Tally is a form builder from Ghent, Belgium, founded in 2020 by Marie Martens and Filip Minev. It offers a free plan and paid Pro and Business tiers.
Tally is a bootstrapped form builder from Ghent, Belgium. It gives away unlimited forms and submissions for free, and charges for a single Pro tier, later joined by a Business tier. Free forms carry a 'Made with Tally' badge, so the people who fill out forms see the product. For about five years growth came mainly from that badge, word of mouth and organic search, with little paid spend. Around 2025–2026 AI assistants such as ChatGPT became its largest acquisition channel. Tally reported over $6M ARR and 2.5 million users in September 2026 without raising VC money.
The free plan sets the cycle in motion. Because forms and submissions are unlimited at no cost, many people publish forms. Each free form shows a 'Made with Tally' badge to its respondents, and Tally says most people discover it by filling out a form. Some respondents sign up and create forms of their own. Tally has put the share of free users who upgrade to Pro at about 1–3%, and that revenue funds the company. Word of mouth, personal support, comparison pages and organic search add to this loop. Tally attributes its later AI referrals to years of presence in forums, Reddit and user-generated content, which suggests the earlier organic activity fed the newer channel.
Strong inferenceMarie Martens and Filip Minev first ran Hotspot, a platform connecting hotels with travel influencers, started in June 2019. The founders have said Hotspot lost half its clients to COVID-19 by July 2020, and in August 2020 they decided to pivot to Tally. The idea came from their own frustration: Google Forms looked unattractive, and Typeform, Jotform and Formstack put features behind paywalls quickly. They started without funding or a five-year plan, aiming for a sustainable lifestyle business. Filip handled the code and Marie handled marketing.
The first users were makers, indie hackers, no-coders and startup founders. Marie manually messaged hundreds of people, by one account over 1,000, who had engaged with similar products on Product Hunt and Twitter. The few who replied became the first users and gave feedback. Everyone they talked to was invited into a Slack channel, which grew to about 400 people by late 2020. The founders also answered questions in no-code communities, Reddit and Indie Hackers, offered instant support and shipped features weekly. Tally had about 300 users after its first two to three months and ended 2020 with about 1,500. The March 2021 Product Hunt launch roughly doubled that to 3,000.
| October 2020 | $64 | |
| December 2020 | $138 | |
| summer 2021 | $2.4K | |
| March 2021 | $1K | |
| April 2021 | €1K | |
| October 2021 | $5K | |
| December 2021 | $8K | |
| end of 2021 | $8.5K | |
| February 2022 | $10K | |
| June 2022 | $21K | |
| October 2022 | $30K | |
| May 2023 | $60K | |
| September 2023 | $75K | |
| February 2024 | $100K | |
| October 2024 | $150K | |
| November 2024 | $150K | |
| February 2025 | $175K | |
| June 2025 | $258K | |
| October 2025 | $338K | |
| January 2026 | $358K |
| October 2020 | 184 users | |
| December 2020 | 750 users | |
| end of 2020 | 1.5K users | |
| summer 2021 | 8K users | |
| April 2021 | 4K users | |
| April 2021 | 3.5K users | |
| September 2021 | 10K users | |
| October 2021 | 11K users | |
| end of 2021 | 17K users | |
| February 2022 | 20K users | |
| June 2022 | 37K users | |
| October 2022 | 50K users | |
| September 2023 | 140K users | |
| February 2024 | 250K users | |
| October 2024 | 400K users | |
| Jan 2026 | 1M users | |
| September 2026 | 2.5M users |
| November 2020 | $119 | |
| April 2026 | $422K |
| November 2020 | 344 users |
| Mar 2021 | 1.4K upvotes |
| Mar 2021 | 695 upvotes |
| summer 2021 | 100 customers | |
| October 2021 | 200 customers | |
| June 2022 | 775 customers |
| Aug 2021 | 59% | |
| Sep 2021 | 57% |
| end of 2021 | 25K forms |
| end of 2021 | 1M submissions |
| Sep 19, 2023 | 766 signups |
| Sep 2023 | 2.3K signups/week | |
| Sep 2023 | 4.4K signups/week |
| February 2025 | $2M | |
| June 2025 | $3M | |
| October 2025 | $4M | |
| April 2026 | $5M | |
| September 2026 | $6M |
| March 2025 | $2M |
| end of 2025 | 12K customers |
| August 2026 | 767K calls/month |
| today (2026) | 43% |
| Date unknown | 66 score |
Free forms carry a badge that exposes respondents to Tally. Some respondents sign up and a share upgrade.
How it works: Product usage creates exposure, which leads to signups, which create more forms.
Happy users share Tally on Twitter and with friends.
How it works: A free, high-quality product plus personal support turns users into advocates.
Search traffic, including comparison pages, brings signups.
How it works: Content and comparison pages capture form-builder search intent.
ChatGPT and other AI assistants recommend Tally, and AI connectors drive usage.
How it works: Years of authentic presence online lead AI assistants to cite and recommend Tally.
Give away unlimited forms and responses and nearly all features. Charge only for a single Pro tier.
Sep 2020: Offered unlimited forms and responses with 99% of features free, and Pro at $29/month.
Put a 'Made with Tally' badge on free users' forms. Removing it is a paid feature.
Since day one: Free forms show the badge; branding removal is part of Pro. Tally experimented with the badge design. The badge brings about 10% of new users per one source and is called the most important lead source in another.
Personally message makers who engaged with comparable products on Product Hunt and Twitter/X, asking for feedback.
2020: Reached out to hundreds of prospects (1,000+ per a secondary source) to get first users.
Let visitors build a form without creating an account until they publish it.
Date unknown: Tally's editor works without an account.
Share metrics, highs and lows openly on Twitter, Indie Hackers, Reddit and the blog.
Since day one: Posted first steps on Indie Hackers, ran milestone blog posts and published its revenue forecast template.
Launch on Product Hunt after warming up users, then relaunch a major version later.
March 2021: March 2021 launch, prepared with no-code tools and templates. It finished #4 per Tally (#5 per a secondary source).
Sept 2023: Tally 2.0 launch, also promoted via social media and the newsletter.
Publish pages comparing the product with the main incumbents, plus an interactive comparison tool built with the product itself.
Date unknown: Comparison pages against Typeform and Google Forms, which saw increased visits, plus an interactive comparison built with Tally.
Track citations by large language models (LLMs) and keep comparison pages current so AI assistants recommend the product.
2025–2026: Invested in AEO and SEO without paying for the AI channel.
Founders personally answer every user question quickly across Slack, email and Twitter.
Date unknown: Founders handled support for 3 years and answered within the day. Tally later set a target of under 4 hours for first response.
Ask users how disappointed they would be without the product.
Aug 2021: Ran the survey in August 2021. One claim reports 59% 'very disappointed'; another reports 57% of 115 responses.
Ship an MCP server, public API and connectors for ChatGPT, Claude and others.
2025–2026: Released an MCP server in beta and later official ChatGPT, Claude and Superhuman Go connectors.
The founders cold-messaged hundreds of makers found on Product Hunt and Twitter. They also joined Slack groups, Reddit and forums to ask for feedback, and invited early users into a Slack channel. They offered instant support and shipped weekly.
Growth came from a generous free tier, the 'Made with Tally' badge, word of mouth, SEO and comparison pages, with no paid spend. From early 2023 to early 2025 Tally mostly shipped free features.
Tally launched on Product Hunt in March 2021. It shared its journey on Twitter, Indie Hackers and Reddit, which it calls its main marketing channel. It also leaned on no-code communities, newsletters and podcasts.
Tally relaunched as Tally 2.0 on Product Hunt, promoted alongside social media and its newsletter.
In 2024 Tally tested YouTube influencer partnerships. In 2025 it ran its first search ads and launched a referral program. It also shifted to shipping highly requested Pro and customization features.
Tally invested in answer-engine and search optimization (AEO/SEO) and tracked citations by large language models (LLMs). It released an MCP server, public API and AI connectors. AI search became its biggest acquisition channel.
For 2026 Tally dropped revenue goals in favor of NPS and user feedback. It rules out enterprise plans, sales calls, partnerships and big launches.
The founders have said COVID cost their first startup, Hotspot, half its clients. In August 2020 they pivoted to build Tally, with no funding and no five-year plan. The MVP was shown to friends and family in August 2020 and released as a beta in September 2020.
Tally Pro was introduced in October 2020. The founders say Tally has been cash-flow positive from the start. For about two years Marie and Filip ran it alone as a profitable, bootstrapped business funded by subscriptions. MRR rose from $64 in October 2020 to $30K in October 2022.
In 2023 Tally made its first hires, starting with customer success. Tally has said its 2023 engineering hires did not bring the outcome it wanted, and it later reduced the engineering team. By the Tally 2.0 launch in September 2023 it was a team of five. It reached $100K MRR in February 2024; that source gives a team of 3 and over 250,000 users. Tally moved into its first office in 2024.
Sources give $2M ARR in February 2025 ($175K MRR) and March 2025 (secondary); both dates are kept. Tally reached $3M ARR in June 2025, $4M ARR in October 2025, $5M ARR in April 2026 and $6M ARR with 2.5 million users in September 2026. It never raised VC and has no external shareholders. Reported team sizes vary across sources: 10, 11, and 4 full-time plus 4 or 5 part-time.
In a market already held by Google Forms, Typeform and Jotform, Tally competed mainly on price structure rather than features. It gave away unlimited forms, responses and about 99% of features. It paired this with a Notion-style editor where building a form works like typing in a document. It also let people build a form before creating an account. It kept a single Pro tier, built in public, and kept the team small for years. Later, it treated AI assistants as a distribution surface: it shipped an MCP server, a public API and ChatGPT and Claude connectors, and it tracked how often LLMs cited it.
Moderate inference