Stop Paying for "ChatGPT with a Hat On."
It happens every day on Product Hunt. A new startup launches: "LegalBot 3000 – The AI Lawyer!" Price: $49/month.
You sign up. You upload your contract. It gives you a summary. You think: "Wow, this technology is amazing!"
It isn't. I have audited the code of these "AI Startups." 95% of them are just "Wrappers." They have no AI model. They have no proprietary technology. They are just a website that takes your text, sends it to OpenAI's API (which costs them $0.01), and sells the result back to you for $49.
You are paying a 5,000% markup for a prompt you could have written yourself.
Here is how to spot a "Wrapper" scam and why using them is a massive security risk.
1. The "Reskinned" UI Trick
How do you know if a tool is a wrapper? The "Prompt Test." Take the output from "LegalBot 3000." Now, open standard ChatGPT (or Claude). Paste your document and type: "Act as a lawyer and summarize this."
Does the output look 99% identical? Congratulations, you found a wrapper. These companies rely on "Interface Arbitrage." They bet that you are too lazy to learn how to prompt ChatGPT, so they sell you a button that does it for you. In 2025, paying for a button is a tax on ignorance.
2. The "Shadow AI" Security Nightmare
This is the part that gets CTOs fired. When you paste your company's NDA into "LegalBot," where does that data go?
- Scenario A: It goes to OpenAI (Safe-ish).
- Scenario B: It goes to the random developer's database who built LegalBot in his dorm room.
Most wrappers have zero SOC2 compliance. They store your uploaded PDFs in a public S3 bucket. We call this "Shadow AI." Employees bypassing IT to use "cool new tools" is the #1 vector for data leaks in 2025. If you use a Wrapper, you aren't just wasting money; you are leaking IP.
3. The "Churn and Burn" Business Model
Wrapper startups know they have no moat. OpenAI releases a new feature (like "File Uploads"), and suddenly 500 PDF-Chat startups die overnight. Because they know they are doomed, they don't invest in support or uptime.
- The Support Ticket: Ignored.
- The Server: Crashes every Tuesday.
- The Refund: Impossible.
They are trying to extract as much cash from you as possible before Sherlocks (Apple/OpenAI/Google) sherlocks them.
The Real Numbers: Wrapper vs. API
I calculated the cost of doing the work yourself via the API vs. buying a subscription.
| Task | Wrapper Cost | Real API Cost (OpenAI) | Markup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summarize PDF | $20 / month | $0.03 | 60,000% |
| Write 10 SEO Blogs | $50 / month | $0.15 | 30,000% |
| Generate Headshot | $29 / pack | $0.04 (Stable Diffusion) | 70,000% |
The Verdict: If you use AI professionally, learn to use the API Playground or Local LLMs. Never pay a monthly sub for a single prompt.
Frequently Asked Questions (That Indie Hackers Hate)
Are any AI tools worth paying for?
Yes. The ones that have Proprietary Data.
- Adobe Firefly: Trained on their own stock images (Legal safety).
- Github Copilot: Integrated into the IDE with massive context awareness.
- Midjourney: Has a unique aesthetic model that is hard to replicate. If the tool brings data or workflow, pay for it. If it just brings text, it's a wrapper.
How do I use the API directly?
Go to platform.openai.com. Sign up.
You get a simple chat interface called "Playground."
You pay per message (fractions of a cent).
It is ugly, but it is 100x cheaper than "Jasper" or "Copy.ai."
Is "Custom GPTs" a scam too?
Mostly. People selling "The Ultimate Marketing GPT" for $50 are scamming you. They just wrote a system prompt: "You are a marketing expert." You can write that yourself in 3 seconds. Never buy a prompt.
Leon Staffing hires engineers who build real tech, not wrappers. If you want to work on hard problems, not API reskins, apply here.