LinkedIn test, with the history of PDF document posts since 2019.
- B Guiding Tech, updated 29 November 2024, by Lloyd Ingram: Use This Clever Workaround to Post Carousels on LinkedInRead in full. Source for the removal of image carousels from normal LinkedIn posts in December 2023.
- C Canva Newsroom, 4 October 2023: Introducing Magic Studio, the power of AI, all in one placeRead the announcement. The date is from the page data.
- C PostNitro blog, 30 May 2025: AI Carousel Generator, Create Engaging Posts in MinutesRead the opening sections. A competitor's own article about its AI carousel generator.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 5 February 2026: a competitor with venture funding copied his free toolsRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 26 September 2025: the affiliate program and revenueRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com. It does not name the product.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 8 October 2026: The new aiCarousels is liveRead the post through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 August 2026: running a solo business in SwedenRead the thread through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 21 November 2024: bootstrapped founders in SwedenRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 1 September 2026: three years on his own productsRead the post through the api.fxtwitter.com timeline.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 27 July 2024: affiliate payday, 40% commissionRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 28 January 2025: free tools instead of videosRead the post through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C aiCarousels home page, read 14 October 2026Read the page and its source. Source for the Outseta login link, the Chrome extension and the free tools.
- C Fernando Pessagno on X, 5 December 2024: the first version had too many design optionsRead the thread through api.fxtwitter.com.
- C Loot Drop database export, failed startupsLocal export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.