Auto API Generator — Boost Your Spring Boot Development - Sell Project

Startup description

Auto API Generator is a powerful IntelliJ IDEA plugin that automates REST API creation for Spring Boot projects. With a few clicks, developers can generate complete, production-ready APIs—DTOs, mappers, repositories, services, controllers, and even file-upload endpoints—directly from JPA entity or plain POJO classes.

Key features include multi-class selection to generate hundreds of APIs at once, Lombok and MyBatis support, Liquibase database migrations, and clean-architecture best practices.

I built it to save weeks of repetitive coding on my own projects, and it has since been adopted in 40+ countries and proven to generate consistent revenue.

Key highlights:

1. Annual Revenue: ~$500–$600 (over the last 5–6 months)
2. Annual Profit: ~$500–$600 (minimal expenses)
3. Multiple: ~1× (adjust if you set a different asking price)
4. LTV / CAC: N/A (one-time plugin purchases, no subscriptions)
5. Business Margin: ~95–100% (virtually no operating costs)
6. Other Key Metrics: Used in 40+ countries First month revenue: $80 Total revenue to date: $500–$600

Team

This is a solo project. I built, launched, and maintained the plugin entirely myself—handling development, design, marketing, and customer support.

Tech Stack

IntelliJ Platform SDK (Java/Kotlin), Spring Boot for demos, MyBatis & JPA integration, Lombok, Liquibase, Maven, GitHub for version control.

Marketing and growth

Organic outreach only: shared on Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Reddit, LinkedIn, and developer forums. Generated ~$500–$600 revenue in 5–6 months without paid ads.

Revenue and profit

Everything related to the financials of your project (ARR/MRR, profit, CAC, LTV, Retention, Churn, GMV, and other important metrics based on your project type).

1. Total Revenue: ~$500–$600 over 5–6 months
2. First-month Revenue: ~$80
3. Operating Costs: negligible
4. Annualized Run Rate (ARR): approx. $1k if maintained
5. Profit Margin: ~95–100%
6. CAC / LTV / Churn: N/A (one-time plugin purchases)

Return on investment

At the current price (~$600 sale), a buyer can recover the cost in roughly 6–8 months if sales continue at the historic average, with upside if marketing is expanded.

Startup assets

1. Complete IntelliJ plugin source code and full IP rights
2. Marketplace listing materials (images, descriptions, pricing history)
3. Branding assets: logo, promo videos, documentation
4. Revenue proofs and user feedback screenshots (No email list or social accounts specific to this plugin)

Risks

1. Future sales depend on ongoing marketing and compatibility with new IntelliJ versions.
2. Buyer should maintain code to meet future SDK changes.
3. Risk is minimized by the mature, stable codebase and clear documentation.

Summary

Auto API Generator is a proven developer tool with real revenue, 40+ country adoption, and virtually zero operating costs. It’s a turnkey micro-SaaS opportunity: own the IP, scale marketing, and recover the investment quickly while saving developers months of repetitive coding.