Building an AI SaaS in a month: code was easy, everything else hurt

I built Pixae from zero to launch in 30 days. AI made coding fast. But testing, SEO, design, and marketing? Those nearly killed me.

Here’s what I wish I knew earlier 👇

1. Cloudflare's free plan has a hard size limit

Tried to put everything in one place → hit the ceiling. Had to split frontend and backend. Also one image library just wouldn't work, so I had to find a workaround.

2. One tiny SEO mistake buried my site

I left a wrong setting that told Google every page was my homepage. Days later, zero pages indexed. Fixed it, but painful.

3. Testing still needs a human

AI fixes one bug and creates another. Every change meant re-testing everything manually. No way around it.

4. Payments are full of traps

Test vs live IDs are different. Credit deduct-refund logic gets messy when things time out or users click twice. Had to make sure each task is refunded only once. Also, always check user content before charging – that's a compliance must.

5. Marketing is the real nightmare

I'm a coder. I have no clue how to get users. Trying backlinks and directories, but honestly, traffic is everything and I'm still bad at it.

6. Design rules save you later

Write down your fonts, buttons, animations first. Then when AI goes off-style, just say "follow the rules". Huge time saver.

7. Pricing is guesswork

People kept running out of free credits before they could try video. So I lowered the cost per video on free tier. Watch what users actually do and adjust.

That's it. AI helps you build fast, but the real work starts after.