The vibe coding SaaS hype is approaching its peak in the next 6 to 12 months.
Not because co-pilot apps or LLM support will disappear, but the current curves are outright wrong, and don’t track the actuals of a long-term MRR/ARR business plan whatsoever.
Jason M. Lemkin‘s Replit journey burning hundreds of dollars in trying to get a B2B app running, only to have Replit delete its production database, made the news everywhere.
Harry Stebbings pointed at the Windsurf ARR drop from $100M to $82M in just 90 days.
Commoditization in the space is through the roof – and due to novelty and affordable “dip your toes” cost, millions of users subscribe to 4-10 solutions for a few months to tinker with them and follow a long.
But you don’t need licenses for all LLMs at all times, and v0, Replit, Lovable, Bolt, and a handful more. Most users want to get a dashboard or two running, or productize something, and see how much friction there is in the process.
Even if they get to the finish line, the cost isn’t what was advertised, nor was the effort – and long-term license fees are hardly justified.
We’ll see two of these players lasting longer, maybe getting acquired, but don’t expect this revenue curve to last.
