Why I Sell Source Code Instead of Building SaaS (And Make More Money)

Every developer I talk to wants to build a SaaS. Monthly recurring revenue, passive income, the dream. I tried that. It didn't work for me. What did work? Selling source code. Here's why I switched, and why it might be the better path for solo developers. The SaaS Trap for Solo Developers My first SaaS attempt was a project management app for freelancers. I spent 4 months building it. Beautiful UI, solid backend, proper authentication. Launch day: 3 signups. Month 1: $0 revenue. Month 3: I shut it down. The problem wasn't the product. The problem was everything around it: Server costs ($50/month before a single paying user) Customer support (people expect instant responses for $10/month) Feature requests (everyone wants something different) Churn (users cancel constantly) Infrastructure maintenance (updates, security patches, scaling) As a solo developer, I was spending 70% of my time on non-coding tasks. The Source Code Alternative Then I tried something different. I packaged a SwiftU