Idea Miner
Idea Miner tracks real paid demand for features and services on global outsourcing platforms, helping indie developers pick what to build based on actual completed, paid tasks rather than speculation.
🔗 Visit Idea Miner
Description
Deciding what to build is one of the hardest parts of being an indie developer — most people guess based on gut feeling, Twitter trends, or how many times an idea gets mentioned online. Idea Miner takes a different approach: instead of counting mentions, it looks at what people have actually paid other people to build, by mining data from global freelance and outsourcing platforms. The idea is that a task someone paid real money to get done is a far stronger demand signal than an idea that just gets talked about a lot.
Under the hood, Idea Miner aggregates and categorizes completed paid tasks across roughly 21 categories — web development, AI/automation, design, video production, and more — and ranks opportunities by potential score, growth trend, and budget size. It supports filtering by tech stack (for example AI/LLM, React, Python) and by geography (global, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America), and includes basic competitive-landscape views. As of late August 2026 the site reports collecting over 21,000 tasks per month, with data refreshed regularly. Pricing runs on a token system: tokens are spent on actions like idea validation or competitor comparisons, purchasable as one-time packs or monthly subscriptions.
💬 Our review
The short version: Idea Miner offers a genuinely different, evidence-based signal for indie developers picking their next project — real paid tasks instead of vague mention counts — but it's a young, niche tool with an unproven long-term data pipeline.
Compared to general research tools like Google Trends or Exploding Topics, which show interest and search volume, Idea Miner's outsourcing-task data is more directly tied to willingness to pay, which is arguably a stronger validation signal for a paid product. It's not really competing with SparkToro-style audience research either — it's narrower and more transactional. The token-based pricing (from a $9 Starter pack of 65 tokens to a $19/month Builder subscription) is reasonable for occasional use but adds a layer of friction and mental math that flat-fee competitors don't have. The bigger risk is data breadth: its signal is only as good as the outsourcing platforms it scrapes, which may not reflect demand outside that specific market. Worth trying during its current free pre-launch access; the real test is whether the paid tiers stay useful once that access ends.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
Free signup grant: 10 tokens, one-time, full Pro content access during pre-launch, no card required. One-time packs: Starter $9 (65 tokens), Value $29 (300 tokens, most popular), Bulk $49 (560 tokens) — tokens never expire, refundable within 7 days. Subscriptions: Solo $9/month (60 tokens/month), Builder $19/month (180 tokens/month).
Pros
Demand signal based on real paid outsourcing tasks, not just mention counts or search volume
Filters by tech stack (AI/LLM, React, Python) and geography
Transparent, regularly updated task volume (21,000+ tasks/month as of Aug 2026)
One-time token packs never expire and are refundable within 7 days
Cons
Token-based pricing adds friction compared to flat-fee competitors
Signal is limited to what outsourcing platforms it scrapes — may miss demand elsewhere
No free ongoing plan once pre-launch bonus access ends
Small, new vendor with an unproven long-term data pipeline