# [051] The other side: four red oceans on Mac (clipboard managers, auto-zoom screen recorders, menu bar managers, notch tools): free open source pushed the price floor to 0, and one-time revenue falls back to a few hundred to two or three thousand dollars within two or three months of launch

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/o/051.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> All four categories share the same shape: a good-looking UI plus the founder's following, earning around $6,000 in the launch month and falling back to a few hundred to two or three thousand dollars within two or three months.

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# Not promising: four Mac red oceans (clipboard managers, auto-zoom screen recorders, menu bar managers, notch tools). Free open source has pushed prices down to 0, and one-time purchase revenue falls back to a few hundred to a few thousand dollars within two or three months of launch.

Closed Trackable (the other side) · saturated First spotted 2026-11-01 · last updated 2026-11-08

Status

Closed (free open source has taken the space; paid only gets the launch-month wave)

Why this is written up

All four categories follow the same pattern: a polished UI plus the founder's audience makes roughly $6,000 in the launch month, then it falls back to a few hundred to two or three thousand dollars within two or three months. Free open-source projects like Maccy, Capptivo, Thaw / Ice, and Boring Notch pushed the price floor to 0, and Raycast and the OS are building these features in too.

Confidence

High. Each of the four categories has a complete revenue curve or star count, and the conclusions agree. What would overturn it: a new general clipboard, screen recording, or menu bar tool entering the indie market and sustaining more than $5,000 for two months straight between 11 and December.

## Evidence

Grouped by store. Each group starts with the charts that can be graphed (real curves, data dates below the chart), then the scanner's original notes and source links.

### Indie product revenue (TrustMRR)2 evidence · 2 products with curves

[Supaste](https://trustmrr.com/startup/supaste) supaste.com

TrustMRR · 30-day revenue $907 (-16%) · [View product profile](https://stringers.io/worth/p/supaste.html)

Monthly revenue (verified by payment platform)

2026-06 → 2026-11 (6 pts). Light bars = current month, not yet complete

Daily revenue (UTC day)

Data 2026-09-29 → 2026-11-06 (39 days, 39 observations). Single-day swings are big, so look at the trend in the monthly breakdown above.

[Screen Charm](https://trustmrr.com/startup/screen-charm) screencharm.com

TrustMRR · 30-day revenue $1,524 (-60%) · MRR $77 · 5 subscriptions · [view product dossier](https://stringers.io/worth/p/screen-charm.html)

Monthly revenue (verified by payment platform)

2025-11 → 2026-11 (13 pts). Light bars = current month, not yet complete

Daily revenue (UTC day)

Data 2026-09-29 → 2026-11-06 (39 days, 39 observations). Single-day swings are big, so look at the trend in the monthly breakdown above.

- indie (11-02 core): [Supaste](https://stringers.io/worth/p/supaste.html) (supaste.com, clipboard plus screenshot history, $15 / $29 one-time, founder with 25k followers on X): June $6,468 → July $4,884 → August $3,257 → September $1,430 → October $812; 11-02's 30-day revenue $843 (−37%); listed at $20,000 (asking $33,000 in early October).

- indie (11-02 core): [Screen Charm](https://stringers.io/worth/p/screen-charm.html) (screencharm.com, auto-zoom screen recorder for Mac, $99 one-time) $2,177 over 30 days (−40.5%); monthly revenue has run between $2,695–6,407 since 2025-11, June was the peak from the PH launch, and August fell back to baseline; the cloud-sharing subscription added in April has only 5 subscribers, MRR $77. The founder has a full-time job; 10-31 publicly discloses a salary of $9,242 and side income of $2,335.

### GitHub2 evidence · 3 products with curves

[SECHAK-AG/capptivo](https://github.com/SECHAK-AG/capptivo)

GitHub · created 2026-07-28 · 1,118 stars · 7 days +8

Give your demos the spotlight they deserve ( Mac/Windows/Linux ).

Stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 30 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[thaw-app/Thaw](https://github.com/thaw-app/Thaw)

GitHub · created 2026-01-29 · 12,603 stars · 7 days +152

The open source menu bar manager

Stars

Data 2026-07-30 → 2026-11-08 (102 days, 16 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[jordanbaird/Ice](https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice)

GitHub · created 2023-08-04 · 29,981 stars · 7 days +61

Powerful menu bar manager for macOS

Stars

Data 2026-08-03 → 2026-11-08 (98 days, 15 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

- GitHub (11-02 core): SECHAK-AG/capptivo (free open-source screen recorder, three platforms) has 1,112 stars, +22 over 7 days; the report notes no commits after 10-13, and 31 issues have gone 40 days without a reply. Since 2026-05 on PH there have been 25 screen-recording launches, at least 5 of them open source (reported figures).

- GitHub (11-02 core): menu bar manager thaw-app/Thaw has 12,473 stars, jordanbaird/Ice has 29,930 stars, 42k stars combined, all free; Thaw has 28 GitHub Sponsors, and Homebrew shows 30 installs over 3,208 days (reported figures).

### Mac App Store 1 pieces of evidence

- Mac App Store (11-02): the store spots are taken by established products. Clipboard manager Maccy (1527619437, $9.99,1,100 ratings) charts in 20 storefronts; menu bar app iBar Pro (6737150304,1,423 ratings) is #11 on the cn paid chart; Black Menu Bar (6822790853, $0.99), launched 10-21, is the best seller at #51 (in).

### Product Hunt1 pieces of evidence

- PH (notch, 11-02 core): details in [005]. In October, 108 launches had notch or dynamic island in the name; only vertical products scored above 100.

## Already doing it

Clipboard: [Supaste](https://stringers.io/worth/p/supaste.html), Maccy, Paste, and Raycast's built-in version; screen recording: Screen Studio, [Screen Charm](https://stringers.io/worth/p/screen-charm.html), Capptivo, [Smooth Recorder](https://stringers.io/worth/p/smooth-recorder.html), and seven or eight others; menu bar: Bartender, Thaw, Ice, iBar; notch tools are in [005].

In our product dossiers: [Supaste](https://stringers.io/worth/p/supaste.html), [Screen Charm](https://stringers.io/worth/p/screen-charm.html), [Smooth Recorder](https://stringers.io/worth/p/smooth-recorder.html)

## The hardest step

The problem isn't the product, it's distribution: there's no store search and no subscription, so post-PH traffic has to be built from scratch every time.

## Who it's for

Not recommended for new entrants. The remaining gaps are vertical niches (designers archiving screenshots with color values, team screen-recording libraries), or the App Store version and enterprise distribution that Thaw doesn't cover, and those would each need a different way to charge.

## Should every product builder know this?

Yes. Anyone building Mac tools needs to know this.

## Change log

2026-11-08

PH (PT 11-06) Daily #4: EdgeBar (adjust volume and brightness by swiping the trackpad edge, 124 votes). Another Mac utility, same crowded category as the other Mac apps.

2026-11-03

PH (11-01, PT): Screen Studio was #1,401 of the day with 4.0 — the incumbent in the crowded auto-zoom screen recording space keeps iterating (Glass Loupe, transcript-based editing), which makes it harder for newcomers.

2026-11-02

Backfill check: [Supaste](https://stringers.io/worth/p/supaste.html) 30 days $797 (10-31) → $843, still in the $800 range; [Screen Charm](https://stringers.io/worth/p/screen-charm.html) 30 days $2,177 (the report used the founder's self-reported October $2,335); Thaw 12,451 → 12,473, Capptivo 1,110 → 1,112, both only slowly climbing. The conclusion stands.

2026-11-01

First logged (backfill: from the "Product Hunt Roundup v1" 4.2 item 1 and ph-dossiers/supaste.md, screen-charm.md, capptivo.md, thaw.md, Stringers §3.7, data as of 11-01).

Original: Scanner opportunity library #051 (updated daily, 06:00); this page was generated on the 2026-11-08 edition.