Software asset sale

Starling is available for acquisition.

Starling is a Chrome extension with a hosted service behind it. It drafts replies, quotes and posts for X in the writer's own voice; the writer reviews every draft and presses Post themselves. It was built for people who write on X regularly and want help sounding like themselves.

This is an outright sale of the whole product: source code, extension, backend, website, brand assets and documentation. The buyer owns it and operates it under their own accounts.

An inquiry starts a conversation about buying the product. It is not a customer sign-up, and nothing is charged.

Status at a glance

As of 22 September 2026

  • Pre-launch: no customers, no revenue and no live service.
  • The code is written and passes its tests on a development computer, against stand-in AI and payment providers.
  • Not yet proven live: a real AI account, real payments, email delivery, the real X site, Chrome Web Store review and a deployed host.
  • The domain starlingwriter.com comes with the sale; the buyer supplies and pays for hosting, the AI account, the payment account and email.

Read the full verification status

Product demo

An 88-second walkthrough

Watch the Starling demo. Opens Google Drive in a new tab.
88 seconds, 1080p, silent with captions. The film labels its own stand-ins on screen.

Watch demo

Opens Google Drive in a new tab. Nothing plays until you press play.

What this recording is, and is not

Every product shot is the real extension, website and service, recorded on a development computer. Three things are stood in, and the film says so on screen:

  • the X page is a stand-in copy, not the real X site;
  • the AI's words are scripted, not live AI output;
  • no payment is made, and every account and dashboard figure is synthetic.

The recording is not evidence of live X integration, AI quality, Stripe transactions or a deployed service.

The product

What Starling does

The customer works on X as usual. Starling adds a button to each post and to X's composer, writes a draft in the customer's voice, and leaves publishing to the customer.

  1. Install and connect

    The customer adds the Chrome extension, creates an account on the website and approves the connection. Before anything is sent, the extension shows what it shares and asks.

  2. Press the Starling button

    On a post, one press drafts a reply or a quote. In X's composer, the same button drafts a new post or tightens a rough one.

  3. Review and edit

    The draft is typed into X's own text box, where the customer changes anything they like. A side panel answers questions about what to post.

  4. Post it yourself

    Starling never presses Post, Reply or Schedule post. The extension refuses to click those controls, and automated tests check that it does.

  5. Teach it a voice

    Writing samples and short notes shape later drafts, and one press on the customer's own X profile adds their own posts as samples. Learning from their activity while they browse is a separate choice, and it is off until they turn it on.

Also built

  • Drafts left and the reset date, shown in the extension and on the account page from one source.
  • Free, Starter and Pro plans with monthly draft allowances, built on Stripe Checkout and the Stripe customer portal.
  • Data export and account deletion for customers.
  • An owner dashboard: subscribers, AI spend against budgets, failures, and one switch that pauses AI for everyone.
  • A helper that fills in X's own schedule dialog; the customer still confirms it.
  • Post ideas from what is new in each customer's own niche, found in news feeds and web searches, each with the pages it came from.

Screens from the demo environment

Real product screens with synthetic content: a stand-in X page, scripted AI text and made-up accounts on example addresses. Select an image to open it full size.

A stand-in X page with a Starling draft typed into the reply box, marked Reply ready, beside the Starling side panel. Open full size.
A reply drafted into X's own reply box. The customer edits it and presses Reply themselves.
The Starling panel's settings, with a box for writing samples, a box for things to keep in mind, and one saved sample. Open full size.
Writing samples and notes teach Starling the customer's voice.
The website's account page for a synthetic customer, showing 3 of 25 drafts used, the remaining allowance and the reset date. Open full size.
The account page shows the same usage as the extension.
The owner dashboard's AI provider page, with drafting shown as running and a button that pauses drafting for all customers. Open full size.
The owner dashboard can pause AI for everyone with one switch.

Possible fit

Who it could suit

These are possible uses, not proven demand. Starling has no customers yet, and nothing here promises a business result.

A software operator

Someone who buys small products and runs them. Starling arrives with billing, usage limits, spending safeguards, an owner dashboard and operations guides, so the remaining work is setup, live testing and launch rather than building.

A founder

Someone who wants to operate a writing product for X without starting from nothing, and who is ready to open the accounts, finish the live checks and find the first customers.

A marketing or ghostwriting agency

A team that writes on X for itself or its clients and wants its own tool. Today each account holds one voice; features for managing many clients in one account are not built.

The sale

What the acquisition includes

Included

Source repository
The complete source as a clean Git snapshot with a checksum. It ships with fresh history and no secrets.
Chrome extension
Manifest V3 source, its build process and a build verifier. It asks only for storage and sign-in permissions, on X and the service's own address.
Backend
The gateway (website, API, billing and owner dashboard), the AI proxy, the drafting engine that runs once per customer, and the operator command line.
Website
Templates, styles, customer documentation and draft legal pages, with three self-hosted typefaces under the SIL Open Font License.
Brand assets
The wordmark, the star icon set, the social image, store and profile artwork, and their editable sources.
Tests and developer documentation
Unit, integration and end-to-end suites with stand-in AI and payment providers, and a guide to what each one proves.
Deployment and configuration
A Dockerfile, a compose file, a reference Fly.io configuration, a reference for every setting, and an operations guide covering backups, restore, monitoring and key rotation.
Demo assets
The demo film, its captions and its poster. It uses no music and no third-party footage.
Domain
starlingwriter.com, where this page lives, registered on 23 September 2026. After the sale it points wherever the buyer asks, and it moves to the buyer's own registrar account once registrar rules allow, 60 days after registration (from about 22 November 2026).
Handover materials
A handover guide, an accounts and costs guide, a legal to-do list, and transition help as agreed in writing.

Not included: the buyer's part

  • Hosting. The buyer chooses and pays for it. Nothing is deployed today.
  • An AI provider account and API key. The buyer opens an OpenAI account and pays for usage.
  • A payment account. The buyer opens Stripe and is paid by their own customers directly.
  • A Chrome Web Store listing. None exists, so nothing transfers. The buyer registers as a developer and submits the extension for review.
  • Other services. An email provider for account emails, off-site backup storage, and any monitoring the buyer wants.
  • Customers, revenue or user data. There are none to transfer.
  • The seller's own accounts, keys and licences. None are transferred, and the seller never holds the buyer's production credentials.

The name

"Starling" is not a registered trademark of the seller, and no clearance is claimed. Other companies use the name, including a live United States registration in software classes. The buyer should run their own search and may prefer to rename the product; the details are in the diligence documents.

For the technical reader

Technical and operating overview

The stack
The extension is TypeScript, Manifest V3, built with WXT, for desktop Chrome 120 or later on x.com and twitter.com. The service is Python 3.11 and FastAPI with SQLite, packaged as one Docker container. No desktop app, installer or helper program is involved.
How the extension reaches the service
Over HTTPS to the service's own API. The address is fixed when the extension is built and cannot be changed afterwards. Customers sign in through the website; the extension receives a device token, and drafts stream back as they are written.
Where credentials live
The AI key, the Stripe keys and the email password are environment settings in the host's secret store, on the server only. The extension and the per-customer engines never hold the AI key. The repository ships an example settings file with no secrets in it.
Hosting
One always-on machine with a persistent encrypted volume, a domain and TLS. The reference is a Fly.io machine with 2 shared CPUs and 4 GB of memory; any host that runs a container with a volume would do.
Setting up AI and billing
The buyer sets an OpenAI key, model names and daily and monthly budgets. Plans, prices and allowances live in one file that the whole system reads. Stripe products are matched to it, and the service refuses to start in production if they disagree.
Outside dependencies
X's page structure and rules, OpenAI's API and prices, Stripe, an email provider and Chrome Web Store policy. Any of them can change. If X changes its pages, the extension is written to stop rather than act wrongly, and would then need updating.
Design limits
One machine and one database by design. It does not scale out without rework, a deploy restarts drafts in progress, and the single volume relies on the encrypted backups.

Verification

What is verified, and what remains

As of 22 September 2026. "Verified" below always means checked on a development computer against stand-ins. Nothing has been verified against live services or in a deployed environment.

Implemented

Built and present in the source code.

  • Drafting replies, quotes and new posts, and tightening a rough draft, inside X's own text boxes.
  • Writing samples and notes that shape the customer's voice, including one press that adds the customer's own posts from their X profile; a side panel for questions about what to post.
  • Post ideas from what is new in each customer's own niche, and drafts that check a public claim on the web, each showing the pages it used.
  • A draft is counted only when the customer gets one, or stops it after its text has appeared; failures and drafts Starling holds back are free.
  • Customer accounts with email verification, password reset, data export and account deletion.
  • Free, Starter and Pro plans with monthly draft allowances, rate limits and clear messages at each limit.
  • Subscriptions built on Stripe Checkout, signed webhooks and the Stripe customer portal.
  • AI spending safeguards: caps per request, a cost ceiling per plan, and daily and monthly budgets.
  • An owner dashboard: subscribers, AI spend against budgets, failures, webhooks, an audit log, and one switch that pauses AI for everyone.
  • Encrypted backups with a restore procedure, and a release check that scans for secrets and personal data.

Verified, and how

Every result below comes from one development computer. None of it is a live or deployed result.

  • Automated tests for the server, the drafting engine, the website and the extension pass, using stand-in AI and payment providers.
  • End-to-end journeys pass with the real gateway, services process and engines started as processes, against the same stand-ins.
  • Browser journeys pass in a real Chrome with the real extension, on a stand-in copy of X's page structure and stand-in payment pages.
  • The container image builds, and its test target passes as root with no network, so the Linux-only isolation tests run.
  • The delivery archive is built from Git, scanned for secrets and personal data, and the test suites pass from the unpacked archive alone.
  • An evaluation drafts for four invented customers through the whole product, with checks that each web search, linked page and cited story really reached the draft; it runs against a stand-in model, so it tests the product, not a live model's writing.
  • Tests confirm the extension refuses to press X's publishing buttons (Post, Reply, Schedule post) and its like, follow, delete and message controls.

Requires buyer configuration

By design, the seller never holds production credentials.

  • Accounts: hosting, OpenAI, Stripe, an email provider with SMTP and a Chrome Web Store developer account, plus a registrar account to receive starlingwriter.com.
  • Secrets generated by the buyer and kept in the host's secret store, plus the buyer's AI, Stripe and email credentials.
  • Stripe products and prices, the webhook endpoint and the customer portal, in the sandbox first.
  • Business and legal details for the legal pages, which hold draft text today and need review by counsel.
  • An extension build pointed at the buyer's own address, then the buyer's own Chrome Web Store submission.

Outstanding and known limits

The seller's own readiness audit says "done for handover, not for customers": what is left needs the buyer's accounts or a live deployment.

  • Nothing has run against a real OpenAI, Stripe or email account, the real X site, or Chrome Web Store review, and nothing has been deployed.
  • A backup restore has never been rehearsed on a real volume.
  • One machine and one SQLite database by design: it does not scale out, and a deploy restarts in-flight drafts.
  • Web searches go through the AI provider and are capped per plan; background topic research runs on paid plans only.
  • X can change its page structure or rules at any time, which would need extension work.

The seller's readiness audit and handover guide set all of this out in full and are shared during diligence. Expect the first days on real providers to find issues that stand-ins cannot.

Operating it

Buyer running costs

Read from each provider's public price list on 19 September 2026, in US dollars. Prices change, so check them before relying on them. No income or margin is promised.

Fixed, before any customers

  • Hosting: one always-on machine$21.40 a monthReference size: 2 shared CPUs with 4 GB of memory, Amsterdam prices. Prices vary by region. Source: Fly.io price list.
  • Hosting: 20 GB encrypted volume$3.00 a month$0.15 per GB a month of provisioned space, used or not. Source: Fly.io price list.
  • Email sending$0 to $20 a monthA free tier of 3,000 emails a month (100 a day) covers early use; the next tier is $20 a month. Source: Resend price list.
  • Domain nameAbout $11 a yearstarlingwriter.com is included in the sale; from then on its yearly renewal is the buyer's. Source: Registrar price lists, 23 September 2026.
  • AI and payment accounts$0 fixedOpenAI and Stripe charge by usage, with no monthly fee on their standard terms. Source: OpenAI and Stripe price lists.

The hosting lines come to about $24.40 a month. The project's planning figure is about $30 a month once a domain and small extras are added.

Usage-based, growing with customers

  • AI, per draftAbout $0.004 typical, $0.011 heavyAn estimate from token counts on OpenAI's gpt-5.6-luna ($0.20 per million input tokens, $1.20 per million output tokens). It has not been measured on a live account, and a larger model costs about ten times as much per token. Source: OpenAI price list.
  • Card payments2.9% + $0.30 per chargeStripe's United States rate for domestic cards; add 1.5% for international cards and 1% for currency conversion. Rates differ by country and provider. Source: Stripe price list.
  • Subscription billing0.7% of billing volumeStripe Billing, pay as you go. Tax tools and disputes ($15 each) are charged separately. Source: Stripe price list.
  • Data transfer and growthFrom $0.02 per GBOutbound data in North America and Europe. A busier service needs a larger machine; storage and memory per customer have never been measured under real load. Source: Fly.io price list.

One-time

  • Chrome Web Store developer registrationOne-time feeGoogle shows the amount during registration and does not publish it on its documentation page. Source: Chrome Web Store documentation.
  • OpenAI usage tier 1$5A one-time prepayment that OpenAI requires before its first paid usage tier. Source: OpenAI rate limit guide.
  • Legal review and name clearanceVariesDraft legal pages need the buyer's details and counsel's review. The buyer runs their own trademark search.

AI spending varies with usage and with the model the buyer chooses. Starling caps it per request, per plan and per day and month, and the buyer should also set a hard limit with the AI provider.

Price

Acquisition price

Asking price

$2,500 USD

For the whole product as described on this page, as a one-time purchase. There is no checkout here: the sale is agreed directly between buyer and seller, in writing.

Inquire about acquisition

How a sale would go

Handover process

  1. Inquiry and fit

    You write with your questions and how you would use Starling. We check that the sale suits both sides.

  2. Walkthrough and diligence

    A walkthrough of the product, then access to the source and documents for review, on terms agreed first.

  3. Written agreement

    An agreement that lists the assets transferred and any support, so both sides know exactly what is and is not included.

  4. Payment arrangements

    Payment, and any escrow, as the agreement sets out.

  5. Delivery and setup

    The seller delivers the source archive with its checksum. The buyer opens their own accounts and configures them, following the handover guide.

  6. Transition support

    Help with questions during setup, to the extent agreed in writing.

Timing, support, payment method and legal terms are not fixed by this page. They are settled in the written agreement.

Questions

Common questions

Is this the full product or a subscription?

The full product. You buy the source code and assets outright and operate Starling yourself. It is not a subscription to a service run by the seller.

Does Starling have users or revenue?

No. It is pre-launch: no customers, no revenue, no user data and no live service. Any figures you see in the demo are synthetic.

What is included?

The source repository, the Chrome extension and its build process, the backend, the website, the brand assets, the tests, the deployment and configuration files, the documentation, the demo film and agreed handover help. See the full list.

What accounts does the buyer need?

Hosting, OpenAI, Stripe, an email provider that offers SMTP and a Chrome Web Store developer account, plus a registrar account to receive starlingwriter.com. Off-site backup storage and an uptime monitor are recommended. None of these exist for Starling today, and the seller needs access to none of them.

Are hosting and AI included in the purchase?

No. The buyer pays the hosting provider and the AI provider directly, under their own accounts. See running costs.

What does the demo actually show?

The real extension, website and service recorded on a development computer, with a stand-in X page, scripted AI responses, synthetic accounts and no payment. It does not show the real X site, live AI output, a Stripe transaction or a deployed service.

What setup or testing remains?

Building the container image for the first time, opening the accounts, deploying, and running the live checks: real AI drafts, the Stripe sandbox and then a small real payment, email delivery, the extension on the real X site, and Chrome Web Store review. The legal pages are drafts that need the buyer's details and review by counsel. See the full status.

Is there a published browser extension?

No. There is no Chrome Web Store listing and nothing has been submitted. The buyer publishes it under their own developer account, and Google's review can approve or reject it.

Does Starling post to X automatically?

No. It writes drafts into X's own text boxes. The customer reviews them and presses Post. The extension refuses to click X's publishing buttons, and tests check that.

Is a desktop app or installer needed?

No. Customers need desktop Chrome 120 or later, the extension and an account. The operator runs one hosted service. There is nothing to install on a computer beyond the extension.

Can I keep the name?

That is the buyer's decision after their own trademark search. The seller has not registered the name and claims no clearance; other companies use it. Renaming touches the extension, the website, the brand assets and the emails.

What handover support is available?

The documentation is written for a buyer starting from nothing: handover, deployment, configuration, operations, payments, publishing and costs. Help beyond that is agreed in writing as part of the sale; this page promises no duration or response time.

Contact

Inquire about acquiring Starling

Write to the seller directly. The button opens your email app with the subject filled in.

Or write to michaelshadpour497@gmail.com with the subject "Starling acquisition inquiry".

Helpful to include

  • who you are, and your company if you have one;
  • how you would use or operate Starling;
  • what you would like to see or ask;
  • when you could join a walkthrough.

This page has no form and no analytics. Your message goes only to the seller's inbox and is used only to reply to you about this sale.