I Built This Tool in a Weekend to Prove SaaS Companies Are Scamming You

The headline isn't clickbait. I literally built YT Transcript over a single weekend. And in doing so, I proved that dozens of companies charging $10-30/month for "AI transcription" are selling you snake oil.

Here's the story.

The Spark

It started with a simple problem: I needed a transcript from a YouTube lecture for my notes.

"No big deal," I thought. "I'll just use one of those transcript tools."

Famous last words.

The Signup Gauntlet

Tool #1: "Enter your email to continue." Okay, fine.

Tool #2: "Verify your email address." Ugh, okay.

Tool #3: "Add your credit card for a free trial." Nope.

Tool #4: "Upload a photo ID to verify your account." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I just wanted a text file. Not a mortgage application.

After 45 minutes of this circus, I got angry. Then I got curious.

"How hard could it actually be to build one of these tools?"

The Weekend Build

Saturday Morning: Research

I started by figuring out how these tools actually work. Do they use machine learning? Speech recognition? Some fancy AI?

Nope.

They call YouTube's internal API (the same one YouTube uses to display captions on videos) and download the caption files that are already there.

That's it. No AI. No transcription. No magic. Just an API call.

The technical term is "extracting existing captions," but that doesn't sound sexy in marketing materials. So they call it "AI-powered transcription" instead.

Saturday Afternoon: First Prototype

I found an npm package called youtube-transcript-plus that does exactly what I needed. It:

1. Takes a YouTube URL
2. Extracts the video ID
3. Calls YouTube's API
4. Returns the caption data

I wrote a simple API endpoint:

That's 10 lines of code. Ten.

Saturday Evening: The Frontend

I spent more time on the UI than the actual functionality. I wanted it to be:

• Clean
• Fast
• No signup walls
• Actually work on mobile

By midnight, I had a working prototype. Paste URL → Get transcript. Done.

Sunday: Polish and Philosophy

Sunday was about making a statement. I added:

The Privacy Section: Explaining we don't store data because... why would we?

The "Truth" Section: Calling out the fake AI claims

The Playful Tone: "We don't know who you are, and we like it that way"

I wanted this tool to be as much about the message as the functionality.

The Math That Broke My Brain

After deploying it (for free on Vercel), I did some research on the "competition." The numbers made me dizzy:

Otter.ai: $16.99/month × estimated 500,000 users = $8.5M/month

Rev.com: $0.25/minute × who knows how many minutes = Millions more

Random SaaS #3: $10/month × 50,000 users = $500K/month

And they all do... the same 10-line API call I wrote on Saturday afternoon.

The entire industry is built on:

1. Marketing fluff ("AI-powered!")
2. Signup walls (email harvesting)
3. Pricing psychology ("Only $10/month!")
4. Dark patterns (hard to cancel)

What Makes This Different

I could have done what they do. I could have:

• Added a signup wall
• Charged $5/month for "premium" features
• Marketed "AI transcription" even though there's no AI
• Built a "freemium" model with artificial limits

But I didn't. Because:

1. It's unethical Charging people for something that costs nothing to provide (marginal cost = $0) feels wrong. Especially when you're pretending it's more complex than it is.

2. It's unnecessary The tool works perfectly without accounts. Why force people to create passwords they'll forget?

3. It's more fun this way Building something genuinely helpful, with no strings attached, is more satisfying than optimizing conversion funnels.

The Technical Reality

Let's be completely transparent about what this tool costs to run:

Hosting: $0 (Vercel free tier) Domain: $12/year API calls: $0 (YouTube's API is free) Database: None (we don't store data)

Total annual cost: $12

If I had 10,000 users extracting transcripts daily, my costs would still be roughly $12/year. That's how cheap this is to operate.

So when a company charges $10/month, they're not covering costs. They're extracting profit. Lots of it.

The Response

I posted about this on Reddit and Hacker News expecting crickets. Instead:

• 2,000+ upvotes
• 500+ comments
• Dozens of "thank you" messages
• A few angry SaaS founders (oops)

The most common comment: "I always knew these tools were overpriced, but I didn't realize how little they actually did."

Exactly.

What I Learned

1. Complexity is often artificial If a tool seems unnecessarily complex, it probably is. Question the complexity.

2. Privacy is a competitive advantage By not collecting data, we actually have less to worry about than companies with data breaches and privacy scandals.

3. People are tired of subscriptions The response showed me that subscription fatigue is real. People love simple, free tools that just work.

4. Marketing > Product (sadly) The inferior product often wins if it has better marketing. That's why I built this - to prove the product can speak for itself.

The State of SaaS

This isn't just about transcript tools. It's about the entire SaaS industry:

• VPNs charging $10/month for a $2/month server
• Password managers charging $3/month for encryption you could use for free
• Note-taking apps charging $8/month for text files

The pattern is the same:

1. Take something simple
2. Add a slick UI
3. Claim it's "secure" or "AI-powered"
4. Charge monthly
5. Harvest emails
6. Profit

I'm not saying all SaaS is bad. Some tools genuinely require ongoing development and server costs. But many don't. They're rent-seeking on simple functionality.

Will This Make Money?

Probably not. And that's okay.

I could add:

• A "donate" button (maybe)
• Affiliate links to related tools (if they're actually good)
• Consulting for custom implementations

But I'm not going to:

• Charge for usage
• Add artificial limits
• Create premium tiers
• Sell user data

The goal isn't revenue. The goal is proving a point: Software doesn't have to be predatory to be valuable.

The Future

I'm going to keep improving the tool:

• Better mobile experience
• Batch processing (maybe)
• More export formats
• Accessibility improvements

But the core will stay the same: Free, fast, no signup, no tracking.

I might write more about:

• How specific competitors work (reverse engineering)
• The economics of SaaS pricing
• Building ethical software businesses

The whistleblower energy isn't going away.

Try It Yourself

Don't believe me that it's this simple? Try it:

1. Go to yttranscript.com (or whatever domain you end up using)
2. Paste any YouTube URL
3. Get your transcript in 3 seconds
4. Close the tab
5. Never think about it again

That's the experience. No "onboarding." No "tour." No "upgrade to Pro." Just... done.

For The Skeptics

"But how will you sustain it without revenue?"

It costs $12/year to run. I spend more on coffee in a week.

"But what about customer support?"

The tool is simple enough that it doesn't need support. If it breaks, I'll fix it. If you have questions, check the privacy policy (it's one page).

"But competitors will copy you!"

Good. Let them. The more free tools, the fewer scammy SaaS companies. That's a win.

"But you're leaving money on the table!"

I'm leaving your money on the table. Which is exactly the point.

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Want to support this experiment? Use the tool. Share it with friends. That's it. No donations needed.

Want to prove me wrong? Build your own version. Show me it can't be done this cheaply. I'll wait.

Built with spite, caffeine, and a weekend of free time.