RoastReel — Business Plan

What we're building

RoastReel is an AI-powered web app where you type in a name and a few (unflattering) details about a friend or family member, pick a celebrity-style voice, and get a short, savage-but-affectionate roast video — delivered like a late-night host and ready to play and share.

Current focus

The MVP is live: a landing page plus a working roast generator, published at the team's site. Visitors enter a name, pick up to three funny traits, choose one of five original comedic voice styles, and hit "Roast them" — RoastReel writes a 6-line roast and plays it aloud with animated captions.

Premium voice tier is LIVE. Roasts speak in real ElevenLabs character voices (Antoni, Arnold, Glinda, Michael, Charlotte — original characters, no celebrity likenesses), with server-side key handling, word-timed captions, disk caching so replays don't re-bill, per-IP rate limiting, and a browser-voice fallback. Verified end-to-end with the owner's API key.

Video export is live — every roast downloads as a 9:16 WebM clip with the voice track, shareable on supporting devices.

Monetization is LIVE (open-launch model, owner decision 2026-08-10). Three Stripe credit packs sell on the site: Single Roast $0.99, Starter 10-pack $4.99, Frequent 30-pack $9.99 — each with a hosted Stripe checkout link. Premium voices stay free for everyone during launch (the growth engine); purchases capture early supporters and fund the road. No sales yet ($0 balance, zero transactions as of 2026-08-10). Decision criteria: when premium usage approaches ~100 roasts/day (≈$10/day ElevenLabs cost), switch to gated credits — that upgrade needs the owner's own Stripe account + API keys for server-side purchase verification.