Chessigma gives away the chess review Chess.com charges for. 641 people pay for its AI coach
Two founders in Belgium built a free, unlimited chess game analyser that draws nearly a million visitors a month. They started charging only in May 2026, for an AI coach, and reached $19,847 in October.
Product at a glance
Summary
What this business is
Chessigma reviews your chess games for free. Chess.com, the biggest chess site, gives free members one full game review a day; Chessigma runs the open-source Stockfish engine in your browser and gives unlimited reviews with no sign-up. Two founders, Mehdi and Eliot, launched it in Belgium in March 2025, and it grew through a viral YouTube short and chess groups. For a year it earned almost nothing. In May 2026 it began selling an AI coach through a capped “founding class” offer, then added yearly and lifetime plans in September. October brought $19,847.
Why these scores? See the reasons in Key takeaways →
Momentum
Rising fast. Revenue: last three complete months +107% on the three before; up from near zero against the same months half a year earlier; MRR +27% since Sep 7, 2026.Derived
Best suited for
Builder (main). The product is a fast, polished free tool plus training features people will pay for.
Creator (second). The launch took off because a chess YouTuber made a short about it.
What you need to start. A free product good enough that players switch to it, and patience to earn nothing until the paid layer is ready.Our read
Key findings
Product overview
A free game review with no limit, and a paid coach built from your own games.
You type your Chess.com or Lichess username, pick a game, and Chessigma grades every move, shows your accuracy and an evaluation graph, and gives the engine’s best move[2]. The engine is Stockfish, which is open source, and it runs in your browser, so the analysis happens on your device[2]. There is no daily limit and no sign-up to start[2].
The homepage frames this against Chess.com: free members there get one full game review a day, and the full engine review needs a Diamond membership[2]. That comparison is Chessigma’s own wording; we did not test it on Chess.com.
The paid product is Supercoach: a report built from your last 1,000 Chess.com games with more than 250 metrics, a daily 15-minute training plan, trainers for blunders, openings and converting won positions, and an AI coach chat[2]. The pricing page says four in five of its players are rated under 1400[2].
What the site looks like
Captured Nov 11, 2026 · Screenshots: chessigma.com.
What to look for
- 1The homepage is the app: today’s plan, import from Chess.com, Lichess or PGN, and a promotion for the AI coach.Fact
- 2On the phone, a live counter shows players online and a pop-up announces a Chrome extension.Fact
- 3Nothing asks you to sign up before you analyse a game. See §04.Fact
What to look for
- 1Four columns: Free $0, Monthly $14, Yearly $8.08 a month ($97 a year), Lifetime $490.Fact
- 2Yearly is marked “Most popular” and selected by default on the phone.Fact
- 3Real-looking player cards above the plans show rating gains such as +252. We did not check them.Our read
What to look for
- 1“Free Chess Game Analyzer. Review Any Game Instantly”: the free product, written for search.Fact
- 2One of several product and tool pages aimed at a single need. See §04.Fact
- 3The phone capture is partly covered by the Chrome extension pop-up.Fact
| Plan | Price | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited game review and puzzles; limited trainers and a random daily plan |
| Monthly | $14 a month (struck-through $19) | Supercoach: Chess DNA report, personalised daily plan, all trainers, AI coach |
| Yearly | $97 a year ($8.08 a month) | Same as monthly; marked “Most popular” |
| Lifetime | $490 once | Same as monthly, paid once |
From the live pricing page, read Nov 11, 2026[2]. A seven-day money-back guarantee applies.
The founders are Mehdi Ben Haddou, a software engineer, and Eliot; the company is Arche Labs Ltd, trading as Chessigma[2][4]. Whether anyone else works on it is not public.
Revenue analysis
About $450 a day, in lumps, from a paid layer that is six months old.
Hover or tap a bar. Verified daily revenue, Oct 13 – Nov 9, 2026 (UTC), from TrustMRR[1]. Blue: Saturdays and Sundays. Nov 10 is left out because the day was not complete at sync.
20 weekdays.Derived
8 weekend days: a hobby, played any day.Derived
Of the 28-day total.Derived
$13,437 in 30 days against $8,167 MRR.Derived
Monthly revenue: from almost nothing to $19,847
Hover or tap a bar. Monthly verified revenue from TrustMRR[1], January to November 2026. November covers Nov 1–10. January to April came from a $3 supporter plan.
Our arithmetic on the verified data in this report. Revenue ÷ MRR uses the last 30 days; the share of all-time revenue counts the months in the chart above; the swing is the median change between complete months.
Until April, revenue came from a $3 a month supporter plan and never passed $42 in a month[1][5]. The AI coach went on sale in May, and monthly revenue rose every month to $19,847 in October[1].
| Date | MRR | Active subscriptions | All-time revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 7, 2026 | $6,435 | 476 | $44,530 |
| Nov 10, 2026 | $8,167 | 641 | $81,588 |
First row from an archived copy of the TrustMRR page[3]; second row from the live page[1].
In 64 days MRR rose 26.9% and subscriptions by 165, while $37,058 of revenue came in[1][3]. MRR per subscription is $12.74, between the $14 monthly price and the $8.08 a month of the yearly plan.Derived
Verified traffic
Google Analytics, connected to TrustMRR.Fact
$13,437 ÷ 979,121.Derived
641 subscriptions.Derived
From TrustMRR’s SEO data.Fact
As in our AI Toolbox report, the traffic here is verified. It shows the scale of the free funnel: close to a million visitors a month for 641 paying subscriptions. It does not show where the visitors come from.Our read
Pricing: founding classes, then yearly and lifetime
A $3 tip jar, then capped founding seats, then the full set of plans.
| Archived | Offer |
|---|---|
| Feb – Apr 2026 | Free. Supporter $3 a month (no ads, Discord badge). AI coaching “coming soon” at $9 a month, waitlist |
| May 28, 2026 | “Founding Class #2”: Class #1 sold out at $9 a month; 200 more seats, 174 left, $14 a month for three months, then $19 |
| Jul 12, 2026 | $14 a month, “your founder price, forever” |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Monthly only |
| Sep 25, 2026 | Yearly added at 42% off monthly, marked “Most popular”; Lifetime added at about 30% off |
| Oct 29, 2026 | Lifetime back at full price |
| Nov 2026 | $14 a month, $97 a year, $490 lifetime |
From archived copies of the pricing page[5] and the live page[2]. Archives from August to October show Canadian dollars; discounts are computed in the currency shown.
Sold out by May 28.Fact
200 seats, price locked “forever”.Fact
42% below twelve months of the monthly price.Derived
35 months of the monthly price.Derived
Where customers come from
One viral week, then free tools, search pages and a community.
Shared on Reddit first; the next day a short by YouTuber Sadistic Tushi went viral, followed by TikTok reposts and chess groups on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. The figure is the founders’ own.[4]
FounderGame review, 4M+ puzzles, Elo and FIDE rating calculators, a chess clock, “Is Chess.com Down?” and 14 brain games.[2]
Fact20 articles, 15 of them in five more languages; 29 opening pages; product pages written for one search each.[2]
FactAn Android app and a new Chrome extension that opens a finished Chess.com or Lichess game in Chessigma.[2]
FactWhat we could not read
TrustMRR is connected to Chessigma’s Google Analytics and Search Console, but the split by source is not public[1]. We do not know how much of today’s traffic comes from search, from YouTube or from returning players.
Growth strategies
Four moves, each visible from outside.
Timeline
- Mar 272025ProductChessigma launches: free, unlimited game review for Chess.com games.[4]
- Mar 282025MarketingA YouTube short about it goes viral; the founders report more than 100k visitors in the first week.[4]
- Feb 162026PricingSupporter plan at $3 a month; AI coaching announced as coming soon.[5]
- May2026ProductSupercoach goes on sale. Revenue that month: $3,738.[1]
- May 282026PricingFounding Class #2 at $14 a month after Class #1 sold out at $9.[5]
- Sep 72026RevenueMRR $6,435 from 476 subscriptions.[3]
- Sep 252026PricingYearly and discounted lifetime plans on the pricing page.[5]
- Oct2026Revenue$19,847, the best month so far.[1]
- Nov 102026RevenueMRR $8,167 from 641 subscriptions; 979,121 visitors in 30 days.[1]
Key takeaways
Chessigma shows how a free tool that undercuts a market leader can build a huge audience first, and how a capped founding offer can turn part of it into paying customers quickly.
Why we scored it this way
Copy
- Give away the thing the market leader rations. Chess.com allows one free review a day; Chessigma allows unlimited. P1
- Charge for coaching, not for the free tool. The paid layer is a new product built on top. P2
- Sell scarce founding seats with a stated price lock before the full price exists. P3
- Add yearly and lifetime once monthly works, to pull cash forward. P4
Avoid
- Reading a 30-day drop without checking the comparison window. Here it held a plan launch. §02
- Building your pitch on a rival’s limit. It disappears if they change it. §09
- Counting lifetime sales as recurring. They inflate revenue once. §03
Our predictions
Three claims with dates. We mark each one right or wrong on its date and keep the result on the page.
Track record: the predictions in our earlier reports are still open; the first checks land Dec 1, 2026. We mark each prediction right or wrong on its date and keep the result on the page.
What could prove us wrong
Things that would change our read, and how to check them.
- Chess.com could loosen its free review limit. The reason many players try Chessigma would weaken.Check: Chess.com’s free review terms on the next review.
- Lifetime and yearly sales may have pulled future revenue forward. If so, monthly revenue could fall for several months.Check: monthly revenue in November and December against MRR.
- The launch traffic figures are the founders’ own. The 100k first-week visitors are self-reported; only the current 979,121 is verified.Check: not public.
- Some of the visitors may be bots or one-time searches. Revenue per visitor is about $0.014.Check: not public; TrustMRR shows the total, not the quality.
Appendix
FAQ
How much does Chessigma make?
$13,437 in the 30 days to Nov 10, 2026, verified through Stripe on TrustMRR. MRR is $8,167 from 641 active subscriptions. October 2026 was its best month at $19,847.
Is Chessigma free?
Game review, puzzles and tools are free with no sign-up and no daily limit. The AI coach, Supercoach, costs $14 a month, $97 a year or $490 once.
How many people use Chessigma?
TrustMRR, connected to its Google Analytics, shows 979,121 visitors in the 30 days to Nov 10, 2026. The founders describe it as having more than a million users.
Who built Chessigma?
Mehdi Ben Haddou, a software engineer, and Eliot, from Belgium. The company is Arche Labs Ltd, trading as Chessigma.
Sources
- [1]TrustMRR: Chessigma — revenue, MRR, subscriptions, daily and monthly data, and visitors from a connected Google Analytics account. Verified through a Stripe API key. Synced 2026-11-10 21:35 UTC.
- [2]chessigma.com — homepage, pricing page, product pages, sitemap and llms.txt. Read 2026-11-11.
- [3]Wayback Machine capture of the TrustMRR page for Chessigma on Sep 7, 2026 — MRR, subscriptions and all-time revenue on that date. Read 2026-11-11.
- [4]Chessigma blog: Launching Chessigma — the founders’ account of the launch, Apr 6, 2025. Read 2026-11-11.
- [5]Wayback Machine captures of chessigma.com/pricing — February to October 2026. Read 2026-11-11.
Screenshots © Arche Labs Ltd, used for commentary. Oddig has no business relationship with Chessigma. Numbers change daily; check the sources for the latest.
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