Case study
PayHours Calc: choosing a niche from keyword data, then building for speed
How I picked a US payroll-calculator niche from keyword data, scoped ten calculators that get the edge cases right, and shipped 300+ static pages on Cloudflare's edge as a programmatic SEO product.
At a glance
- Role
- Founder-PM: research, product and build
- Company
- Independent product
- Timeline
- Independent · live and ongoing
- Team
- Solo (AI-assisted coding)
- ~900K
- US monthly searches across the keyword cluster
- 10
- calculators at launch
- 51
- state overtime rule sets
- 300+
- static pages served from the edge
Summary
PayHours Calc is a set of fast, private calculators for US hourly workers and small-business payroll, live at payhourscalc.com. It covers time cards, hours, overtime, hourly-to-salary, pay raises, military time and 2026 military pay.
The problem
People searching for a time card or overtime calculator land on slow, ad-stuffed pages. Many get the edge cases wrong: overnight shifts that cross midnight, unpaid breaks, or state overtime rules that differ from the federal rule.
Choosing the niche
One big all-in-one calculator
Simpler to build, but it would rank for almost none of the specific searches people type.
Focused calculators plus programmatic pages
Chosen
Ten calculators, each matched to a search intent, plus 200+ generated pages such as "$25 an hour is how much a year" that answer the exact question.
Getting the details right
- Overtime rules for all 51 jurisdictions (50 states and DC), not just the federal rule.
- Pay tables for 25 military grades.
- Overnight shifts and breaks handled in the time card calculator.
Built for speed
What's next
- Track impressions and clicks in Search Console and expand the pages that win.
- Add ads once traffic is steady.
- Add calculators where the keyword data shows demand.