Why is there free queue app in 2026?

In 2025, I made a queue app because I saw that customers in some places were really disorganized. I thought making the app and selling it to those businesses would solve their problem and make me some money. I was also unemployed at the time, so I figured, why not?

At that time, AI-assisted coding already existed. It was okay, but I was still used to my old, traditional way of coding, so I wrote most of my code by hand with minimal AI assistance. I even created a Stripe account, thinking I could probably charge customers $5 a month, considering it costs almost nothing to run. Actually, it does cost nothing as long as I stay under the free tier.

Soon the app was finished, and I had absolutely ZERO idea how to sell it. I thought maybe I should let people who can sell it do the work and give them a permanent share of the profit. I met two people, but eventually, we lost touch and the project fell through.

Lessons Learned

One lesson I learned as an entrepreneur is that I need to rely on myself for everything. The reason is that the product isn’t "their baby"; they don’t care as much as I do, and they don’t have the same passion. It’s natural that they can’t do groundbreaking work if they aren't invested. I need to establish the foundation myself, create a working pattern, and then hire someone else to follow that pattern.

At that time, I was very bad at communication and selling. I can’t say I’m "good" now, but back then, I was terrible. I knew selling wasn’t my strength, so I let the app collect dust. Later on, I learned a few tricks on how to pass interviews and put some effort into communication, and I eventually found a job.

Bringing it Back to Life

Recently, I saw this app sitting in my folder and wondered: why not just put it on the internet? I’ve already made it. I can also make it 100% free, forever!

• There are services for hosting websites for free, like Vercel (you’d know it if you are a developer), and there are free databases with cool features(Firebase). Even if it exceeds the free tier one day, I don’t mind paying a little money to keep it running.
• I see this as a fun game—like a software company simulation—but I’m actually providing software and getting "fun" as my payment.

I realized I could also use this to see how good AI is now. I am a developer, but I don't actually use much AI in my workplace, so I asked Cursor to remove all the payment features. It removed all the payment-related stuff perfectly. It also did a pretty good job on some other changes. AI is a lot better than last year!

This makes me think about how cheap common software can be nowadays, such as web applications and iOS apps. We can use AI to write code, free compute to run the code, and free storage to store the data. What’s important and rare these days is the effective idea, true insight, and good decisions. The value is in the ownership of the resources that allow the software to amplify its impact—like a restaurant that actually uses the tool to become more efficient.

More Thoughts

There are so many queue apps; some are free, and some are paid. I know a company in Calgary called WaitWell that made one (I learned this after I had already implemented mine, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered). For their starter tier at $29/month, as of April 15, 2026, you can send 100 SMS messages.

Suppose they use AWS SMS; that cost is approximately:(0.02183+0.005)×100=$2.683

If they engineer it well, other costs like servers and databases can easily be cut down. Even if their cost is $10 for that $29 plan, that is still not much for the software itself. The rest of the price goes into marketing, sales, CEO's salary, utilities fees, and office space rental.

The point I want to make is that software is cheap. When you buy a software product, only a very small fraction of what you pay is for the software itself. Before, you had to bundle the product with the company's overhead. But now with AI, you can just "buy" software by making it, and you own it.

Of course, this isn’t for all software. I’m specifically referring to low-tech software made by small teams: WaitWell is a perfect one, (I'm sorry😢!) note-taking apps, or any CRUD (Create/Read/Update/Delete) software like inventory management or CRM tools. If you don't mind learning using API, you’re likely capable of creating some “high-tech” software by integrating various APIs into it.

For example, I wanted an expense tracking app. I looked for one, but I couldn't stand the learning curve, I don't want to see any extra button other than for the expense tracking, I didn't want to pay, and I didn't want them to store my financial data. So, I spent a few hours making one for myself and my wife with iPhone Shortcut integration. When I "Tap to Pay," it automatically tracks the expense. I also built my own CMS for my blog because existing ones were too complicated for my use case. This site is built with my CMS, which features all the modern bells and whistles in just around 300 lines of code.

The New Reality

What is really happening now is that the Zero Marginal Cost model that used to work for low-tech software isn’t going to work anymore. Companies used to need to sell many copies to reach that point, but now, software is already zero cost. No one can sell it for a premium because it’s zero cost for the customers to replicate, too.

Yes, that’s an aggressive statement, and it won't just happen overnight. It is based on a unrealistic assumption that people are aware of the current status of software development, and there is no information asymmetry, people will choose the best path for themselves.

If you can find a good developer, these points are true for you. This is why I want to publish this software for free, because there's no reason to be not free. If you don’t like it, you can make another one for free, so I have no reason to charge you. I just hope someone uses it; that makes me happy because it means the work has some value at least.

Please let me know if you need more features. I solve problems for fun! I can't provide features like SMS services for you since those rely on external paid services, but I can give you a copy of this software to use with your own SMS provider. That way, you can pay just $2 a month rather than $29! However, if you need accountability, not reliability, I mean accountability, you should go for $29.

You actually want a copy? You can found my contact on about page.