Show HN: Spentrip – a trip-focused expense tracker
TL;DR
I shipped a generic expense app (Receiptix) in July 2024. After seven months of effort it plateaued at $100 MRR, and I hardly used it myself. In February 2025, after a year of working on the project, I decided to reflect on what to do next and I also realised that I actually do use the app but only while traveling. So I niched down and rebuilt it as Spentrip. First week live: $100 in sales - already matching Receiptix’s peak.
Last July I shipped Receiptix, a track-anything expense app. I thought that, by entering into a very packed market, I could capture a slice of the pie. Nothing to validate, and the users were obviously out there. The reality check:
* Launch (July 2024) - first paid user a month later for $8.
* Seven months of iterations - max $100 MRR. Worse, I wasn’t even using the app myself which should've told me something.
In Feb 2025, after a whole year of working on the project, I decided it's time for self-reflection. Should I continue? Should I start a new project? Why am I not using my own app? Then I realized it's not completely true: I do use the app but only while traveling. I like to have a log of all my trips to have a sense of how expensive it is to travel to certain places to help me plan my future travels. It was the moment I decided to try one more time.
So I niched down. New app was called Spentrip. It is a trip-focused expense tracking app that helps travellers track their expenses on-the-go. The main features:
* AI-powered receipt scanning - users can simply snap a photo of their receipt in any language and the app would do the rest (OCR recognition, categorizing, etc.)
* Voice expense tracking - users can just speak expenses to their phone (the app would categorized everything automatically as well)
* Multi-currency support - the app tracks spending across multiple currencies with automatic conversion
* Trip-based orgnization - all the expenses live inside "trips"
* Export - one can export all their expenses as CSV later
First week after launch - $100 in sales, which matches the old app's MRR after 7 months. Still a whole journey to go but it's much more inspiring anyway :)
Tech
* Flutter (iOS & Android)
* OCR: Google Document AI
* Backend: Firebase
* Data extraction and categorization: Claude 3 Haiku
What I’ve learned so far
1. Niche > broad. Solving a smaller problem beats “does everything.”
2. Build for yourself, honestly. If you don’t open your own product, figure out why.
3. Super-crowded markets are tough for solo indie hackers.
Next steps
* Add group-trip splitting
* Offline mode
Happy to answer anything.
Unfortunately, a big no and showstopper for me is the current lack of pricing information. The only thing I can find about the subscription is buried in the FAQ under "Account".
"All paid plans include premium features such as unlimited receipt storage, advanced travel reporting, multi-currency support, and priority customer support." -- this means the non-pro version is limited; I couldn't find information about how exactly.
I consider this a dark pattern and will not even try your software unless you add transparent and clear information e.g. in the form of a Pricing page.
(This is from the Apple App Store, which luckily forces some element of transparency: "Coffee at the Airport $2.99 Postcard from the Road $0.99 First-Class Thanks $9.99 Pro (lifetime) $89.99 Pro (annual) $59.99 Pro (monthly) $8.99".)
It's a very valid point! I always wanted to add pricing information to the website. However, I have two concerns here:
1. I'm experimenting with pricing a lot, especially in the very beginning. Having 3 places (App Store, Google Play, website) to update prices complicates things.
2. Prices are different for different countries and I'm not sure how to represent this on the website. On the App Store it's clear - you just see your country's pricing automatically, but how do I achieve this in a website? Well, technically, it's of course, possible, but it looks like a huge complication as well.
Do you have any suggestions?