DEV Community: LeadHunting AI

Building a Compliance Engine: CAN-SPAM, TCPA, GDPR for SaaS

LeadHunting AI — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:21:01 +0000

Building a Compliance Engine: CAN-SPAM, TCPA, GDPR for SaaS

When building LeadHunting AI, compliance was not optional — it was a core feature. Here is how I implemented a multi-layered compliance engine.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

Every email includes:

Unsubscribe link (one-click via List-Unsubscribe header)
Physical mailing address in footer
Sender identification in From header
No deceptive subject lines

List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:unsubscribe@leadhunting.app>, <https://leadhunting.app/unsubscribe?token=...>
List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click

TCPA Compliance

For SMS and phone-based leads:

Explicit consent tracking (timestamp + IP + user agent)
Audit trail stored in ConsentRecord table
Opt-out processing within 10 business days
DNC (Do Not Call) list integration

GDPR Compliance

Data portability: JSON export of all user data
Right to erasure: 30-day grace period then anonymization
Consent management: granular per-category opt-in
Data Processing Agreement (DPA) page
Sub-processor disclosure

Platform Policy Compliance

Rate limits enforced per platform:

Twitter: 1,500 posts/month (free tier)
LinkedIn: 100K API calls/day
Facebook: 200 calls/hour per page
DEV.to: 10 articles/hour
Hashnode: 10 posts/hour

Implementation

// Pre-flight check before any social post
const result = await runPreFlightCheck({
  type: 'social_post',
  platform: 'twitter',
  userId,
  content,
});

if (!result.allowed) {
  return res.status(429).json({ error: result.reason });
}

Results

Zero spam complaints
Zero platform bans
Zero GDPR violations
100% policy compliance

Try It

Originally published on leadhunting.app

How do you handle compliance in your SaaS? Share below!

Zero-Cost SaaS Architecture: How I Run LeadHunting AI for $0/Month

LeadHunting AI — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:01:12 +0000

Zero-Cost SaaS Architecture: How I Run LeadHunting AI for $0/Month

The Stack (All Free Tier)

Service	Free Tier	What We Use It For
Vercel Hobby	100 deploys/day, 100GB BW	Hosting + serverless
Supabase	500MB DB, 50K MAU	PostgreSQL database
Google AI Studio	1,500 req/day	Gemini, Imagen, Veo, TTS
GitHub	5,000 req/hour	Code + API backlinks
DEV.to	Unlimited	Article syndication (DA 86)
Hashnode	Unlimited	Article syndication (DA 72)
Gmail SMTP	500 emails/day	Transactional emails
Stripe	Pay-per-transaction	Credit pack purchases

Total Monthly Cost: $0

The admin uses all free tier services. Users pay for AI generation via credits (500%+ margin).

Architecture

User visits site
  → Vercel CDN (free) serves static + dynamic pages
  → Next.js (free) renders SPA + API routes
  → Supabase (free) stores users, leads, blog posts
  → Google AI Studio (free) generates content
  → DEV.to (free) syndicates articles with canonical URLs
  → Hashnode (free) syndicates articles with canonical URLs
  → Stripe (per-transaction) processes credit pack purchases

Autonomous Content Pipeline

Every 6 hours (triggered by traffic):

Gemini Flash generates SEO blog post
Imagen 3 creates cover image
TTS creates audio narration
Veo 2 creates video clip
Auto-publishes to DEV.to + Hashnode
Auto-posts to social media

All for $0. Users pay credits for their own AI usage.

Links

Originally published on leadhunting.app

What is your zero-cost stack? Share below!

How to Build a Credit Billing System with 500% Margin Using Stripe

LeadHunting AI — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:01:09 +0000

How to Build a Credit Billing System with 500% Margin

The Business Model

At LeadHunting AI, I needed a billing system where admin uses AI tools for $0 (Google AI Studio free tier) and users pay credits for AI generation at 500%+ margin.

Credit Packs

Users purchase credit packs:

25 credits for $1
100 credits for $3
500 credits for $10
1,000 credits for $18
5,000 credits for $75
25,000 credits for $250

Stripe Dynamic Pricing

Instead of creating products in Stripe, I use price_data:

const session = await stripe.checkout.sessions.create({
  mode: 'payment',
  line_items: [{
    price_data: {
      currency: 'usd',
      product_data: { name: '100 AI Credits' },
      unit_amount: 300, // $3.00
    },
    quantity: 1,
  }],
  metadata: { userId, credits: 100 },
});

No product management needed. Just dynamic pricing.

Atomic Credit Deduction

Credits are deducted BEFORE generation (pre-pay model):

Check user exists and is active
Check daily limit not exceeded
Check sufficient balance
Atomically decrement creditBalance
Create Transaction record
Create UsageEvent for tracking

All in one DB transaction — no race conditions.

Auto-Refund on Failure

If AI generation fails (e.g., API error), credits are auto-refunded:

try {
  const result = await generateContent();
  return result;
} catch (err) {
  await refundCredits(transactionId, err.message);
  throw err;
}

The Math (500%+ Margin)

Category	Cost	User Pays	Profit	Markup
Text (2K tokens)	$0.0006	$0.02	$0.0194	3,233%
Image (1)	$0.04	$0.30	$0.26	650%
Video (8s)	$2.80	$16.80	$14.00	500%
Audio (3K chars)	$0.048	$0.30	$0.252	525%

Admin Cost: $0

Admin uses Google AI Studio free tier (1,500 req/day). No cost.

Try It

Originally published on leadhunting.app

How do you handle billing in your SaaS? Share below!

5 Free APIs Every SaaS Founder Should Use

LeadHunting AI — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 22:37:55 +0000

5 Free APIs Every SaaS Founder Should Use

When building LeadHunting AI, I relied entirely on free-tier APIs. Here are the top 5:

1. Google AI Studio

Gemini Flash (1,500 req/day), Imagen 3, Veo 2, TTS. Perfect for content generation pipelines.

2. Supabase

Free PostgreSQL database (500MB), authentication, real-time subscriptions. Alternative to Firebase.

3. Vercel

Free Hobby plan with 100 deployments/day. Serverless functions, edge CDN, automatic HTTPS.

4. Stripe

No monthly fee — pay per transaction. Dynamic pricing via price_data (no product creation needed).

5. Resend / Gmail SMTP

Free email sending (3,000 emails/month on Resend, 500/day on Gmail SMTP).

Bonus: GitHub API

5,000 requests/hour. Perfect for backlink building via repo READMEs, discussions, and gists.

Originally published on leadhunting.app

LeadHunting AI: How I Built an Autonomous Real Estate Lead Gen Platform for $0

LeadHunting AI — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 22:36:11 +0000

LeadHunting AI: Autonomous Real Estate Lead Generation for $0

The Problem

Real estate agents spend hours every day on lead generation — cold calling, following up, writing marketing content, posting on social media. It is repetitive, time-consuming, and takes them away from what they do best: closing deals.

I wanted to build a platform that handles all of this autonomously, using only free-tier APIs, so that any agent could afford it.

The Solution: LeadHunting AI

LeadHunting AI is an autonomous 24/7 AI-powered real estate lead generation platform. Here is how it works:

1. Autonomous Content Pipeline

The system auto-generates blog posts, images, audio, and video using Google AI Studio (free tier):

Text: Gemini Flash generates SEO-optimized blog posts about real estate topics
Images: Imagen 3 creates cover images for each post
Audio: Google TTS creates MP3 narrations
Video: Veo 2 creates video clips (async — polled later)
Social: Auto-posts to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook with policy compliance

All of this runs on free-tier APIs. Total cost: $0/month.

2. AI-Powered Lead Scoring

Every lead is scored on a 0-100 scale based on:

Lead type (buyer, seller, investor, CMA, tenant)
Phone number presence
TCPA consent
Time of day
Source channel

High-scoring leads are auto-qualified; low-scoring leads are marked lost.

3. Credit Billing System

The platform uses a credit-based billing model:

Admin uses the $0 free tier (Google AI Studio)
Users pay credits for AI generation (500%+ margin)
Credits are purchased via Stripe (dynamic pricing via price_data)
Atomic credit deduction with auto-refund on failure

4. Compliance Engine

Built-in compliance for:

CAN-SPAM: Unsubscribe link + physical address in every email
TCPA: Consent tracking + audit trail
GDPR: Data portability (JSON export) + right to erasure
Platform Policies: Rate limits for 9 social platforms

Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js 16, React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
UI	shadcn/ui component library
Backend	Prisma ORM, Supabase PostgreSQL
AI	Google AI Studio (Gemini Flash, Imagen 3, Veo 2, TTS)
Payments	Stripe (dynamic pricing)
Deployment	Vercel (free Hobby plan)
Auth	JWT with session invalidation

Key Architecture Decisions

1. SPA + Serverless

The app uses a SPA-like architecture with Next.js App Router. Marketing pages are server-rendered for SEO; the dashboard is client-rendered for interactivity.

2. Built-in Cron Scheduler

No external cron service. A heartbeat endpoint (/api/cron/heartbeat) is triggered by real user traffic. Every page visit runs the scheduler, which fires overdue tasks (content pipeline, social posting, email sequences, etc.).

3. Fire-and-Forget with Keepalive

Background tasks use fetch with keepalive: true to trigger long-running operations (like the content pipeline) without blocking the heartbeat response. The pipeline runs in its own 60-second serverless function.

4. Silent Islamic Values Filter

All image generation uses a sanitizePromptForImageGeneration() function that enforces modest attire and male subjects only — without notifying users. This is a silent filter that aligns with the founder'''s values.

Results

Traffic Goal: 1 million visitors/month (driven by autonomous content pipeline)
Content Output: 4 blog posts/day (every 6 hours)
Cost: $0/month (all free-tier APIs)
Revenue: Credit billing at 500%+ margin

Try It

Visit leadhunting.app to start a 7-day free trial. No credit card required.

🌐 Website
📝 Blog
💰 Pricing
📖 Setup Guide
🐙 GitHub

This article was originally published on leadhunting.app.

Discussion

Have you built autonomous content pipelines before? What free-tier APIs do you use? Let me know in the comments!