When I started building ratecalc.fyi, I had one goal: help creators know what to charge before brands lowball them.
12 days later, here's the honest breakdown.
The problem I was solving
UGC creators get lowballed constantly. A brand reaches out, asks "what's your rate?" — and the creator panics and throws out a number with no data behind it.
There's no standard. No formula. Just vibes.
What I built
A free CPM-based sponsorship rate calculator. Enter your followers, engagement rate, niche, and country → get a fair price range instantly.
Stack: FastAPI + SQLite + Jinja2 + Railway. No React, no complexity. Just a thing that works.
12 days of numbers
3,200+ calculations
101 unique visitors
8 countries (US 52%, India 18%, UK 5%)
Bounce rate dropped from 70% → 50%
Visit duration: 11 minutes average
$0 revenue
What actually worked for distribution
Reddit keyword monitoring. I searched "how much should I charge for sponsorships" across creator subreddits and answered genuinely — mentioning the tool only when directly relevant.
Zero announcements. Just showing up where the problem already exists.
What didn't work
Posting "I built a thing" on Twitter. Zero traction. Nobody cares about your launch. They care about their problem.
Pro plan — shipped on day 11
Added a Pro plan ($9/month, $29/year) with:
Media Kit PDF generator
Lowball Destroyer email scripts
Smart Objection Handler
Deal Closer Contract template
Invoice Generator
Still $0 revenue — payment processor approval pending.
What I learned
Distribution is the product. The calculator was done in 3 days. The next 9 days were entirely about getting people to use it.
The best channel: find threads where people already have the problem. Answer the question. Be helpful first.
What's next
SEO blog content
Reddit keyword monitoring (account recovery pending 😅)
First paying user
Try it free at ratecalc.fyi — no signup required.
Top comments (2)
"Distribution is the product" and "nobody cares about your launch, they care about their problem" — you just wrote down the exact lesson I paid for this week. I'm a week into the same thing and watched 6 genuine comments on other people's posts pull +51 readers in 85 minutes, while "I shipped a thing" posts pulled zero. People (and the algo) reward showing up where the problem already lives, not announcing.
One thought on the $0 → Pro plan: your calculator is the cold tool (free, 3-day build), but the Media Kit PDF / Deal Closer / Invoice generator are the warm output someone would pay to not assemble themselves. That split — free tool, paid output — is probably where the $9 lands once payments clear. You're not charging for the calculator, you're charging for the "never get lowballed again" workflow around it.
What's your read on the Reddit account recovery? Is keyword monitoring still your #1 channel if you have to rebuild from scratch, or are you eyeing somewhere new?
this comment is better than most of the feedback I've gotten in 12 days — thank you.
"you're not charging for the calculator, you're charging for the never get lowballed again workflow" — that's exactly the reframe I needed. going to update the landing page copy around that.
on Reddit: account recovery is day 4, no response yet. if it doesn't come back, I'd probably rebuild karma slower and more carefully — the keyword monitoring still works, the account just needs to be older before Reddit trusts it. no real substitute for it yet. YouTube comments got me a 24-hour ban yesterday for moving too fast 😅
what are you building? curious what your 6 comments pulled traffic to.