How a Free SEO Tool Reached $18k MRR Without VC

A lot of founders say they want “organic growth.” What they usually mean is: they want organic growth without doing the uncomfortable parts—talking to users daily, shipping relentlessly, and making product decisions that simplify the story instead of expanding it.

Nick Swan did the uncomfortable parts. He launched a free SEO tool, told early users it wouldn’t stay free, listened hard to what they actually used, repositioned the product when it plateaued, and grew it to $18,000 MRR with ~330 customers—with a small team and without chasing venture capital.

This story fits perfectly in our US Small Business Marketing Automation series because it’s really about automation: not the “set it and forget it” fantasy, but the practical kind that replaces spreadsheets, reduces reporting time, and turns chaotic marketing work into repeatable workflows.

Start with a real pain: “I’m doing this in Excel”

The fastest path to a product people buy is solving a problem they already have a workaround for. In Nick’s case, the workaround was painfully familiar: exporting data from Google Search Console, pasting into spreadsheets, and manually tracking whether SEO changes helped.

SEOTesting (originally called SanityCheck) began as a personal utility while Nick ran an affiliate voucher codes site. He was doing click-through rate testing with page titles and needed a way to compare “before vs. after” performance without living inside Search Console.

Here’s the key move that many founders skip:

When a workflow is already happening in spreadsheets, you’re not inventing demand—you’re packaging demand.

For small US businesses and lean agencies, this is exactly what “marketing automation” should mean: turning recurring manual reporting into a system.

What the tool automated (the part users happily pay for)

SEOTesting’s core job is simple and valuable:

• Capture baseline Google Search Console performance for a page
• Make an SEO change (title tag, meta description, content refresh, internal links)
• Compare before vs. after performance on key metrics:
  • Clicks
  • Impressions
  • Average position
  • CTR

This “test + report” loop isn’t flashy. It’s profitable because it ties effort to outcomes—especially for agencies that need to justify retainers.

Launch it free, but don’t pretend it’ll stay free

Nick ran the tool free for roughly five months before charging. That can be a smart move if you handle expectations correctly.

He did: the positioning was clear that it was a free beta and would become paid. That one sentence prevents the classic free-tool trap where users feel ambushed when pricing appears.

When he flipped the switch, he moved from:

• Free beta → 14-day trial → paid plans

And he didn’t hide features behind a paywall while leaving the “good stuff” free forever. He converted the product into a business.

Practical takeaway for bootstrappers

If you’re using a free tool to build an audience, pick one:

1. Free tool as a lead magnet (stays free, supports a paid product)
2. Free beta as validation (becomes paid once value is proven)

What doesn’t work: “free forever… until I need rent money.” Users can feel that coming.

The plateau is the signal: repositioning beats adding features

The most important part of this story isn’t the free-to-paid transition. It’s what happened after early momentum.

Nick added features based on early user requests. That’s normal. Then something predictable happened: people started comparing the product to giant SEO suites like Ahrefs and Semrush.

That comparison is deadly for a bootstrapped SaaS:

• You can’t out-feature them
• You can’t out-spend them
• You can’t win head-to-head without a sharper category

Nick’s solution wasn’t “build more.” It was: choose a lane.

He interviewed customers and discovered the real value wasn’t general SEO reporting or data archiving. The “stickiest” use case was the testing workflow.

So he repositioned the product as an SEO testing tool.

If your product is getting compared to a platform, your positioning is too broad.

The rename that made growth easier

He found and acquired the domain SEOTesting.com (for a reported $2,500). That domain did a lot of quiet work:

• It made the category obvious
• It reduced explanation time
• It aligned the product name with the job-to-be-done

Then he rebuilt the app to match the new focus.

Rewrites are risky. But this one had a clear purpose: remove a legacy feature (archiving) that no longer mattered once Google expanded Search Console data retention.

Product-market fit isn’t a moment—it’s a speed increase

Nick described product-market fit in the way most founders feel it: the product becomes easier to explain, easier to sell, and growth stops feeling like pushing a truck uphill.

A concrete indicator:

• With the rebranded, refocused SEOTesting product, he reached the same MRR in 9 months that the earlier version took 2.5 years to achieve.

That’s the best definition of improving product-market fit:

When the same effort produces meaningfully better results.

For founders doing US startup marketing without VC, this is the playbook. You don’t need a funding round to grow—sometimes you just need a clearer promise.

Why agencies became the growth engine (and how to lean into it)

One detail in the interview matters for anyone building marketing automation software: agencies often become the highest-leverage customer segment.

Agencies adopted SEOTesting not only for “testing,” but for client reporting—showing impact after content refreshes and on-page changes.

This is a recurring pattern in B2B SaaS:

• Individual marketers use tools for personal productivity
• Agencies use tools for packaged deliverables and repeatable reporting

If you sell to small businesses, build for “proof of work”

Whether you’re offering SEO services, email marketing automation, or content marketing, clients ask the same question:

• “What did we get for our money this month?”

The more your software can answer that with clean, exportable, client-friendly outputs, the more likely it is to become embedded in operations.

A simple checklist to support agency-led growth:

• Clear report templates (before/after, month-over-month)
• Multi-site or multi-client organization
• Easy export/share options
• Notes or annotations tied to changes made
• Permissioning for staff/client access

The underrated scaling move: stop coding (when it’s time)

Nick eventually brought on Phil as a late technical co-founder. That’s not typical “startup lore,” but it’s common in sustainable bootstrapping:

• Build to initial traction solo
• Bring in leadership when complexity or ambition outgrows one person

Then Nick made a decision many technical founders resist: he committed to stop writing code so he could focus on growth.

That’s not abandoning your craft. It’s recognizing the bottleneck.

For a bootstrapped company trying to scale without VC, the bottleneck is often:

• Distribution
• Messaging
• Partnerships
• Content and demand generation

Not the next feature.

A simple playbook you can copy (even outside SEO)

This story isn’t just for SEO founders. It’s a template for anyone building small business marketing automation products.

1) Build the automation around a workflow, not a “market”

“SEO” is a market. “Before/after reporting for on-page changes” is a workflow. Workflows convert.

2) Validate with community, not ads

Nick’s early traction came from SEO communities (Facebook groups, Slack groups) and word of mouth. That’s time-intensive, but it’s cheap and honest.

3) Charge earlier than you’re comfortable with

He started too low (his own words), but he charged—and learned.

4) When growth stalls, narrow the promise

Don’t respond to a plateau by building sideways. Use interviews to find the job customers truly hire you for.

5) Treat naming and positioning as growth features

SEOTesting is a clearer name than SanityCheck. Clear names reduce CAC because your homepage doesn’t need to do as much explaining.

What to do next if you’re building without VC

If you’re running a US startup on revenue (or you want to), take one hour this week and do the unsexy work:

1. Open your support inbox, call notes, or sales DMs
2. List the top 5 phrases customers use to describe value
3. Rewrite your homepage headline using their language
4. Cut one feature from your marketing story (yes, cut)

Then ask yourself a founder-grade question:

If your product had to be described in six words, what would they be—and would the right buyers recognize themselves?

If you want to see the product that grew from a spreadsheet workaround to a real business, the landing page is here: https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-626-scratching-an-itch-launching-a-free-seo-tool-and-growing-to-18k-mrr