Would you pay?

Would you pay? is a free web tool where indie makers put their startup in front of real people who swipe right if they'd pay for it and left if they wouldn't. Instead of chasing likes, upvotes or polite encouragement, makers get one blunt signal: the share of strangers who say they would actually pay. The deck currently holds 102 indie startups and has collected 6,499 swipes. Anyone can start swiping without creating an account, and makers can add their own startup to the deck for free. The product is built for indie founders, side-project builders and small teams who want to know whether their pitch earns a yes before they spend more months building. It targets the earliest stage of a product, when the pitch, the idea and the positioning are still cheap to change. Most side projects fail quietly: months of building, then nobody pays. The signals usually available to makers — likes, upvotes, encouraging comments — are cheap to give and say very little about whether anyone would open their wallet. A like costs the giver nothing; a buying decision costs money. Would you pay? was built around that gap. It replaces soft engagement with a harder question asked directly to a stranger who looks at a card for a few seconds: would you pay for this? The site is explicit that the answer is intent rather than a sale, but it is a harder yes than a like, and first impressions decide whether someone clicks through at all. That makes the deck a fast way to see whether a pitch works before more code gets written. The core experience is a swipe deck of indie startup cards. Each card shows a screenshot of the product plus its name and a short pitch line — for example theslot.today, described as "One ad slot a day. The price drops until someone claims it.", or Sweep, "See what you actually cleaned." Visitors open the deck and their first card appears in about a second. No signup and no account are needed to swipe. The rule is stated in three steps: swipe right if you'd pay, left if you wouldn't, and makers see who'd actually pay. Swiping right is not a purchase and nothing is charged; it records first-impression intent. Because the deck is made of indie startups rather than polished enterprise products, cards are judged on their pitch and their screenshot, the same way a visitor to a landing page would judge them. Makers get a results view that goes beyond a single number. They see the share of people who'd pay, whether those people are developers, founders or marketers, and how many clicked through to their site. To keep the signal honest, the percentage only appears after 10 swipes, so one or two early votes cannot skew the figure. The full breakdown is private and shown only to the maker. Because the deck asks a paying question rather than a liking question, the audience breakdown matters: a founder who learns that developers say they'd pay while marketers do not has learned something concrete about who the product is really for. Click-through data adds a second layer, showing how many people were interested enough to leave the deck and visit the site after seeing the card. Adding a startup is free and the card goes into the deck right away. For makers who want answers faster, there is an optional $19 Boost. Boost puts a card at the front of the deck for 24 hours so that nearly every new swiper sees it first. Up to five cards can be boosted at the same time, and those cards share the front position in random order. A guarantee is attached: if a card does not reach 100 swipes within 24 hours, the platform keeps boosting it for free until it does. Crucially, swipes stay honest — people still swipe right only if they'd pay. As the site puts it, Boost gets you answers faster, it does not buy yes votes. Access is deliberately low-friction on both sides. Swipers never register; they open the deck and start judging. Makers log in with a one-time email link and no password, which reduces the account step to a single click from an inbox. Results are private to the maker, but each startup also has a public share page showing the headline percentage once it passes 10 swipes, so the result is ready to post on X. That split between the private full breakdown and the public headline number is the product's overall approach: the maker sees the detail — the share who'd pay, who those people are, and the click-throughs — while the public sees a clean, shareable figure. Underneath it all is one methodology: ask strangers the paying question instead of the liking question, and only report the number once enough opinions have accumulated for it to mean something. The benefit is a decision signal that arrives in hours instead of months. A maker learns whether the pitch earns a yes, which kinds of people say yes, and how many were moved enough to click through to the site. Together those three things tell a founder whether to keep building, change the positioning, or aim at a different audience — all before further engineering time is spent. Because the question is asked in a swipe deck, the audience is not the maker's friends or followers who are inclined to be nice; it is people with no relationship to the maker and nothing to gain from a polite answer. And because the site states plainly that "I'd pay" is intent, not a sale, the number is positioned as evidence about the pitch rather than as revenue. It is a first filter, not a forecast. Concrete workflows follow from that. A maker submits a startup, the card enters the deck immediately, and the results page begins filling in once 10 swipes are reached: the share who'd pay, the breakdown by developers, founders and marketers, and the number of click-throughs to the site. If they need answers quickly, they can pay $19 for a Boost, putting the card at the front of the deck for 24 hours and holding the platform to 100 swipes. Once the headline percentage is live, the maker can post the public share page on X. On the other side, a visitor with no account can open the deck, see a card such as theslot.today or Sweep within about a second, and swipe right or left based on whether they would pay. Would you pay? is aimed at indie makers: the deck is made of indie startups, and the maker-side product serves founders, side-project builders and small teams who want demand evidence before building more. Product Hunt lists it under Marketing, SaaS and Startup Lessons, which matches its use as a pre-launch validation tool rather than a finished product. The people answering the questions are described in the maker results as developers, founders and marketers, since respondents are broken down into those categories. Pricing is straightforward: swiping is free and account-free; adding a startup and seeing results is free, with the card going into the deck right away; and the only paid option mentioned is the $19 Boost, which buys faster responses for 24 hours rather than different answers. In short, Would you pay? turns startup validation into a swipe. Right if you'd pay, left if you wouldn't, and the maker gets a percentage, an audience breakdown and click-throughs instead of likes — free, fast, and based on a harder yes than any social signal can offer.