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BetterPic: turning selfies into AI headshots at $20K a month
BetterPic sells AI-generated professional headshots made from selfies to busy professionals and job seekers, and its monthly revenue was $20K, founder-reported in August 2024 in a Starter Story founder interview.
The founder’s account points to organic search as the main named channel, paired with a rise in website conversion. In the July 2024 performance account, worldwide conversion had reached 1.8% from 0,68% when the partnership began, while the key market was at 5%.
How it started
Miguel Rasero’s account begins with an experiment involving an AI tool that generated fantasy-style selfies. He saw an opening for a professional profile-picture product and used Google Trends to gauge demand before developing that idea into BetterPic.
The first model results were poor, but the reaction they produced from Miguel’s grandfather gave the founders their early “wow factor.” The story is therefore less about an instant technical breakthrough than about finding a use that could deliver a clear emotional reaction.
Ricardo Ghekiere said in the August 2024 interview that BetterPic was averaging around $1,500 per month when he acquired the business. Ricardo and Miguel then partnered to grow it, with profitable long-term growth through organic marketing becoming an explicit operating focus.
What it sells and how it charges
All website details in this section come from the official pages fetched on September 30, 2026. The official website says BetterPic turns selfies into 4K professional headshots in less than 1 hour. It presents 150+ styles, offers customization with AI or human editors, and addresses both individual and team customers.
The pricing page organizes the offer into packages. Basic includes 20 4K headshots in one style, while Pro includes 60 4K headshots in three styles. Both packages list AI edits and a commercial license.
BetterPic also has a Studio upsell for additional credits. In the founder’s July 2024 performance summary, 5% of users bought extra Studio credits, compared with 3% in the previous month.
The homepage advertises a 100% money-back guarantee. The pricing page separately lists a 7-day refund and says a redo may be offered when customers followed the upload guide but remain dissatisfied with the results.
How it got its first customers and what kept growth going
BetterPic’s documented customer-growth account centers on organic search. Ricardo described the average order value as around $35 in the August 2024 interview and explained the early channel decision:
“we had to decide to get into the organic marketing (SEO) game early on to drive profitable growth in the long term”
Apoorv from Saasmic led the effort to increase BetterPic’s organic keywords month over month. By the August 2024 interview, the founder reported that the search term “studio AI headshots” had moved from position 43 to position 8 on Google.
The search work was not a straight line. BetterPic had been ranking for “AI headshot generator” in April 2024, lost that ranking in May, and returned at position 25 in June 2024. The founder said monthly organic revenue was increasing as the broader SEO effort continued, although progress came alongside ranking setbacks.
The conversion figures add context to that search growth. The July 2024 account reported worldwide website conversion at 1.8%, up from 0,68% when the partnership began, with the key market at 5%. Organic visibility and website conversion therefore appear together in the founder’s growth account, rather than traffic volume alone.
The numbers
The founder’s July 2024 performance summary, published in the August 20, 2024 interview, provides the clearest dated breakdown.
| Measure | Founder-reported result |
|---|---|
| Gross revenue | $20,016 in July 2024, compared with $10,555 in the previous month |
| Profitability | +$3680 in July 2024, the first profitable month excluding salaries |
| NPS | 3,11 in July 2024, up from 2.9 in the previous month |
| Refund rate | 6,78% in July 2024, down from 7,69% in the previous month |
| Studio credit upsells | 5% of users in July 2024, compared with 3% in the previous month |
The detailed $20,016 figure is gross revenue for July 2024. The $20K headline is a founder-reported monthly revenue claim from the August 2024 interview. Neither figure should be presented as BetterPic’s current revenue.
How it compares
According to 1M.chat’s analysis of 1,997 businesses with founder-reported revenue in Starter Story interviews from 2015 through 2026, the AI tools & apps category contained 84 businesses with founder-reported revenue. The sample is self-selected: it represents founders who chose to be interviewed, not a random sample of all AI businesses.
BetterPic’s $20K monthly figure was above the category median of $16.5K. That makes the case worth examining, but it does not establish a precise revenue ranking or current performance. BetterPic’s detailed figure is gross revenue for a specific month, while the category median summarizes founder-reported monthly revenue across the analysis.
Within the same category, 26% of businesses were at $1M a year or more, and 42% were started by one founder, according to 1M.chat’s analysis.
Channel information was available for 40 of the category’s businesses. Their reported channel mix was:
| Channel | Share of businesses with channel information |
|---|---|
| Organic social media | 60% |
| SEO & organic search | 60% |
| Partnerships & affiliates | 35% |
| Launch platforms | 32% |
BetterPic’s named focus on organic search matches one of the two most common channel entries in that subset. The comparison is descriptive rather than causal: it shows that SEO was common among the interviewed category cases, while BetterPic’s own interview supplies the account of what happened inside this business.
What a founder can take from it
- You can define the transformation in one sentence. BetterPic’s offer is specific: it turns selfies into professional headshots for busy professionals and job seekers. A narrow input and output makes the product easier to evaluate than a general image-generation proposition.
- You can measure conversion alongside search visibility. BetterPic reported both organic keyword movement and changes in website conversion. Ranking alone does not show whether a visit becomes a purchase.
- You can use a compact operating scorecard. The July 2024 figures covered gross revenue, profitability excluding salaries, NPS, refunds, and Studio upsells rather than presenting revenue as the only measure of progress.
- You can treat an upsell as a separate test. BetterPic’s Studio credits were bought by 5% of users in the reported month. That makes the add-on visible without requiring it to carry the entire business.
- You should attach a date and basis to every revenue claim. BetterPic’s case shows why: the headline monthly figure and the detailed gross-revenue figure describe a historical period, not a current run rate.
Sources
Revenue, team and start-cost figures are what the founder reported at the interview date, not current figures and not a prediction of what you will earn. Product and pricing facts come from the business's own website as checked on 30 September 2026. Method & sources · Disclosure