How Inkigo Hit $400 MRR With Zero Ad Spend

The hardest part of building a profitable app isn't the code. It's getting people to find it.

3 months ago, my app had zero real users. Today it's at $400 MRR, without spending a dollar on ads. If you've been following me, you know I can't shut up about my AI Tattoo app. Here's the 3-month update, and I'm documenting everything for me and for you. You're amazing if you're reading this :)

Here's the entire playbook: what's working, what I tried, and what I'm doing next.

A Quick Intro

My goal with the AI tattoo application was to provide a new premium resource for our PRO members. We wanted to create a beautiful app that showcased image generation with the Nano Banana models from Google. Since many Nano Banana wrappers are popping up right now, there's a good opportunity for developers to explore these kinds of ideas. We wanted to provide a real example that our developers can use and take pieces of to build their own.

This has worked great for us. The project is very popular within our members and it has attracted some pretty experienced app builders to our organization.

But I decided to take it a little further and actually ship it to production with real users.

Inkigo is an AI-powered ("Nano Banana 🍌 wrapper") tattoo preview app. You take a photo of yourself, describe the tattoo you want, and the app generates a realistic preview of what it would look like on your body. It's built with React Native and Expo, and it's live on the App Store right now.

I launched it ~3 months ago under a different name "AI Tattoo Generator" (first mistake by the way). I posted about it on socials, but my audience is mostly mobile developers, not tattoo enthusiasts. Downloads went nowhere. (I did get solid feature feedback though!) Lesson learned: these users cost money, so now I don't push the download link to my dev audience.

To keep it short, we didn't have any real users. Today it's at $400 MRR and growing. The difference was marketing.

Here's everything I changed.

The Name Change (ASO)

This was the single biggest unlock.

The app was originally called "AI Tattoo," which is what every other app in the space is called. Don't get me wrong, it's a great app name and people are searching for it on the App Store. But there's a downside. There are literally 200+ apps with some variation of "AI Tattoo Generator" or "AI Tattoo Design." We were invisible.

So I rebranded to Inkigo.

Why it works:

• It's unique. Search "Inkigo App" on Google (I dare you!) and we're the #1 result. Search "Inkigo AI" on the App Store and we're first. We own the search term and the inkigo.ai domain.
• It sounds premium. The name doesn't scream "generic AI tool." It sounds like a brand. That matters when you're charging premium prices.
• It's easy to remember. When our TikTok content says "try Inkigo," people can actually search for it and find us. That's the entire funnel.

This is a big lesson for indie devs: your app's name is part of your marketing. If you're competing with 100 other apps that all have the same keywords in their name, you're fighting for scraps. Create your own term. Own your search results.

I know naming is hard. I used ChatGPT, went back and forth for a couple of days, and slept on it before deciding on Inkigo. Before committing, I confirmed that:

• The inkigo.ai domain was available
• No results showed up on the App Store or Google
• The @inkigoapp username was available on socials

If the search term is empty, it's yours to own.

We also built a landing page that matches the premium feel. Clean design, good screenshots, clear value proposition. When people Google "Inkigo" after seeing our content, they land on something that looks polished and trustworthy. Check it out! inkigo.ai

The TikTok Strategy

This is the main driver of our growth right now. And it's probably not what you'd expect.

We don't make content about the app. We make content about tattoos.

Here's the insight: the audience for our app already exists on TikTok. Millions of people are searching for tattoo ideas, couples tattoo inspiration, small tattoo designs. This is a massively popular topic. We just needed to show up where they already are.

Believe me, creating content is hard. I've been creating content for the past five years, and starting two new accounts (Instagram and TikTok) from zero has been a challenge.

Quick note on Instagram: we haven't really grown there. Our reels average about 20 views, maybe 100 for the top ones. Instagram penalizes uploading similar videos, whereas TikTok treats each video independently. You can create similar videos just changing a couple of images and they perform differently. You never know.

What the content looks like

It's intentionally low-effort:

• Image slideshows of tattoo ideas (e.g., "10 tattoo ideas for couples")
• Trending background music
• Simple captions describing the tattoo theme
• Posted from the official Inkigo account

See it yourself -> link

The key: the last slide says "Try Inkigo.ai now!" or "Preview your tattoo first. Try Inkigo." That's the entire CTA. No hard sell. No "download now." Just a subtle nudge at the end.

Why it works

• The content has inherent value. People actually want to see tattoo ideas. The content isn't an ad. It's useful on its own.
• We're meeting people where they already are. Instead of trying to convince people to care about AI tattoo generation, we're finding people who already care about tattoos and showing them a tool.
• It's sustainable. These are 30-second to 1-minute videos. No face, no voice, no editing. We can post almost every day without burning out.
• TikTok's algorithm does the distribution. Good content gets shown to the right people regardless of follower count.

What we researched

Before posting anything, we looked at what was already performing well. "Tattoo ideas," "tattoos for couples," and "small tattoo designs" are consistently high-volume searches on TikTok and Instagram. We're not inventing demand. We're riding it.

TikTok vs. Instagram

We post to both, but TikTok is the one that's actually working. Instagram Reels gets some traction but the discovery algorithm isn't as aggressive for new accounts. TikTok surfaces content to new audiences much more effectively. If you're starting from zero, TikTok is the move.

Side note on Instagram: I've seen some "tattoos for couples" Reels with more than a hundred million organic views. But creating those would require more effort and a more advanced production. We're holding on that for now. Maybe one day we can spend money on higher-quality content, but for now, the simple approach is working well on TikTok.

What performs best

• General tattoo styles, anime, couples, and character tattoos
• Most of our videos follow the format: "Tattoo ideas for [topic]." Simple and repeatable

Why this content type specifically

It's easy to batch. We can create approximately 15 videos at once and schedule them to be published daily. We already have a bunch of generated images, so we just need to show them.

So far we have about 15 videos uploaded. 8,000+ views on TikTok and around 2,000 on Instagram. We don't measure much beyond views right now, and at this level, anything above 300 views is a win. Baby steps.

The $5 TikTok Ad Credit Experiment

TikTok offered us free ad credits. I think it was a promotion for business accounts. We got about $5 in credits and decided to put it all behind one of our best-performing reels.

Result: that reel hit 3,700 views. I know what you're thinking, that's pretty low. But what would you expect for $5? What really surprised me is that this TikTok got +1k likes. That tells me something strong: there is an opportunity here. People want to see this content.

I also noticed a small spike in users, downloads, and API cost (Gemini), which tells me this experiment made a real difference.

For context, our organic reels were averaging a few hundred views at that point. So the boost was decent in terms of visibility.

Was it worth it? Honestly, it's hard to tell exactly how many of those views converted to downloads. We don't have perfect attribution between TikTok views and App Store installs. But it did help establish momentum for the account. More views led to more followers, which led to better organic reach on subsequent posts.

Let's put this in numbers: we generated $40 that day and spent $5.50 on the Gemini API + $5 in ads (although that was free credits). That's roughly $30 left after expenses, minus Apple's 15% cut.

Small numbers? Absolutely. But we could argue we're profitable. Once we run a bigger ad experiment, I'll make sure to share the data. Join the newsletter to stay in the loop.

The organic strategy is working well enough that I'd rather stay consistent with free content than spend money on ads. But if TikTok offers more free credits, I'll take them.

The takeaway: paid ads can amplify what's already working, but they're not the foundation. Get the content strategy right first. Then boost your winners.

Pricing and Premium Positioning

A lot of indie devs default to making their app free or charging $1.99 and hoping for volume. I went the opposite direction.

Maybe this is more of a personal decision than a strategic one. But I've always cared about quality and premium feel. Personally, I prefer to pay more for something I know is good. So that's what I'm doing with Inkigo. We only use the Nano Banana Pro model (the expensive one).

Inkigo offers:

• A weekly subscription for casual users ($10 / week)
• A monthly subscription for regular users ($ 20 / month)
• Both at premium price points compared to competitors

Why charge more?

• The app looks and feels premium. The UI is polished. The landing page is clean. The onboarding is smooth. When the experience feels like a $20 app, people will pay $20.
• The results are good. AI tattoo generation is hit or miss across the industry, but our results are consistently better than most competitors. People see value and upgrade.
• Premium pricing filters for better users. Free users complain more, churn faster, and cost more to support. Paying users are more engaged and more patient.

The lesson: don't race to the bottom on pricing. Invest in quality (UI, UX, results, branding) and charge what it's worth. If your app feels cheap, people will treat it like it's cheap.

Free Tier

FREE → 1 free generation. Previously it was 5, then 2, but it gets expensive with many users. Also, users were creating multiple accounts to get more free generations. Giving only one removes that incentive.

Subscription Plans

We offer a simplified, conversion-optimized paywall with just two options:

Fair Usage Limits

Our paywall has a small section that mentions fair usage limits, similar to what OpenAI and Anthropic do on their plans. Weekly users get 35 generations, monthly users get 80. This guarantees a profit margin of 34-43% even if they hit the cap.

I'm still experimenting with these limits, and so far no one has actually hit the generation cap, which is nice because we get to keep more of the revenue.

This might become a problem in the future, and we'll need to adjust the margins. But if you're building with AI, I'd strongly recommend implementing something like this. Otherwise, expenses can get out of hand. There are always power users who will generate a bunch in one day. You either cap them or charge them more.

Cost breakdown:

• Gemini image generation: ~$0.135 per image (1K-2K resolution)
• Apple App Store: 15% fee
• RevenueCat: 1% fee

Revenue Projections at Scale

Hypothetical analysis showing revenue and profit at different user counts (assuming full usage of generation caps):

Minimal Development, Maximum Marketing

Here's something that might surprise you: I haven't shipped a major feature update in about two months.

The app is stable. We've committed some quick fixes and small changes, but nothing major. No new AI models. No new features. No redesigns. And believe me, we have a rain of feature ideas. But every time I catch myself thinking about a new one, I slap myself and say: focus on marketing.

All of our effort has gone into marketing.

This is a hard mindset shift for developers. We love building. We love shipping features. But the honest truth is: once your app works and delivers value, your job becomes distribution.

Nobody cares about your new feature if nobody knows your app exists. A mediocre app with great marketing will outperform a great app with no marketing every single time.

The hardest part of building a profitable app isn't the code. It's getting people to find it.

That said, don't confuse a low-quality app with a minimum-features premium app. There's a big difference.

What's Next

Push Notifications

We've noticed that retention is lower than we'd like. People download the app, try a few generations, and then forget about it. The next big initiative is implementing push notifications to re-engage users with things like "Daily inspiration" or "New tattoo styles available."

For this, it's going to be crucial to support images with notifications. I'm planning to keep it simple with Expo notifications. And in case you didn't know, it is actually possible to send images in push notifications on iOS. Learn how to do it here

This is probably the highest-leverage feature we can ship right now. Not a new AI model, not a UI overhaul. Just reminding people that the app exists.

Being Honest About AI Generation Quality

Some users get frustrated with their generations. The reality is: AI image generation is unpredictable. You can describe a detailed tattoo and sometimes get something incredible, sometimes get something weird. That's the nature of the technology right now.

That said, we're constantly improving our prompts and we also have safety measures in place to prevent misuse, like uploading pictures of kids. This is actually built into Nano Banana, but we handle the errors gracefully on our end.

I don't think there's a perfect solution to this. We can improve prompts, fine-tune models, and add more controls, but at the end of the day, AI output has variance. Being transparent about this is important. Users who understand the tool's limitations tend to have a better experience than users who expect perfection.

Continued TikTok Consistency

The content strategy is working. The plan is simple: keep posting. Keep showing up. Keep testing different tattoo themes and see what resonates. Double down on what gets views.

No need to overcomplicate it.

Key Takeaways

1. Your app's name is marketing. If you're invisible in search, you're losing before you start. Create a unique, ownable brand name.
2. Make content about the topic, not the app. Find where your audience already exists and meet them there.
3. Low-effort content, high consistency. Daily simple posts beat weekly polished ones.
4. Premium positioning works. Invest in quality, charge accordingly. Don't race to the bottom.
5. Marketing > Features (once stable). Stop building and start distributing.
6. Be honest about limitations. Users respect transparency more than overpromising.

Want to see exactly how Inkigo is built? Pro members get full source code access to Inkigo, the same codebase generating $400/month right now, plus all my production apps. Get Pro access here

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Try Inkigo: iOS maybe leave a review? 😁