You commented PAYWALL. Here's the prompt from the reel, the data behind gate one, and the fourth gate I didn't have time for: price.
The prompt (copy all of it)
Score my app idea on four gates. Be harsh. For each gate give a score out of 10, the single biggest weakness, and one change that would raise the score.
1. Paid upfront: would someone pay before they use it? Name who pays, how much, and why they'd pay on day one instead of trying it free.
2. One painful problem, one type of person: say in one sentence what it fixes and for whom. If you can't, say so.
3. A market I can reach: where exactly do these people gather, how would I get my first 100 in front of it, and is the market big enough to be worth it but small enough to reach?
4. Price: what's the price, what would they compare it to, and is it high enough to make the app worth building?
Then give an overall verdict: build, change, or kill. If change, tell me the one change that matters most.
My app idea: [describe it in 3-5 sentences: who it's for, what it does, how it makes money]Gate one: charge before they use it (the data)
From RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026, covering 115,000+ apps:
Fewer than 5 in 100 new apps reach $10K a month.
Hard paywalls converted 10.7% of downloads to paid by day 35. Freemium converted 2.1%.
That's about five times the conversion, and around eight times the revenue per install.
The catch: after a year, retention is nearly the same either way. Paying up front doesn't make people stay. The product still has to be worth it.
RevenueCat doesn't tag which apps were vibe coded, so treat this as data on new apps in general.
Gates two and three (my rules, not RevenueCat's data)
One painful problem, one type of person. If you can't say what it fixes in one sentence, nobody will pay for it.
A market you can actually reach. Sell to everyone and you're noise. Pick a market that barely exists and you can't find buyers. You want a group you can name, find, and talk to this week.
Gate four: price (my rules)
Price against the problem, not the code. Nobody cares that it took you an afternoon. Compare it to what the problem costs them, or what they pay today to fix it.
Pick a number before you build. If the price that makes the app worth your time sounds absurd for the problem, that's your answer. Kill it or pick a bigger problem.
Test the price with real money early. A paid pre-order or a checkout page tells you more than any survey. "I'd use that" isn't a signal. A card number is.
Don't race to the bottom. A cheap app needs far more customers to matter, and those are exactly the customers gate three says you can't reach.
Source for gate one: RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2026. Gates two to four are my own rules from building and selling, not data.
Run your idea through it and reply with your scores. I read them.
Mike
PS: I build lead-gen systems for local businesses at OptiMAX, optimax-ai.com.