Methodology
How we label revenue source
Plenty of people make money "with AI". Many fewer make it from AI.
Every case on this site gets two separate labels:
- The grade (A / B / C) tells you how well the amount is proven. A means verified, B means reported but not independently verified, and C means not verified.
- The revenue source tells you where the money comes from. Does the person sell an AI product or an AI service? Or do they earn from ads, courses or affiliate links on content about AI?
The two are independent. A strong grade says the amount is real. It says nothing about where the money comes from. The revenue source never raises or lowers a grade.
Only AI products and AI services are ranked. Our rankings and the MRR board only include income that comes from an AI product or an AI service. Ads, sponsors, courses, coaching, affiliate commissions, mixed income with no documented split, and unknown sources all stay off the rankings, however big the number is. Those cases can still appear on the site, but we don't call that money "AI income".
Where the money is split: if someone documents how their income divides up, we label the biggest share and list the rest. If no split is documented, the case is labelled "Mixed revenue sources" and isn't ranked. We never estimate the shares ourselves.
How sure we are: every label shows a confidence tag. Source documented means a third party confirms it. Source self-reported means it's the person's own word. Source inferred means we worked it out ourselves. Each label links to the source we based it on.
The labels
| Label | What it means | Ranked? |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue from an AI product | The money comes from people paying for an AI product: an app, a SaaS tool, an extension or a plugin. | Yes |
| Revenue from AI services | The money comes from clients paying for work done with AI: builds, audits, automations or done-for-you projects. | Yes |
| Revenue from AI content (ads/sponsors) | The money comes from ads and sponsors on content about AI, not from selling AI itself. | No |
| Revenue from courses/coaching | The money comes from teaching people about AI: courses, cohorts, coaching or paid communities. | No |
| Revenue from affiliate commissions | The money comes from commissions on other companies' tools, not from the person's own AI. | No |
| Mixed revenue sources | Several income streams, and nobody has documented which one is biggest. | No |
| Revenue source not documented | We can't see what is being sold, so we don't guess. | No |
Confidence tags
| Tag | What it means |
|---|---|
| Source documented | A third party confirms where the money comes from, such as a payment-provider feed or a source we could check ourselves. |
| Source self-reported | This is the person's own account of where the money comes from. We haven't seen proof. |
| Source inferred | We worked this out from the product description or from estimates. Nobody has confirmed it. |
Short verdict stamps
- FROM AI Revenue from an AI product; Revenue from AI services
- ABOUT AI Revenue from AI content (ads/sponsors); Revenue from courses/coaching
- AROUND AI Revenue from affiliate commissions
- SPLIT UNKNOWN Mixed revenue sources
- SOURCE UNKNOWN Revenue source not documented
For how we grade the amount itself, see how we verify AI income claims. To compare ranked cases, see the evidence ranking.