Single-page sites printing cash in fun niches

4 wild examples

Author

Ian H
February 12, 2025

We all love boring online business models that are highly profitable.

But what about fun businesses that are highly profitable?

I fired up Site Stats Database and found a bunch to share with you.

By the way, I’m removing the Site Stats Database lifetime plan in 24 hours. Grab it here before it’s too late!

In case you’re not aware, Site Stats Database is a goldmine for finding successful sites like the ones I’m about to share. It includes lots of useful metrics for each site, like traffic, DA, age, monetization method, niche, and more.

The fun sites printing cash

A simple site where you can play the NYT Connections game an unlimited number of times. Monetized with ads, as you can see.

This site was started in June 2023.

By March 2024, it reached 1,000,000 monthly organic visitors. Wild.

Ahrefs estimates it currently gets over 300,000 monthly visitors. SimilarWeb estimates 541,000/mo.

Whatever the case, this site gets tons of traffic and likely earns between $5,000 and $10,000 per month. Quite possibly more, since the traffic is primarily from the US, and the demographic that plays NYT games are generally on the older/wealthier side. So who knows, revenue could be $20K/mo!

This site links to a bunch of other online game websites. Many of which are also printing cash.

Strands is another popular NYT game. This site capitalized on the popularity and made an unlimited play version, which attracts 60,000 monthly visitors according to SimilarWeb.

I would guess monthly earnings are $1,000+.

This one is crazy.

2.7 MILLION monthly visitors according to SimilarWeb, with an average visit duration of nearly 7 minutes.

The ad revenue for this one is likely $15,000-$30,000 per month. Quite possibly higher, as again, the demographic that plays this game is older/wealthier.

I did some research to find other spelling bee sites, and only found a few. It’s definitely not an oversaturated niche (yet lol).

One of the few other sites is SpellsBee .com, which gets 1.9 million visitors/mo. Obviously, there’s plenty of traffic to go around.

In my digging, I found another interesting site called SBSolver.com. It gives hints and answers for the NYT Spelling Bee game, and it gets a whopping 3.3 million monthly visitors.

This site likely earns anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 per month. Crazy!

Moving on, here’s another simple game site doing ridiculous numbers:

It’s a simple country flag guessing game, and it gets 2.3 million monthly visitors (mostly direct traffic):

There are lots of other Flagle game sites, also with sizeable traffic numbers. For instance:

These sites aren’t hard to make

Even if you don’t know how to code, you can build similar sites in an afternoon with the help of AI.

I’m living proof.

Before writing this newsletter, I spent about 15 minutes building a site similar to Connections Unlimited.

I used ChatGPT and Lovable.dev.

The first step was to describe what I wanted to build to ChatGPT, and ask for a thorough PRD (product requirements document) that I could feed to Lovable to cut down on the back-and-forth.

This was my prompt to ChatGPT: 

I want to use AI to code a connections game (like NYT Connections). It should be a simple website where users can play connections an unlimited amount of times. It should be interactive, beautifully designed, and should show feedback (like incorrect guesses, number of guess remaining, final score, etc. There should be buttons to start over, start a new game, clear selections, and so on. It should be fully-featured and thorough. There should be a description of how to play the game underneath the gameplay area. Please create a detailed PRD for an AI coding tool to follow in order to build this.

I had to ask it to refine the PRD a bit, because it ended up giving me instructions on what to say to Lovable, rather than giving a prompt I could copy and paste right into Lovable.

Once I had the PRD, I pasted it into Lovable. Here’s the exact PRD I used (from ChatGPT): 

Please build a Connections web application with the following requirements:

1. Overall Description
Name of Application: “Connections Infinity”

Game Objective:

Present users with a 4×4 grid of 16 words. These 16 words are divided into 4 themed groups (4 words per group).
Players select 4 words at a time. If those words match a themed group, the game reveals the theme/title (e.g., “DUMBBELL EXERCISES”) and marks those words as found.
The user must find all 4 themed groups (4 × 4 words) before running out of allowed mistakes.
Primary Features:

Unlimited Gameplay: Users can play endlessly with no daily cap.
Visual Feedback:
Show correct/incorrect guess notifications,
Indicate mistakes remaining,
Display completion time or final results.
Control Buttons:
Start Over (reset the same puzzle),
New Game (load a different puzzle),
Clear Selection (clear currently highlighted words),
Submit Guess (check the current selection of 4 words).
Instructions: Provide a “How to Play” section explaining the rules.
2. Puzzle Data & Database
Required: 10 Puzzle Sets
Store these puzzle sets in a JSON file (or database) for the AI-coded application to load.
Each puzzle has:
A unique puzzle ID (integer),
4 categories, each with:
A theme (e.g., “OCEAN PHENOMENA”)
An array of exactly 4 words (e.g., ["CURRENT", "DRIFT", "TIDE", "WAVE"])
Below are 10 sample puzzles to ship with the final application:

json
Copy
Edit
[
  {
    "puzzleId": 1,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "DUMBBELL EXERCISES",
        "words": ["CURL", "FLY", "PRESS", "ROW"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "OCEAN PHENOMENA",
        "words": ["CURRENT", "DRIFT", "TIDE", "WAVE"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "DON’T DELAY!",
        "words": ["HURRY", "NOW", "PRONTO", "STAT"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "PHILOSOPHER HOMOPHONES",
        "words": ["LOCK", "MARKS", "PANE", "RUSTLE"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 2,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "SHAKESPEARE PLAYS",
        "words": ["MACBETH", "HAMLET", "OTHELLO", "LEAR"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "ANIMAL SOUNDS",
        "words": ["NEIGH", "BARK", "ROAR", "HISS"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "FOUR-LETTER COUNTRIES",
        "words": ["CHAD", "FIJI", "IRAN", "MALI"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BREAKFAST FOODS",
        "words": ["TOAST", "BACON", "EGGS", "GRITS"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 3,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "PLANETS",
        "words": ["MERCURY", "VENUS", "MARS", "SATURN"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "CARDINAL DIRECTIONS",
        "words": ["NORTH", "SOUTH", "EAST", "WEST"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "FAMOUS INVENTORS",
        "words": ["EDISON", "BELL", "TESLA", "VOLTA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BASIC COLORS",
        "words": ["RED", "BLUE", "YELLOW", "GREEN"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 4,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "BASKETBALL LEGENDS",
        "words": ["JORDAN", "BRYANT", "BIRD", "MAGIC"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "FRUITS",
        "words": ["APPLE", "MANGO", "PEACH", "GRAPE"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "DISNEY PRINCESSES",
        "words": ["ARIEL", "BELLE", "JASMINE", "TIANA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "COMPUTER PARTS",
        "words": ["CPU", "GPU", "RAM", "SSD"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 5,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "WINTER OLYMPIC SPORTS",
        "words": ["BIATHLON", "BOBSLEIGH", "CURLING", "LUGE"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "AFRICAN CAPITALS",
        "words": ["CAIRO", "DAKAR", "NAIROBI", "RABAT"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "CHEMICAL STATES",
        "words": ["SOLID", "LIQUID", "GAS", "PLASMA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BASIC MATH OPERATIONS",
        "words": ["ADD", "SUBTRACT", "MULTIPLY", "DIVIDE"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 6,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "US STATES STARTING WITH 'M'",
        "words": ["MAINE", "MARYLAND", "MICHIGAN", "MISSOURI"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BONES OF THE HUMAN BODY",
        "words": ["RADIUS", "FEMUR", "ULNA", "TIBIA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "LITERARY GENRES",
        "words": ["FICTION", "POETRY", "DRAMA", "NONFICTION"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "FLOWER NAMES",
        "words": ["ROSE", "LILY", "TULIP", "DAISY"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 7,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "4-LETTER FIRST NAMES",
        "words": ["ANNA", "EMMA", "NOAH", "LUCY"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BOARD GAMES",
        "words": ["MONOPOLY", "CLUE", "RISK", "CHESS"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "OPERA TITLES",
        "words": ["TOSCA", "CARMEN", "OTELLO", "AIDA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "MUSIC NOTES",
        "words": ["DO", "RE", "MI", "FA"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 8,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "GREEK LETTERS",
        "words": ["ALPHA", "BETA", "DELTA", "OMEGA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "FAMOUS BALLET PRODUCTIONS",
        "words": ["SWAN LAKE", "NUTCRACKER", "GISELLE", "COPPELIA"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BIBLICAL NAMES",
        "words": ["ADAM", "EVE", "MOSES", "NOAH"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "DINOSAURS",
        "words": ["T-REX", "TRICERATOPS", "STEGOSAURUS", "VELOCIRAPTOR"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 9,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "ITALIAN ARTISTS",
        "words": ["DA VINCI", "MICHELANGELO", "RAPHAEL", "DONATELLO"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "NORTH AMERICAN DESERTS",
        "words": ["MOJAVE", "SONORAN", "CHIHUAHUAN", "GREAT BASIN"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "YOGURT BRANDS",
        "words": ["CHOBANI", "DANNON", "YOPLAIT", "FAGE"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "BEATLES SONGS",
        "words": ["HELP", "YESTERDAY", "LET IT BE", "HEY JUDE"]
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "puzzleId": 10,
    "categories": [
      {
        "theme": "COMMON ADVERBS",
        "words": ["QUICKLY", "SLOWLY", "RECENTLY", "RARELY"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "EUROPEAN RIVERS",
        "words": ["DANUBE", "RHINE", "VOLGA", "THAMES"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "MAMMALS",
        "words": ["ELEPHANT", "TIGER", "DOLPHIN", "BAT"]
      },
      {
        "theme": "WINTER HOLIDAYS",
        "words": ["CHRISTMAS", "HANUKKAH", "KWANZAA", "SOLSTICE"]
      }
    ]
  }
]
The AI must ship the final product with these 10 puzzle sets.
The puzzle selection can be random or sequential upon choosing “New Game.”
3. Gameplay Logic & Rules
Grid Display

Shuffle the 16 words in the selected puzzle.
Display them in a 4×4 clickable grid.
Selecting and Guessing

Users select up to 4 words, then hit “Submit Guess.”
If correct, reveal the matched theme (e.g., “OCEAN PHENOMENA”) and mark those 4 words as found.
If incorrect, show an error message, decrement mistakes remaining, and reset the selection.
Mistakes & Feedback

Display the number of mistakes allowed (e.g., 4 or 5).
On each incorrect guess, decrement the mistake count.
When a group is found, show a success message: “You found DUMBBELL EXERCISES!”
Victory/Defeat

Victory: All 4 categories are discovered before running out of mistakes.
Defeat: Mistakes reach zero first; show “Game Over.”
Display final stats: puzzle ID, time taken, mistakes left, etc.
User Controls

Clear Selection: Clears selected words (no penalty).
Start Over: Resets the same puzzle to the initial state.
New Game: Loads a different puzzle from the JSON list.
Instructions Panel

Provide a short “How to Play” explanation (e.g., “Select 4 words that share a theme. If correct, you’ll see the theme displayed!”).
4. UI/UX Specifications
Layout

Header: Game title (“Connections Unlimited”), puzzle ID, timer (optional).
Main Grid: 16 interactive word tiles in a 4×4 layout.
Feedback/Messages: Show correct guess banners, mistake counters, or final results.
Buttons:
Start Over, New Game, Clear Selection, Submit Guess
Instructions: A brief section or pop-up with rules.
Visual Design

Use color-coded panels to display discovered categories.
Animate correct or incorrect guesses (subtle highlight for correct, shake/red for incorrect).
Ensure the design is responsive and works on mobile devices.
5. Implementation Steps
Front-End Setup

Use a framework like React, Vue, or plain JavaScript/HTML/CSS.
Build a 4×4 grid component for the words.
Data Integration

Load the above JSON (10 puzzle sets) into the app.
Provide a “getNewPuzzle” function to fetch a random puzzle object, shuffle the words, and set up state.
Core Logic

Maintain state for:
selectedWords,
foundCategories,
mistakesRemaining,
activePuzzle.
On “Submit Guess,” compare the selected words with the puzzle’s 4 categories.
If a match is found, reveal the category theme and mark those words as solved.
If wrong, show an error message, decrement mistakesRemaining, and clear selectedWords.
UI Feedback & Controls

Implement real-time status text (e.g., “Mistakes remaining: 3”).
On correct group, reveal “(theme) FOUND!” using a color-coded block.
On failure or success, show a modal with final stats.
Testing & Launch

Ensure each puzzle loads, shuffles, and validates correctly.
Check the UI on mobile vs. desktop.
Confirm that “Start Over” and “New Game” work properly.
6. Additional Notes
Scoring & Timer:

Track how fast the user solves each puzzle.
Display a final “Time” or “Score” metric.

I had to make a few refinements in Lovable to fix some bugs. It only took 5 more small prompts.

In the end, I got a working Connections game and it took me about 15 minutes from start to finish.

If you hit the “Edit with lovable” button, you can see my exact prompts and even continue building it where I left off. The main thing it needs is more puzzles.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this to demonstrate how easy it is to build simple game sites like the ones I shared.

I hope this has inspired you! Now go build something!

Thanks for reading,

Ian

P.S. Just a reminder that the lifetime deal for Site Stats Database is going away 24 hours from now. Get access before it’s too late.

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