If you’re using any social media app and interested in making money online, there’s a high chance you’ve heard about web apps.
They are a great way to get started on making money online as they’re relatively easy to make, easy to use, and can be monetized. Since a single web app doesn’t require you to create a whole new platform, you can pump out your ideas as web apps very fast, especially in 2025.
In this guide, we’re going to take a look at what web apps are, why they’re so popular, five web app ideas, and how you can actually make a web app and monetize it.
What are web apps, and why are they so popular?
Web apps can simply be explained as apps that you don’t have to download to your PC or mobile. Unlike many other traditional apps, they’re built using languages like JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, and other web-focused languages.
In 2025, web apps gained popularity among people who’re interested in making money online, especially within the SaaS scene. They’re relatively easier to build than regular software and they can be scaled much quickly.
5 web app ideas for you to create
There are countless web apps that you can create, and the only limit is your creativity. While coming up with the perfect web app idea can be hard, creating web apps in 2025 is easy, so you shouldn't be afraid to keep trying out your ideas until you find the perfect one.
Let's take a look at five web app ideas for you to create:
- Recipe generator with inventory: By creating an app that has a list of ingredients that users can use a checkbox to include in their inventory or not, you can create recipes based on them by utilizing an AI API.
- Budgeting template generator: Budgeting sounds daunting to too many people because they don't know how to do it. By providing customized budgeting templates, you can attract users and even charge for advanced customization
- Personal sleep assistant powered by AI: By creating an app that has a similar interface to ChatGPT with additional input fields like “how much you slept” and “how many times did you wake up,” you can collect customized data for the user and run it through an AI API to generate tips on improving their sleep. You can also offer advanced reports to subscribers.
- Simple video editor: You can create an app that allows users to easily crop, cut, and reduce the size of videos. Since this will attract many users, you can add Google Sense ads and generate ad revenue
- Custom wedding invite generator: By creating an app that has a simple visual editor with customized text fields and an AI image generation integration, you can allow people to easily create amazing wedding invitations. Then, since the preview of the wedding invitation will have a watermark, you can directly sell a digital download to the user or even integrate a print-on-demand system.
How you can create no-code web apps with Bolt.new
Now that we have some web app ideas in mind, let's create one of them using Bolt.new together. Bolt.new is an in-browser AI web development tool, with which you can create your own app easily.
The first thing you want to do once you visit Bolt.new is to click on the Get Started button at the top right of your screen. This will take you through the process of creating an account.
After creating an account, you can get straight into building your app. You can do this by writing a prompt in the ‘What do you want to build?’ input field.
Just like any other prompt-based AI, you want to be as descriptive as possible when detailing the app you want to build. We’re going to use the sleep evaluator app idea we’ve mentioned before.
After writing your prompt, you can use the Enhance prompt button (sparkles icon) at the bottom left of your prompt input.
You can also use the Attach files button right next to it to upload images and other files so that Bolt will consider that while processing your input.
Once you’re comfortable with the prompt you have, press Enter on your keyboard or the blue Submit prompt button at the top left of the input field.
Once you submit your prompt, you’ll see the chat will slide to the left and a new section will appear on the right side of your screen. There, you’ll see two tabs: Code, which will display the files of your app and their contents, and Preview, which will display a preview of the actual app.
While you shouldn’t try to change anything in the code while Bolt is doing its thing, you can edit the code manually once it’s done. Depending on the app you’re building, it can take a while.
Once the coding process of Bolt is done, the section on the right side will automatically switch to the Preview tab so that you can test your app.
You can freely interact with the preview of your app, and you should. In this phase, you should fully test out your app for any bugs, errors, and things you might want to change.
In the Preview view, you’ll see four buttons at the top right of the section:
- Open preview in a separate tab - This button will open your app’s preview in a separate tab on your browser so that you can see how it would actually look like as a web page.
- Responsive mode - This button will switch between the desktop and mobile views of your web app so that you can see if the initial app the AI made works on mobile or not.
- Inspector - This button will allow you to select elements on your web app so that you can enter prompts specifically for the element you’ve selected. This is ideal if you want to work on a single element rather than the whole app.
- Full screen - This button will make your preview go full screen.
After Bolt builds your app, there’s a high chance you’ll want some things changed. Maybe the positioning of some elements will be off, you want to add/remove some features, or you don’t like the color palette it uses.
In those cases, you should use the chat field on the left side of your screen to talk with the AI about what you want it to change in the app. The example app we made it build uses a dark theme with blue accents - let’s change that.
After we submit our edit prompt and Bolt works on the code for a second, we can see the updated preview of our app on the preview section, and it looks like exactly what we asked it to do - great.
How to publish an app to the web
Now, it’s time to make our app live. You can do this in two ways: exporting it by clicking the Export button and using the files to host the app yourself, or clicking the Deploy button at the top right to easily deploy the app to Netlify.
Deploying your app to Netlify will make it live on the internet, and the best part is that it’s free.
Once you click the Deploy button, you’ll see that Bolt will start the process of deploying it to Netlify in your chat. Once it’s done, if you haven’t connected your Netlify and Bolt accounts, Bolt might prompt you to claim the app with your Netlify account.
You can now use the link that Bolt has left in your chat to access your web app.
Using Whop to monetize your app
Once your app is live on the web, there are two main ways you can gate it. The first one is obtaining a Netlify Pro membership to gate it with a password under the Access & security settings section of your Netlify deployment.
The second, free method is to simply ask Bolt to add an authentication system to your website. There are many ways you can gate your app with an authentication, ranging from a simple password lock to token gates.
Once you’ve gated your app, let’s see how you can provide access to it on your whop - but first, let’s make sure you have a whop to begin with. If you don’t, check out our guide on creating your first whop in under 5 minutes.
If you have a whop ready to go, let’s add the Web App app to your whop. First, click the Manage apps button in the Your apps section of your whop to see the Edit apps popup on the right side of your screen.
There, click the New app button to see the app list.
In the app list, search for the Web app and click on it. This will display the app visibility popup. There, you have two options: Draft (hidden), which will add the app as a hidden draft, or Visible, which will allow all of your members to see and interact with the app.
Since the Web app doesn’t require heavy setup beforehand, you can select the Visible option. Then, click the Add button to add the app to your whop.
Adding an app to your whop is that easy. Now, you should be able to see the Web App app on the Your apps section on the left side of your screen.
After adding the app to your whop, click on its Configure Web App button at the top left of the app. This will take you to the app’s admin view, where you can adjust which website you want to embed.
In the configuration view, you’re going to see an input field for the Web app URL and the Embed web app toggle button.
After inputting the URL in the input field, you can either leave the Embed web app option disabled, which will display a button for members to visit the web app, or enable it, which will directly embed the web app in the app.
After you’re done configuring the app, click the Update configuration button to save your changes.
Now, if you take a look at the preview of the app by clicking on the Web app button at the top left of the app, you’ll be able to see your web app embedded in your whop.
Monetize your apps with Whop
Ready to start making money with apps? First, create your app. Next, create your whop. Blake Anderson has made over $10 million with his no-code apps - you could be next!
