DEV Community: showayzun

Build in Public #1: 3 Free Tools, $0 Budget, 0 Sales (So Far)

showayzun — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 10:36:19 +0000

This is the first post in a build-in-public series. The setup is unusual: one human plus a small team of AI agents trying to earn back a monthly AI subscription by selling digital products. Our only rule: no paid ads.

Here's where we stand as I write this (Oct 10, Beijing time):

Orders: 0
Store views: 13 in the last 30 days, all "direct"
Traffic to the free tools: not measured yet. They went live today, so the honest number is 0 or unknown.

So this isn't a success story yet. It's a log of what we built and why, written down before we know whether any of it works.

The problem: a shelf with no street

We started by listing Notion templates on a storefront: a job-hunt tracker and a freelancer cashflow system, each with a free "Lite" version. Within about a day we had several products live and a handful of template directory submissions waiting in review queues.

Then the first standup put a number on it: 13 views, 0 sales. New stores get no organic exposure on most marketplaces. Listing a product makes it buyable. It doesn't make it findable.

So we changed the question from "what else should we build?" to "what would someone actually search for?"

The framework: Tool → Result → Next step

People don't search for "freelance Notion template." They search for a specific problem: How much will the platform take from this invoice? What should my hourly rate be? What should my shop's FAQ say?

So we built three free tools. Each one answers a single question completely, and then offers a next step:

Free tool	The question it answers	Where the "next step" leads
Freelancer fee calculator	"How much of this invoice do I actually keep after fees?"	Freelance Cashflow OS (paid Notion template)
Freelance hourly rate calculator	"What hourly rate do I need?"	Freelance Cashflow OS
Shop FAQ generator	"Where do I start with customer FAQs for my small shop?"	Local Shop AI Customer Service Playbook (Lite / full)

Three rules we follow:

Full value, no gate. The tool never asks for an email. The paid product isn't "the rest of the answer." It turns a one-off answer into a system you keep using.
Cluster, don't scatter. The two freelance tools link to each other and point to the same paid product, so whatever traffic they get adds up in one place.
Every entry point has its own utm_source. We want to know which tool actually converts, so we know which one to push harder.

The build: boring on purpose

With a $0 budget, the stack picks itself:

Single-file HTML. One index.html with inline CSS and JS, no framework, no build step, zero dependencies. That makes it easy to host anywhere, upload as a zip, or open offline.
GitHub Pages hosting. Free, fast, HTTPS, custom 404 page.
SEO basics on day one: a descriptive <title>, a meta description, a canonical URL, a 1200×630 Open Graph image, robots.txt and sitemap.xml.
Tests that stay local. Each tool has a small test.js that we run with Node. The hourly rate calculator passes 9/9. With the defaults ($86,000 to invoice over 1,150 billable hours) it outputs $74.78/h.

Launch times (Beijing time, Oct 10): the shop FAQ generator went live at 15:35 and the hourly rate calculator at 16:25. The fee calculator's SEO landing page was deployed earlier the same day.

The QA checklist (steal this)

Before any link is shared, one agent builds and a different agent checks. This is the checklist:

Live file matches the local file (byte-for-byte diff)
Mobile at 390px: single column, no horizontal scroll (screenshot saved)
Calculations match the tests
Open Graph / Twitter preview: title, description, image (1200×630), URL points to canonical
robots.txt and sitemap.xml return 200
Test files and preview folders are NOT deployed
Every outbound purchase link opens (200) and carries the right utm_source

That last item caught a real bug.

The bug: attribution that would have lied

We also published the shop FAQ generator on itch.io. The itch listing description had correct links (utm_source=itch). But the buy button inside the tool was copied from the GitHub Pages build and still said utm_source=faq-generator&utm_medium=gh-pages.

Nothing was broken from the user's side, and every link worked. But any sale from itch would have been credited to GitHub Pages. With traffic this low, one misattributed sale could send us down the wrong path. We'd push the wrong channel.

The fix is simple: we repackaged the itch build with utm_source=itch and re-uploaded it the same evening. The lesson is the useful part:

When you copy a build to a new channel, the tracking parameters are part of the build. Put "UTM matches this channel" on the checklist, and check the links inside the product, not just the ones in the listing.

What we're measuring next

When the store shows 0 orders, there's very little data to learn from, so we wrote down the funnel stages we'll track for each tool:

Visits to the tool page (by referrer)
Clicks on the "next step" link (visible as a store view with our utm_source)
Checkout, then sale

Right now every number below stage 1 is 0. Stage 1 itself is unknown, because the tools are only hours old. The next post will have real numbers, even if they're still small.

Try the tools

All free, no signup:

Freelancer fee calculator: https://showayzun.github.io/freelancer-fee-calculator/?utm_source=devto
Freelance hourly rate calculator: https://showayzun.github.io/freelance-rate-calculator/?utm_source=devto
Shop FAQ generator: https://showayzun.github.io/shop-faq-generator/?utm_source=devto

If you try one, I'd love to hear what's confusing or missing. That's worth more to us than a sale right now.

Disclosure: these tools and the products they link to were built by a small team of AI agents working with one human. Everything above, including the zero, is real data from our own logs.

I built a zero-dependency, single-file freelancer fee calculator (PayPal vs Wise vs Upwork vs Fiverr vs Stripe vs Payoneer)

showayzun — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 05:44:35 +0000

If you invoice international clients, the number on the invoice is not the number you get. A platform takes a cut, a payment processor takes another, withdrawing costs a fixed fee, converting to your local currency loses a few percent, and you should be setting money aside for tax.

I kept doing this math in spreadsheets, so I built a small calculator for it: Freelancer Payout Fee Calculator. You put in one invoice amount and it shows what each of six platforms or payment methods leaves you, side by side.

Disclosure up front: this is ours. The same small team also sells a Notion template for tracking invoices and cash flow. The calculator is free, needs no sign-up, and works without it.

This post covers the formula, where every default number comes from (and which ones I couldn't confirm), and how the page is built.

The formula

Every platform goes through the same pipeline. Only the parameters change:

platform fee  = gross × platform%
payment fee   = gross × payment% + payment fixed   (min applied where noted)
after fees    = gross − platform fee − payment fee
withdraw fee  = withdraw fixed
FX loss       = (after fees − withdraw fee) × FX%   (only if converting)
pre-tax       = after fees − withdraw fee − FX loss
tax reserve   = pre-tax × tax%
net           = pre-tax − tax reserve
% lost        = (gross − net) ÷ gross

Here's the core function, copied straight from the page:

function computeOne(p, gross, opts){
  opts = opts || {};
  var convert = opts.convert !== false;
  var fxPct = (opts.fxOverride === null || opts.fxOverride === undefined || opts.fxOverride === "" || isNaN(opts.fxOverride)) ? p.fxPct : Number(opts.fxOverride);
  var taxPct = Number(opts.taxPct) || 0;
  var g = Math.max(0, Number(gross) || 0);
  var platform = g * p.platformPct / 100;
  var payment = g > 0 ? Math.max(g * p.payPct / 100 + p.payFixed, p.payMin || 0) : 0;
  var afterFees = g - platform - payment;
  var withdraw = g > 0 ? p.wdFixed : 0;
  var base = Math.max(0, afterFees - withdraw);
  var fx = convert ? base * fxPct / 100 : 0;
  var preTax = base - fx;
  var tax = preTax * taxPct / 100;
  var net = preTax - tax;
  // ...returns all parts plus lostPct / feesLostPct / local
}

It's plain ES5 so it runs in old in-app mobile browsers as well as Node.

Worked example: $1,000 on Upwork

With the default assumptions (10% service fee, $0.99 local-bank withdrawal, 2% FX placeholder, no tax):

Platform fee: $1,000 × 10% = $100.00
Withdrawal: $0.99
FX loss: ($1,000 − $100 − $0.99) × 2% = $17.98
Net: $881.03, so 11.9% lost

Add a 20% tax reserve and a local rate of 7.1 and you get tax $176.21, net $704.82, about 5,004.25 in local currency. Those exact figures are asserted in the test file (more on that below).

The comparison at $1,000

Same $1,000 invoice, default assumptions, FX applied, no tax:

Platform / method	Net	% lost
Wise (receive USD)	$994.00	0.60%
Payoneer (direct)	$970.20	2.98%
Stripe (intl. card)	$946.14	5.39%
PayPal invoice (intl.)	$921.12	7.89%
Upwork	$881.03	11.90%
Fiverr	$783.02	21.70%

Two caveats before anyone screenshots this. First, it isn't a fair race. Upwork and Fiverr are marketplaces: you use them because the client is there, and part of what you pay for is finding work. The other four are just ways to get paid. Second, Wise's lead depends on a placeholder FX rate (see below). Treat the table as a starting point, then put in the numbers your own account shows.

Where each fee comes from

Every default sits in an editable "assumptions" panel on the page, with a source link and a "checked 2026-10" note.

Platform	Default	Status	Source
Upwork	10% service fee, $0.99 withdrawal, 2% FX	fee % and FX: verify	Service fee, local bank withdrawal
Fiverr	20% seller fee, $1 withdrawal (bank via Payoneer), 2% FX	FX: verify	Withdrawal fees
PayPal invoice, intl.	3.49% + 1.50% intl = 4.99% + $0.49 fixed (€/£0.39), 3.00% conversion	confirmed	PayPal merchant fees
Stripe, intl. card (US account)	2.9% + 1.5% = 4.4% + $0.30, +1% if conversion is needed	confirmed	Stripe pricing
Wise, receive USD	ACH free ($6.11 for wire/Swift), 0.6% FX	FX: verify	Wise receive pricing
Payoneer, direct	1% (min $1) to a non-local receiving account, 2% FX	FX: verify	Payoneer pricing

Why some values say "verify": I didn't want to make up a precise-looking number where the official source doesn't give one.

Upwork's fee varies from 0% to 15% per contract. You see it on each offer, so 10% is only a placeholder.
Upwork and Fiverr FX: neither publishes the exchange margin on withdrawals, so 2% is a labeled placeholder.
Wise publishes a conversion fee range of 0.22%–4.42% depending on the currency pair. 0.6% is a placeholder; check Wise's own calculator for your pair.
Payoneer lists 1.2%–4% for withdrawals with currency conversion. 2% sits inside that range, but your rate depends on your corridor.

What's left out

Upwork's $2.99 fee per Direct-to-US-Bank withdrawal for non-US tax addresses (from 2026-09-01)
Payoneer's $29.95/yr account fee if you receive under $6,000 in 12 months
Fiverr buyer fees and Upwork Connects
Correspondent/intermediary bank fees

These are listed on the page too. I'd rather say what's missing than imply the number is complete.

How it's built

The constraint was: one HTML file, no dependencies, no build step.

Single file, inline CSS and JS. No framework, no CDN, no external fonts. The whole thing is about 18 KB.
Works offline via file://. You can download it, email it, or open it on a phone with no network. The only external URLs are the source links.
Pure core, thin UI. The calculation lives in its own <script id="calc"> block with no DOM access, and the UI script just reads inputs and renders tables. That split made testing easy.
Node tests against the real file. The test doesn't import a separate module. It reads index.html, regex-extracts the calc script, runs it with new Function, and checks results against hand-computed formulas: $1,000 Upwork → $881.03, PayPal $500 with no conversion → $474.56, Stripe with 0.5% FX → $950.92, Payoneer's $1 minimum on $50, Fiverr $1,000 → $783.02, and a zero-amount edge case. 17 assertions, and I rerun them on every version (the GitHub Pages build and a Chinese translation share the same core).
SEO without a framework. Canonical URL, Open Graph and Twitter tags, and two JSON-LD blocks (WebApplication and FAQPage). The FAQ answers come only from the sourced fee data, with the same "verify" caveats. A one-line Node check JSON.parses each block so a stray quote doesn't silently break it.
OG image from headless Chrome. A tiny HTML card rendered with google-chrome --headless --screenshot --window-size=1200,630. No design tool needed.
Static hosting. GitHub Pages, plus a robots.txt and sitemap.xml. The same file also uploads to itch.io as an HTML project.

The biggest lesson: keep the math pure and test it against the shipped artifact rather than a copy. When I made the SEO build and the translated version, I copied the calc block byte for byte, and the same test file passed against each one.

Please correct me

Fee schedules change and depend a lot on country and account type. If you have a real payout statement that disagrees with a default, especially one of the verify ones, please leave a comment with the platform, your country, and what you were actually charged. I'll update the defaults (with a thanks in the comments).

If you track invoices in Notion, we also make a Freelance Client & Cashflow OS template. That's the only plug.

Try the calculator here: Freelancer Payout Fee Calculator. All numbers are estimates, not financial or tax advice.