u/Lainteligencia — reddlx

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a micro-project I launched in January that's now monetized — not life-changing money yet, but it's a real experiment in passive income.

The idea: I work in international finance and constantly needed to translate Excel formulas between languages (think VLOOKUP in English → BUSCARV in Spanish). No clean tool existed, so I built one.

The execution:

Used AI coding tools (Replit) to build it — I have some coding interest but you don't need to be a developer
Total upfront cost: ~€7/month for hosting (VPS), ~$25 in AI credits
Time invested: maybe 20-30 hours spread over 2 weeks to build + optimize SEO
Launched mid-January 2026

The results so far:

Google indexed it within 15 days
AdSense approved on first try (late March)
Traffic is still low — a few clicks/day — mostly because Google's AI summaries now answer a lot of Excel queries directly
Revenue: can't share exact numbers (against AdSense policy), but it's in "coffee money" territory for now

Why I think it worked:

Low competition niche (Excel formula translation)
Dedicated pages for each function across multiple languages
Solid legal foundation (privacy policy, terms)
Fast site performance (though mobile could be better)

The reality check: This isn't a "quit your job" play. It's a test to see if utility sites can still generate meaningful passive income in 2026, despite:

Google's AI overviews eating search traffic
AdSense becoming much harder to get approved for
Saturation of simple tool sites

I'm giving it a year to iterate and see what sticks. The goal is to learn what actually moves the needle on traffic and revenue.

The site: https://www.theexceltranslator.com

I'm documenting the full journey (traffic, revenue trends, what works/doesn't) on my Substack if you want to follow along.

Happy to answer questions or hear from anyone who's tried something similar in the utility/productivity space!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share my experience with AdSense — the good, the not-so-good, and what I learned along the way.

Back in January 2026, I built a tool I genuinely needed for my own job. Working in an international environment, I constantly had to translate Excel formulas from one language to another — and there was no clean, simple way to do it.

I dreamed of a two-panel translator, like Google Translate or DeepL, but for Excel formulas. So I built it. I mostly vibe-coded it using Replit, though since I have a genuine interest in programming, I wrote a few parts myself whenever I ran out of credits 😜

A lot of attention went into SEO logic and language routing, initially targeting English, French, and German audiences. I've since added Spanish and Portuguese.

Google considered the content useful and accepted me into the AdSense program on the first attempt, in late March. Honestly, I didn't expect that.

Traffic is still relatively low — just a few clicks a day. The main challenge is Google's AI-generated summaries, which now answer a good chunk of Excel formula searches directly, reducing the incentive to click through. I'll need to find ways to create more value and give people a reason to visit.

I'm giving myself a year to iterate, experiment, and see if something clicks. In my (admittedly subjective) view, here's why I got accepted on the first try:

Moderate competition in the Excel formula translation niche
Dedicated pages for each function, with translations across multiple languages
A complete legal section (privacy policy, terms of use)
Some performance work done on page speed — though mobile is still a bit slow

I'm continuously improving the site and fixing small issues. Now it's about watching the traffic, and understanding what moves the needle. I'm documenting the whole journey on Substack (in French, though I believe Substack offers automatic translation).

The site: 👉 https://www.theexceltranslator.com

The substack: 👉 https://substack.com/@franzkubach

Happy to hear from anyone who has tried something similar in the productivity/office tools space — and of course, any improvement ideas are very welcome! 🙂