10 SaaS Ideas That Will Burn Your Money in 2025 (Trust Me, I've Seen It)

"Hey Kemal, I want to build an AI therapy app. People need affordable mental health support, and AI can provide that 24/7..."

Oh no.

Listen. I need you to sit down for this one. Because what I'm about to tell you isn't just about wasting money - it's about potentially facing wrongful death lawsuits, regulatory investigations, and the kind of legal nightmare that doesn't end with a settlement check.

After six years of building web applications and watching clients chase shiny ideas, I've developed a pretty good nose for doomed projects. So let me save you somewhere between €40,000 and €150,000 - and possibly your entire personal net worth - by walking you through the SaaS ideas that look tempting but are absolute money pits in 2025.

1. AI Therapy Apps (Welcome to Legal Hell)

Here's a fun question: Do you have $10 million in liability insurance?

No? Then you absolutely cannot build an AI therapy app.

In California right now, parents are suing OpenAI because they claim ChatGPT contributed to their teenage son's suicide. Wrongful death. Strict liability. Negligence. Violation of state consumer protection laws. The whole legal buffet.

Character.AI? Multiple families have filed lawsuits alleging their chatbots played a role in deaths or suicide attempts of minors. The complaints describe manipulative behavior, sexually explicit dialogue, and complete failure to provide appropriate mental health warnings.

"But mine will have disclaimers!"

Cool. A coalition of civil society groups filed a complaint in June 2025 alleging that Character.AI and Meta AI Studio are practicing medicine without a license by offering "therapist" chatbots. Your disclaimer doesn't protect you from that.

Let me paint you a picture of what happens when you launch an AI mental health tool:

A vulnerable user interacts with your chatbot. Something goes wrong. Maybe your AI says something that could be interpreted as encouraging self-harm. Maybe it fails to recognize a crisis situation. Maybe it just gives bad advice at exactly the wrong moment.

That user harms themselves.

Now you're facing:

• Wrongful death claims
• Product liability lawsuits
• Defective design allegations
• Failure to warn claims
• Unlicensed practice of medicine charges
• Regulatory investigations from multiple state health departments
• Criminal negligence investigations

And here's the kicker - you don't even have to do anything wrong. The legal standard for "practicing medicine without a license" in many states is incredibly broad. If your chatbot provides any advice that could be construed as medical or therapeutic guidance, you're potentially in violation.

One Florida mother sued a tech firm after an AI chatbot allegedly pushed her son toward suicide. New Mexico is currently demanding Meta disclose internal documents about chatbot design and moderation practices in a child safety lawsuit.

States are scrambling to regulate this space right now. Which means you'd be building in an environment where the rules literally don't exist yet - but when they do get written, they'll likely be in response to the horror stories making headlines.

"But I'll get professional liability insurance!"

Have you actually called an insurance broker and asked what medical malpractice insurance costs for an AI therapy platform? Because I'm guessing the answer is either "we don't cover that" or "here's a seven-figure annual premium."

This isn't a "maybe don't build this" situation. This is a "if you build this, you are personally gambling your financial future on AI not saying the wrong thing to a vulnerable person."

Want to help people access mental health support? Partner with licensed therapists. Build scheduling tools. Create EHR integrations. But do not - under any circumstances - build anything that positions itself as providing therapeutic guidance through AI.

The telehealth and mental health app space is exploding, yes. But the viable businesses are ones that connect users with licensed human professionals, not ones that replace them with chatbots.

2. AI Content Generators (RIP 2023-2024)

Here's what kills me about this one - people still think there's a market here.

"But mine will have better SEO optimization!"

"Mine will understand brand voice!"

"Mine will integrate with WordPress!"

Cool story. You know what else does all that? Claude Desktop with MCP connected directly to any CMS. For free. Right now. Today.

I watched a client spend €65,000 building a content generation platform in early 2024. Beautiful interface. Great features. Smart workflows. Launched in July. By October, they had 12 paying customers and monthly costs of €2,400 for AI API calls alone.

You're not competing with other SaaS tools anymore. You're competing with people who can now connect Claude or ChatGPT directly to their content management system, have it research topics, write drafts, rewrite based on feedback, optimize for SEO, and publish - all without leaving their terminal or paying monthly subscription fees.

The content generator market isn't saturated. It's extinct.

3. Automation Tools (n8n Just Killed This Category)

Remember when Zapier seemed untouchable?

Yeah, about that.

n8n came in and made every automation SaaS founder question their life choices. It's open-source, self-hostable, has 400+ integrations, and costs exactly €0 if you run it yourself or about €20/month for their cloud version.

"But my automation tool will be simpler!"

No. Stop. n8n already is simple. And the people who need "simpler than n8n" aren't going to pay for a SaaS subscription anyway - they're going to hire someone on Fiverr to set it up once.

I had a client pitch me an automation tool for e-commerce stores last month. Beautiful mockups. Solid technical plan. I asked them: "What does this do that n8n + a pre-built template can't do?"

Crickets.

The workflow automation space is now basically divided between "n8n for everyone" and "custom development for enterprise." There's no middle ground left where your SaaS can live profitably.

4. Agent Builders (OpenAI Already Won This One)

January 2025. OpenAI releases their Agent Builder. Anthropic has Claude Code. The model providers themselves are now giving away the infrastructure you were planning to charge for.

And just like that, dozens of startups collectively said "Well, shit."

Here's the thing about building an AI agent platform - you're not just competing with other startups. You're competing with the companies that make the actual AI models deciding to give away the feature you were going to charge for.

"But my agent builder will have better templates!"

Cool. OpenAI has an entire ecosystem of developers building templates. For free. Because they want to show off on Twitter.

"Mine will integrate with more tools!"

OpenAI and Anthropic have API partnerships with companies that won't even return your cold emails.

I've seen three separate pitches for agent builders in Q4 2024. Every single founder had the same look in their eyes - that desperate hope that somehow they'd found an angle the big players haven't thought of.

They hadn't.

Unless you've got $10M+ in funding and a two-year head start, the agent builder ship has sailed. And then sank. And then OpenAI bought the wreckage.

5. Social Media Scheduling Tools (It's 2025, Not 2015)

Buffer exists. Hootsuite exists. Later exists. Meta's own Business Suite exists and is free.

"But mine will have AI-powered caption generation!"

See point #2 about content generators.

The social media management space is so crowded that new entrants need to be either dramatically cheaper (impossible - API costs are fixed) or radically different (good luck with that when you're working with the same four APIs everyone else uses).

A client last year built a social scheduler specifically for restaurants. Spent €45,000 on development. Their unique feature? AI-generated food photography captions.

They got 23 paying customers in six months. Most of them cancelled within 90 days because they realized Buffer + ChatGPT cost them €15/month instead of €49/month.

6. Email Marketing Platforms (Mailchimp Wants You to Try)

Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Klaviyo, Brevo, Mailerlite, ActiveCampaign...

Should I continue? Because I can. For like five more minutes straight.

The email marketing space is the definition of "mature market." And in mature markets, you don't win by being "better" - you win by being impossibly cheaper or having monopolistic distribution advantages.

"But mine will have better segmentation!"

They all have good segmentation now.

"Better templates!"

They all have hundreds of templates.

"Better AI features!"

Gestures wildly at points #2 and #4

Unless you're targeting an incredibly specific niche (like "email marketing specifically for left-handed dentists in Bavaria") with unique compliance requirements, you're building a clone of tools that have had a 15-year head start and nine-figure marketing budgets.

7. Project Management Tools (We Have Enough, Thanks)

Asana. Monday. ClickUp. Notion. Trello. Basecamp. Linear. Jira. Teamwork. Wrike...

You know what all these tools have in common? They're all desperately trying to differentiate themselves in a market where the actual features are basically identical.

I've used probably 30 different project management platforms across various clients. You know what I've learned? The tool doesn't matter. The team's habits matter.

"But my PM tool will be specifically designed for [industry]!"

Cool. They'll use it for three weeks, realize it's missing two features they need, and go back to Monday.com with a custom template.

The only project management tools making money in 2025 are either:

• Established players with massive user bases and integration ecosystems
• Extremely niche tools for regulated industries (healthcare, construction, legal)
• Custom-built systems for enterprise that cost €200K+ to implement

Your general-purpose PM tool that's "like Asana but better"? Dead on arrival.

8. ChatGPT Wrappers (The Emperor Has No Clothes)

Oh, this is my absolute favorite category of doomed startups.

You know what a ChatGPT wrapper is? It's when someone builds a fancy interface, adds a system prompt, connects to the OpenAI API, and then charges €29/month for what is essentially a slightly customized version of something users could do in ChatGPT directly.

"AI-Powered Email Writer!" - It's a system prompt that says "write professional emails."

"AI-Powered Social Media Assistant!" - It's a system prompt that says "create engaging social posts."

"AI-Powered [Literally Anything]!" - It's a system prompt.

I had a client show me their "AI-powered business name generator" last year. I looked at the code. It was 47 lines of JavaScript and a prompt that said "generate creative business names for [industry]."

They wanted to charge €19/month for it.

Here's the problem with ChatGPT wrappers: Your entire business model depends on users not realizing they can do the exact same thing by going to ChatGPT and typing a prompt themselves.

And in 2025? Everyone knows. Everyone's used ChatGPT. Everyone's gotten pretty good at writing their own prompts.

"But my tool saves them time by having pre-built templates!"

Cool. ChatGPT has GPTs. Claude has Projects. Every user can save their own prompts. For free.

"But mine has a better interface!"

Buddy, you're competing against interfaces that are actively being improved by billion-dollar companies. Your little wrapper with custom CSS isn't better. It's just different. And different isn't worth €29/month.

The ChatGPT wrapper gold rush of 2023 is over. The people who made money were the ones who got in early, built an audience, and sold before everyone figured out the game. If you're starting now, you're the person buying beachfront property in Florida from someone who's moving to the mountains.

Here's the brutal truth: If your entire value proposition is "we put a nice UI on top of the GPT API," you don't have a business. You have a tutorial project that accidentally started charging money.

9. No-Code AI App Builders (The Picks and Shovels Play is Over)

Bolt.new. Lovable. v0. Replit Agent. GitHub Copilot Workspace.

Notice a pattern? They're all from companies that either make the AI models or have deep partnerships with model providers.

"But my no-code AI builder will be easier to use!"

Here's the thing about the no-code AI development space - it's the most commoditized thing I've ever seen. Every tool does basically the same thing: you describe what you want, it generates code, you tweak it, it regenerates.

I watched bolt.new launch and go viral. Then Lovable launched. Then v0 got an update. Then Replit launched their agent. And you know what happened to the three "AI website builders" my clients were working on?

They all quietly pivoted to "something else."

Because here's the uncomfortable reality: These tools all depend on the same AI providers - OpenAI, Anthropic, maybe Google. And those providers are now building their own code generation tools directly.

Claude Code isn't a product you compete with. It's infrastructure-level competition. When Anthropic decides that code generation is a core feature of Claude Desktop, your standalone "AI app builder" becomes irrelevant overnight.

"But ours has better templates!"

Cool. How long until Claude Code has community templates? A month? Two months?

"Better deployment options!"

That's not a moat. That's a feature request away from being copied by the actual model providers.

I had someone pitch me an "AI website builder specifically for restaurants" in September. Their demo looked great. But then I asked: "What happens when bolt.new adds a 'restaurant template' button?"

Awkward silence.

The no-code AI builder space is already consolidating around tools backed by the model providers themselves. If you don't have direct relationships with OpenAI or Anthropic, or you're not solving an incredibly specific niche problem, you're building on sand.

And that sand is controlled by companies that could wash your entire business away with a single product announcement.

10. Basic Survey & Poll Tools (Google Forms is Free Forever)

Let me tell you about the survey tool market in three words: Google Forms exists.

Also Typeform. Also SurveyMonkey. Also Jotform. Also Tally. Also about 40 other completely viable options ranging from free to cheap.

"But my survey tool will have better design!"

Typeform already owns the "beautiful surveys" position. And they've been doing it for a decade.

"Better analytics!"

SurveyMonkey has analytics that would make most data scientists happy. And they've been refining them for 20 years.

"AI-powered question suggestions!"

Neat party trick. Not worth switching tools for.

I had a client build a survey tool specifically for employee feedback in 2023. Spent €38,000 on development. Beautiful interface. Smart conditional logic. Anonymous response handling.

They got 11 paying customers. Total.

You know why? Because every company they pitched to said some variation of: "This looks great, but we already use Google Forms / Microsoft Forms / whatever came with our existing software suite."

The survey tool market has a fatal problem: The free options are good enough for 90% of use cases. And the remaining 10% either need specialized features you can't profitably build, or they need enterprise sales cycles you can't afford to run.

"But my tool will be specifically for [niche industry]!"

Unless that niche is "heavily regulated industries requiring SOC2 compliance and single-tenant deployments," you're just building Google Forms with extra steps.

The only survey tools making money in 2025 are either:

• Free tools monetizing through other means (data, integrations, ecosystems)
• Enterprise tools with six-figure contracts and dedicated compliance teams
• Hyper-specialized tools for specific research methodologies (academic, clinical, etc.)

Your "better survey builder" that charges €15-49/month? It's going to compete for scraps while losing to free alternatives that people already know how to use.

---

The Pattern You're Missing

Notice what all these ideas have in common?

They're all solving problems that are either:

1. Already solved by mature tools with better funding
2. Not actually problems that people will pay to fix
3. Commoditized by AI to the point where users expect it free
4. Legally hazardous in ways that could destroy you personally

Here's what a recent client said to me: "But I've validated the idea! I surveyed 200 people and 87% said they'd use it!"

Cool. Did you ask them if they'd pay €49/month for it when free alternatives exist? Did you ask them to actually purchase it right now, today, pre-launch? Did you ask a lawyer about your potential liability exposure?

Because "I'd use that" and "I'd pay for that monthly forever" are completely different answers.

So What SHOULD You Build?

After this depressing list, you're probably wondering what is worth building in 2025.

Here's what I tell clients: Build tools that either:

Save companies more money than they cost - If your tool saves a company €5,000/month in labor, they'll happily pay €500/month

Solve highly specific niche problems - Not "project management for everyone" but "compliance tracking for medical device manufacturers"

Require deep domain expertise - Things where you can't just prompt ChatGPT and get a decent result

Have built-in network effects - Where the tool gets better as more people use it

Replace expensive human labor - Not "make content faster" but "eliminate needing a full-time employee"

And for the love of god: Check with a lawyer before building anything health-related, finance-related, or child-focused.

Want to know what actually works? Let's talk about custom business applications that solve real operational problems instead of trying to build the next viral SaaS unicorn.

Because here's the thing - that €65,000 you were about to spend building an AI content generator? That could instead build you a genuinely useful internal tool that makes your actual business run better.

Just a thought.