DEV Community: Stanis Leonov

I Finally Found Real Egg Freezing Costs Before Scheduling

Stanis Leonov — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:25:58 +0000

I spent weeks calling fertility clinics trying to figure out what egg freezing actually costs, and I kept getting the same thing: a base price that conveniently left out medications, thawing, and transfer fees. Every number I heard was incomplete, and I had no way to know if I was looking at twenty grand or forty. That's the problem EggFreezingFacts.org actually solves.

It's a calculator that walks backward from what you actually need—your age, location, insurance, storage timeline—and tells you a realistic total cost range including the stuff clinics gloss over. A 34-year-old in a major city gets a different answer than someone in a smaller metro or a different state entirely. The math is all there, cited to actual sources, and you can adjust any variable and watch the number move in real time. It made the whole thing feel less like guessing.

Behind the calculator is a 34-page reference with state-by-state pricing, insurance mandate information, medication breakdowns, and a full lifecycle model that adds up the thawing and transfer costs most published estimates conveniently omit. There are no referral links, no clinic funding, nothing to sell. It's genuinely useful if you're trying to understand the actual financial picture before you book a consultation.

Check it out: EggFreezingFacts.org

I Stopped Manually Listing My AI Tools Everywhere

Stanis Leonov — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 20:24:01 +0000

I spent way too long last week comparing AI tools, jumping between vendor sites and trying to parse pricing that wasn't actually on their homepages. It made me realize how broken the discovery process is when you're trying to figure out what something actually costs and what it actually does before you commit any time to it.

WorthToTry fixes this. Every tool has its price right there on the listing, along with whether it's open source and a real written summary instead of marketing copy scraped from their site. They've got 705 tools across 35 categories now, and the listings are vetted before they go live. What makes it different is that they refuse to fake numbers—no invented ratings, no star averages, just the counts that are actually measured.

The submission process for founders is genuinely clever too. Instead of filling out forms, the site publishes a skill that coding agents can read and use to list products automatically. A founder runs it, clicks one confirmation link, and they're done. No badge requirement, no backlink, nothing transactional. That friction-free approach actually makes the directory more trustworthy because there's no incentive to game it.

Check it out: WorthToTry

Why I stopped chasing unpaid invoices as a plumber

Stanis Leonov — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 20:22:39 +0000

I've been running my own trade business for about three years now, and the admin side has always been a nightmare. Every time I'd finish a job, I'd have to manually log the expenses, fiddle with invoices, and then spend hours trying to get everything sorted for tax season. The CIS deduction paperwork was particularly painful — constantly checking if I'd recorded things correctly so my accountant wouldn't send it back.

Trade has basically eliminated that friction for me. The OCR receipt scanner means I can just snap a photo of receipts on the job and it pulls the details in automatically. The invoicing part is straightforward, and what actually matters is that it handles CIS deductions properly, which saves me from having to explain things to my accountant or worse, getting it wrong. Since everything's formatted for the SA103F forms right from the start, there's no scrambling around in January trying to reorganize months of data.

At twelve quid a month it's honestly a no-brainer. If you're a sole trader doing the work yourself and tired of swimming through spreadsheets, it's worth trying the free trial. Took me about twenty minutes to set up and I've already saved that time back several times over just not having to manually enter stuff or chase down receipts.

Check it out: Trade

I built a tool to watch all my GIFs at once instead of opening them one by one

Stanis Leonov — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 20:05:58 +0000

I spent way too long last week clicking through a folder of 300 animated GIFs one at a time in my image viewer, and I realized I was doing this wrong. Every tool I tried — IrfanView, XnView MP, Honeyview — showed frozen thumbnails or made me open each file individually. I needed to actually see them all moving at once to pick the right one.

Animated GIF Gallery Viewer does exactly that. You point it at a folder and the whole collection plays in a scrollable grid right in your browser. The performance is solid even with thousands of files, and the pause function actually works the way you'd expect — it freezes the animation exactly where you're looking at instead of snapping back to frame one. The frame-by-frame stepping with arrow keys is genuinely useful for finding specific moments.

What got me is how simple the whole thing is. It's just HTML and JavaScript, no installation, nothing syncs anywhere, your files stay on your machine. Works in any browser. If you're dealing with a large GIF collection and tired of fighting your operating system's total inability to handle them properly, this solves the actual problem.

Check it out: Animated GIF Gallery Viewer

I Tried LanguageMaster to Finally Speak German Fluently

Stanis Leonov — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 20:03:58 +0000

I've been trying to learn German for months, bouncing between apps and random YouTube videos, and honestly it was a mess. I'd use an app for a week, get frustrated, switch to something else, and never actually make progress. Then I started using LanguageMaster.org and the difference is pretty stark. The platform actually teaches you German in a way that sticks instead of just drilling vocabulary until your brain melts. Everything feels cohesive and intentional rather than scattered across a dozen different resources.

What really got me is how straightforward the whole thing is. You pick a learning program that fits what you're trying to do and just work through it. The price point is reasonable too—programs run between $97 and $244 depending on how deep you want to go. I'm about two months in and I'm actually understanding conversational German, not just memorizing isolated words. If you've been thinking about learning German and keep putting it off because every other option feels incomplete or overly complicated, this actually solves that problem.

Check it out: languagemaster.org

I Stopped Manually Creating 3D Pop-Out Effects for Shorts

Stanis Leonov — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 20:01:58 +0000

I was spending way too much time trying to make my product photos look interesting on Instagram, and honestly the results weren't cutting it. Most of my posts were just static images with captions, and they got buried instantly. I needed something that would actually stop people scrolling, so I started looking at tools that could turn my product shots into proper videos without me needing to learn animation software or spend hours in editing.

That's when I found VideoPopy, and it's basically handled what I was trying to do with Breakout Clips but in a way that actually feels intuitive. You upload a product photo or describe what you want, pick your platform, and within minutes you've got a 3D pop-out video where the product looks like it's jumping out of the frame. There's an auto mode if you just want something fast, or a director mode if you want to tweak camera angles and movement. The best part is it spits out everything ready to post—captions, hashtags, the right aspect ratios for Reels or Shorts—so you're not stuck doing extra formatting work.

For anyone doing ecommerce or content creation, this saves a ridiculous amount of time. I'm using it for product launches and it actually shows engagement. The credit system means I'm not locked into some expensive monthly plan I might not use every month either.

Check it out: VideoPopy

How I Finally Organized 10 Years of Tweets Into a Spreadsheet

Stanis Leonov — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 19:59:59 +0000

I've spent the last couple of years doing a lot of audience research without touching a line of code, and honestly, that's been the whole point. When you're trying to understand who's actually engaging with a space on Twitter, you don't need to become an engineer—you need access to the data and time to think about what it means.

Most of my workflow involves pulling data from different sources, cleaning it up in a spreadsheet, and looking for patterns that matter to my clients. Sometimes I need a quick export of a competitor's followers to see what kind of accounts they're attracting. Other times I'm tracking a hashtag conversation over a month to understand the sentiment shift. I used to think I'd need API access and custom scripts, but I realized pretty quickly that one-off exports usually work better than trying to build monitoring systems I'll use once. When I need Twitter data, I export it with TweetExporter and move on to the actual analysis work.

The real skill in no-code work isn't avoiding code—it's knowing what questions to ask first. Before you export anything, you should know why. Who are you trying to understand? What decisions will this data inform? I've learned to be ruthless about scope because once you have a spreadsheet of ten thousand rows, you still have to make sense of it. The tool is just the first step. The thinking is where the work actually happens.

Check it out: TweetExporter

I Replaced Our Generic Short Links With Branded URLs Using Keynou Drive

Stanis Leonov — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 19:57:58 +0000

I've been sharing a lot of links lately across social media and client emails, and I realized most of the shorteners I was using—Bitly, Rebrandly, Short.io, TinyURL—all do basically the same thing. They make links shorter, but they don't really feel like they're part of my brand. That's where Keynou Drive caught my attention. It lets you use your own domain for every link, which means when someone clicks something I share, they see my branding, not a generic shortened URL. It sounds like a small thing, but it actually builds trust, especially when you're trying to look professional.

What sold me though is the analytics part. I can see exactly where clicks are coming from, how people are engaging, and I can even add UTM parameters to track campaign performance across different channels. The real-time data is pretty granular—nothing like the surface-level reports I was getting elsewhere. There's also a Chrome extension so I can shorten links without jumping between tabs, and if you're technical, there's an API for automating everything.

The pricing is fair too. You get a free tier to test it out, then it's ten bucks for the Starter plan if you want custom domains and solid analytics. I've been using it for a few weeks now and it's saved me time while making my links actually feel like they're mine. If you're sharing links regularly and want something that goes beyond just making them shorter, it's definitely worth trying.

Check it out: Keynou Drive

How I stopped freezing up in interviews by researching my interviewers first

Stanis Leonov — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 19:55:58 +0000

I've been applying to remote jobs for weeks and getting nowhere with my applications. Then I realized I was basically guessing what companies actually wanted. InterviewHack AI changed that by pulling up real information about the people who'd be interviewing me—their backgrounds, what they actually care about, the kinds of questions they ask. It's weirdly specific in a way that actually matters.

The tool also audited my CV against the job posting and told me honestly where I didn't fit, which stung but saved me time. It rewrote my resume to get past the ATS filters, showed me the questions I'd actually get asked with solid example answers pulled from my own experience, and let me practice for free with ChatGPT first. When I felt ready, I booked a mock interview with a real person for five bucks, got actual feedback on my English, and walked into my real interview confident instead of terrified.

If you're applying to jobs where you're competing against dozens of other people and feel like you're throwing applications into a void, this is worth your time. The first prep is free anyway, so there's no risk trying it out.

Check it out: InterviewHack AI

How I Finally Figured Out What Was Living in My Walls

Stanis Leonov — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:24:24 +0000

I've been doing pest control work for about fifteen years now, and one thing that's stayed constant is how fragmented the process is for homeowners trying to find someone trustworthy. They call three or four companies, get wildly different quotes, hear conflicting advice about what they actually have, and honestly, they're exhausted before they even hire anyone. That friction point is real, and it affects how we do business.

What I've learned is that transparency matters more than price. When someone can actually see what I've treated, what customers say about my work, and what my rates are before they call me, the conversations are different. There's no guessing game. I've started keeping detailed records of my service areas and what I specialize in—termites versus general pests, for example—because specificity builds confidence. I use Pest Direct to manage how I'm presented to people looking for help, and it means the inquiries I get are usually from people who already know what I do.

The bigger shift for me has been thinking about my own credibility as a basic requirement, not a bonus. I respond fast. I explain what I see when I do inspections. I follow up after treatment. These sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people in this industry skip these steps. The companies that stick around are the ones who treat the customer relationship like it matters before there's even a signed contract.

How I stopped wasting money on SaaS tools I barely used

Stanis Leonov — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:32:10 +0000

When I'm working with SaaS clients on their organic strategy, I've learned that the gap between what a company thinks is happening on their pages and what's actually there is usually wider than expected. Marketing teams write copy with their target audience in mind, but they're not always thinking about how search engines parse that content or whether the technical foundation actually supports what they're trying to accomplish.

My workflow starts with understanding the baseline. Before I recommend any changes, I need to see what's currently indexed, how pages are structured, and whether there are obvious issues blocking performance. I'll run detailed audits on the key pages—usually the homepage, main product pages, and top-performing content. When I'm auditing a page, I check things like heading hierarchy, whether the content actually matches what the meta description promises, if images have proper alt text, and what the schema markup is telling Google. Tools like Check Page SEO help me do this quickly without bouncing between five different tabs.

The comparison piece is equally important. I look at how our pages stack up against the ones currently ranking for the terms we care about. Sometimes there's an obvious content gap—the competitor has sections we don't cover. Sometimes it's subtler, like they're using different language around a core feature that apparently resonates better with search algorithms.

What I've found is that most SaaS companies benefit more from getting the fundamentals right than from chasing the latest tactic. Better heading structure, clearer content hierarchy, and accurate schema markup often move the needle faster than anything else.

How I finally stopped switching between five different SaaS tools

Stanis Leonov — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:14:52 +0000

Running a SaaS platform that serves local businesses means constantly balancing two competing needs: automation that actually saves time, and the human touch that clients still expect. I've learned this the hard way over the past few years.

The tricky part is that every feature you add increases complexity, which can alienate smaller customers who just want something straightforward. I spend a lot of time thinking about defaults—what should be turned on by default, what requires a deliberate choice, what should even exist at all. For managing Google Business Profiles across multiple locations, I use LocalEdge by Avision to handle the technical layer so I can focus on strategy with my clients rather than wrestling with API limits and alert fatigue. The real work isn't the tool though; it's understanding what your users actually need versus what they think they need.

I've found that talking directly to customers beats any amount of analytics. A 20-minute call reveals more than weeks of usage data. Someone will casually mention they're doing something completely differently than you designed it for, and suddenly you see an entire workflow you missed. That conversation shapes decisions more than any roadmap I could plan alone.

The unsexy truth about SaaS is that reliability matters more than features. Downtime, slow performance, or an API that breaks without warning will lose you customers faster than missing a trendy feature. I obsess over our monitoring and our incident response process because that's what actually keeps people using the platform.