StatsDrone: an affiliate stats tool for iGaming affiliates at $20K a month

StatsDrone sells an affiliate stats data aggregator to iGaming affiliates, affiliate networks and agencies, and was running at $20K a month in revenue as reported by its founder in a November 2022 interview.

How StatsDrone started

John Wright graduated with a mechanical engineering degree focused on robotics and AI, and came into iGaming sideways. A friend kept trying to recruit him for a card-counting team; he ignored the pitch for two years until the friend showed up with a new BMW M3 roadster and had moved on to online casinos. Wright tried it, stayed in the industry, and over the following years ran affiliate programs, built affiliate websites, did SEO consulting, and taught himself website design, conversion rate optimisation and UX.

The product came out of that accumulation. He had worn nearly every hat in affiliate marketing and knew certain problems existed in the market without anyone articulating them clearly enough for the solution to look obvious. He decided software was where he belonged rather than running affiliate sites, and started StatsDrone with a business partner in December 2017. The company is based in Montreal.

The first decision was wrong in an instructive way. Wright built a desktop application because he assumed customers would not trust a cloud app:

"The first version of the app was a desktop one and I picked that over the cloud as I thought and assumed that customers wouldn't trust a cloud app."

That version was later scrapped. It took too long to process data, and he knew customers would not accept it. The app was rebuilt, and at the time of the interview Wright described it as still being in MVP mode, with a full redesign and a stronger emphasis on user experience about to start. He says he made "every mistake that you could make" in the first two years of building. He also declined to share what the build cost in money or hours, saying only that both were immense, so there is no published starting-cost figure for this business.

What it sells and how it charges

Per the official site as fetched on 2026-09-30, StatsDrone is a cloud-based affiliate stats data aggregator: it collects affiliate stats and revenue data and services iGaming affiliate programs and affiliate networks, with support for over 2,174 affiliate programs. Accounts connect three ways — credentials (username and password), API, or CSV upload.

Integrations listed on the homepage cover BigQuery, Amazon Web Services, Tableau and Google Looker Studio, plus dynamic variables for click ID level tracking and postbacks for real-time sales and FTD data. The site also lists postback support as enterprise and custom only, with geo reports and player reports not available on Starter.

Pricing is published and tiered:

Plan	Price	What's stated
Freemium	free	6 months historical data, daily synchronisation, up to 30 accounts
Starter	$99.00 USD/mo	50 accounts included in base, additional accounts $1/account/month, 1 year historic data included
Growth	$149.00 USD/mo	50 accounts included in base, additional accounts $1/account/month

A 14-day free trial runs without a credit card, and yearly billing is listed as saving 15%. Advanced features are gated: postbacks are enterprise and custom only, while geo reports and player reports are not available on Starter.

How it got customers, and what kept growth going

The interview does not describe a first-customer acquisition story; what it describes is the channel that was working at the time. That channel is video. Wright started making video pitches for investors instead of sending a pitch deck by email, the feedback was positive enough that he carried the format into marketing, and it became the company's main acquisition and retention tool.

"I'm a big believer in content marketing, SEO, and also using video. YouTube is a massive search engine not to be overlooked."

The mechanics are plain. The team does keyword research to see what affiliates and potential affiliates search for, and publishes there. Wright's view is that competitors in the space are not doing much on YouTube, so the inspiration comes from SEOs who use the platform to acquire customers. He does not claim a secret sauce beyond the observation that B2B content aimed at affiliates faces less competition, on YouTube as much as in blog form. He also believes a YouTube video converts better than the same content as a blog post — his assessment, not a measured result.

Retention uses the same format. When a customer needs help with something, Wright records a video showing the change rather than typing out an explanation. His wider point on growth is about feedback: find other entrepreneurs who will give real criticism, and be willing to hear uncomfortable things.

The numbers

Metric	Figure	Basis
Revenue	$20K a month	Founder-reported, interview dated 2022-11-25; Wright described it as "close to $20k MRR"
Founders	2	At interview
Employees	12	At interview
Started	December 2017	Interview
Based in	Montreal	Interview
Model	Subscriptions (SaaS & memberships)	1M.chat categorisation
Start cost	Not disclosed	Founder declined to share hours and costs

These are point-in-time figures from one interview. They are not current revenue, and the interview is the only place they come from.

How it compares with other Software & SaaS cases on 1M.chat

The benchmarks below come from 1M.chat's analysis of founder-reported cases: 1,997 businesses with founder-reported revenue in Starter Story interviews from 2015 to 2026. It is a self-selected sample of founders who chose to be interviewed, not a random sample of all businesses, and the figures are founder-reported rather than audited.

Software & SaaS category benchmark	Value
Businesses in category with founder-reported revenue	354
Median monthly revenue	$40K
Share at $1M a year or more	35%
Median employees	4.0
Share started by one founder	45%
Top growth channels	Organic social media 55%; SEO & organic search 54%; word of mouth & referrals 31%; paid ads 31% (of the 244 businesses with channel information)

Two things stand out when StatsDrone is placed next to those medians. Its $20K a month, reported in November 2022, sits below the $40K category median — though the median is drawn from interviews across 2015–2026, so the two are not measured on the same basis or at the same moment. Its team was larger than the median: 12 employees and two founders against a category median of 4.0 employees and a 45% share of businesses started by a single founder.

On channels, Wright's emphasis on SEO and video overlaps with the two most common ones in the category, SEO and organic search at 54% and organic social media at 55%. He did not cite paid ads or referrals as the main driver.

What a founder can take from this

Build in a market you have already worked in. Wright's product came after years of running affiliate programs, building affiliate sites and doing SEO consulting. The problems he solved were ones he had met as an operator, which is a cheaper way to find a product than research alone.

Commit to one content format long enough to compound. Video was used for investor pitches, acquisition and customer support. Wright's reasoning is not that video is magic, but that B2B content for affiliates faces less competition, so consistent output meets less resistance.

Be willing to throw away the first version. The desktop build was scrapped over data processing speed, and the current product was a revamp. Wright describes the rebuild as a painful realisation rather than a plan.

Choose your funding path deliberately, and know what it costs. StatsDrone was bootstrapped to the $20K a month figure and was mid-investment-round at the time of the interview. Wright describes raising as hard work that tests commitment, and recommends it only if it moves the business to the next level.

Expect gaps in the public record. Start costs, hours and current revenue are not published here. Any comparison you make with this case should carry the date and the basis, because that is all the source supports.

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