AgeSignalKit

Who it's for

Small app studios (1-10 people) shipping social, chat, or UGC apps on iOS/Android/web; today they either use a janky self-declared birthdate (legally weak) or get quoted $1-2 per verification by Persona/Veriff/Yoti, priced for fintechs.

The problem

Legal: COPPA runs ~$51k per violation per child and 40+ state AGs just watched the Meta settlement become the enforcement template; payment: enterprise age-verification vendors won't touch a 10k-user indie app at sane prices; time: Apple's Declared Age Range API and Google Play Age Signals each integrate differently and neither stores proof you checked.

How to build it

Swift/Kotlin/JS SDK wrapping the platform age-signal APIs plus a web fallback flow; tiny hosted receipt ledger with API; one-click audit PDF export; public jurisdiction matrix (COPPA, TX, UT, etc.) maintained as laws land.

How it makes money

$29/app/month up to 50k MAU for the hosted receipt ledger, law-change SDK updates, and audit PDF export — they pay because the free platform APIs don't store evidence or unify signals, and the evidence trail is precisely what collapses under an AG inquiry or app-store review rejection.

Why it doesn't exist yet

Incumbents (Persona, Yoti, Veriff) sell ID/biometric checks to banks at $1+/verification and won't unbundle a $29/mo age-band tier because it cannibalizes their contracts; Apple and Google ship the raw age signals free but deliberately stop at the signal — no receipt, no cross-platform normalization, no jurisdiction mapping. An indie fills exactly that evidence layer.

First users

Solo devs and two-person studios on r/iosprogramming and Indie Hackers who woke up to the Meta settlement headline and Texas/Utah app-store age mandates already in force; the pitch 'the receipt you show an AG' converts fear into a $29 subscription in one session.

Build size

2 people x 8 weeks. Included: three SDK wrappers, normalized age-band endpoint, signed receipt ledger, audit PDF export, jurisdiction matrix for COPPA + 3 state laws. Excluded: ID-document/biometric verification, facial age estimation, full under-13 parental-consent workflows.

Biggest risk

Apple extends Declared Age Range with a native attestation/receipt field, or courts stay the Texas/Utah laws, draining the legal urgency before the receipt habit forms.

Conditions for a hit (all 3 required)

• A developer makes one SDK call from iOS, Android, and web demo apps (publicly downloadable) and gets back a normalized age band with the signal source named (Apple Declared Age Range, Google Play Age Signals, or web fallback)
• Every age-band decision produces a signed, timestamped receipt retrievable via API and exportable as a single audit PDF stating the signal source, timestamp, and jurisdiction rule applied
• A public jurisdiction matrix covers COPPA plus at least 3 US state age-assurance laws, with a changelog showing updates within 14 days of any new such law taking effect

How it's judged (in 6 months)

Product Hunt daily top 10 OR 1,500 GitHub stars across SDK repos OR 20+ paying apps evidenced by public pricing page and customer count/logos(judgment date 2027-02-27)

AI self-confidence 50/100 — self-reported likelihood of meeting the criterion, not a business success rate