JavaScript Scraper That Turned Into a $1,200/Month Micro SaaS (Step-by-Step Build)

JavaScript Scraper I Built for Leads… That Turned Into a $1,200/Month Micro-SaaS

I wasn’t trying to build a product.

I was just tired of finding clients manually.

But somehow, that frustration turned into a lead-generation system people now pay for every month.

Hunting Clients Felt Like a Second Job

Freelancing sounds simple… until you realize:

You’re always chasing the next client.

My routine looked like this:

• Open job boards

• Scroll endlessly

• Copy leads

• Save them somewhere

• Forget half of them

It wasn’t hard.

Just exhausting.

And worse?

It didn’t scale.

The Question That Changed Everything

One night, after saving yet another job post, I stopped and thought:

“Why am I doing this manually when this is structured data?”

That changed everything.

Because anything structured can be:

• Scraped

• Automated

• Turned into a system

First Version: Ugly but Powerful

No design. No optimization.

Just results.

const puppeteer = require("puppeteer");

async function scrapeJobListings() {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({ headless: true });
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  await page.goto("https://example-job-board.com");

  const jobResults = await page.evaluate(() => {
    return Array.from(document.querySelectorAll(".job-card")).map(card => ({
      title: card.querySelector(".title")?.innerText,
      url: card.querySelector("a")?.href,
    }));
  });

  await browser.close();
  return jobResults;
}

It wasn’t perfect.

But it saved hours.

Filtering Made It Useful

Raw data is noise.

So I refined it:

function filterRelevantJobs(jobList) {
  return jobList.filter(job =>
    job.title.toLowerCase().includes("javascript") ||
    job.title.toLowerCase().includes("node")
  );
}

Now it wasn’t scraping.

It was curating opportunities.

Automation Turned It Into a System

Manually running scripts kills momentum.

So I automated it:

const cron = require("node-cron");

cron.schedule("0 9 * * *", async () => {
  console.log("Running daily scraper...");

  const jobs = await scrapeJobListings();
  const filteredJobs = filterRelevantJobs(jobs);

  console.log(filteredJobs);
});

Now it ran:

• Every morning

• Without effort

• Without reminders
  

Alerts Made It Valuable

Data alone isn’t valuable.

Delivery is.

So I added email alerts:

const nodemailer = require("nodemailer");

async function sendDailyLeads(leads) {
  const mailer = nodemailer.createTransport({
    service: "gmail",
    auth: {
      user: "your@email.com",
      pass: "password",
    },
  });

  const message = leads.map(j => `${j.title} - ${j.url}`).join("\n");

  await mailer.sendMail({
    from: "your@email.com",
    to: "client@email.com",
    subject: "Daily Job Leads",
    text: message,
  });
}

Now it became:

Scrape → Filter → Deliver → Automate

The Moment It Became a Product

I showed it to a friend.

They said:

“Can I get this daily?”

That’s when it clicked.

I wasn’t solving my problem anymore.

I was solving a market problem.

Scaling Into Multi-User SaaS

Instead of rewriting everything, I added personalization:

const users = [
  { email: "user1@email.com", keywords: ["node", "backend"] },
  { email: "user2@email.com", keywords: ["react", "frontend"] }
];

function filterJobsByKeywords(jobs, keywords) {
  return jobs.filter(job =>
    keywords.some(k => job.title.toLowerCase().includes(k))
  );
}

Now:

• One scraper

• Multiple users

• Personalized results
  

That’s SaaS logic.

Pricing Changed Everything

At first, I gave it away.

Bad move.

So I changed it to:

👉 $10/month per user

Then:

• 50 users → $500/month

• 120 users → $1,200/month
  

Same system.

No extra work.

What This Really Became

• Script → Scraping data

• System → Filtering + automation

• Product → Multi-user SaaS

• Business → Recurring revenue

And I never “started a startup.”

I just solved one problem at a time.

The Real Lesson

I used to think:

“I need better skills to make money.”

Now I think:

I need better systems.

Because with:

• Node.js

• Puppeteer

• Node-cron
  

You can build real income systems.

The Core Insight

People don’t want to search. They want results.

Once you understand that…

You stop building tools.

And start building subscriptions.