Comparison
Thonest vs Indie Hackers
Indie Hackers is a community with a directory attached, and it will verify your revenue against Stripe for nothing. The difference is what a reader ends up looking at: an entry in someone else's list, or a page of your own that shows how the business got here.
What Indie Hackers is
Indie Hackers runs a large directory of products with their revenue attached. A founder can list a product free with an account, and figures appear labelled either as self-reported or as verified against Stripe.
| Indie Hackers | Thonest | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A founder community with a product directory attached | A verified revenue timeline you publish and embed on your own site |
| Are the figures verified | Either. Entries are labelled self-reported or Stripe-verified, side by side | Always. There is no way to type a figure in |
| What a reader sees | A revenue figure on a directory listing | Every month of revenue, and the launches and pricing changes behind it |
| Where it lives | Your listing on indiehackers.com | Your own page, and one line of code on your own domain |
| Audience it reaches | Other founders, which is a genuinely large and active one | Whoever you send it to — customers, investors, candidates |
| Price | Free with an account | Free. $79/month for more than one business |
When Indie Hackers is the better choice
- You want an audience of other founders. Indie Hackers has one, it is active, and Thonest does not.
- You want the community around it — the forum, the podcast, the people. That is most of the value and we offer none of it.
- You are happy with a listing on their site and do not need anything on your own.
When Thonest is the better choice
- You are selling to customers rather than talking to founders. A prospect evaluating you is not going to browse a directory of indie products to check whether you are real.
- You want the proof on your own site, beside your own pricing, where the decision actually happens.
- You want a history rather than a number. A figure says the business exists; a timeline says it has been compounding for three years and shows what you did.
- You want every figure verified, with no self-reported entries next to yours setting the reader's expectations for the whole page.
The short version
List on Indie Hackers — it is free and the audience is real. But it is a place to be found by other founders, and this is a page you send to somebody who is deciding whether to buy from you. They are not the same job, and the second one has to live on your own site.
See what a timeline looks like.
Connect your billing and yours is ready in about a minute. Read-only access, and nothing is public until you say so.