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My own SaaS tools
Launched July 2026. Paused for now

ClipCover, my own product · Covers and thumbnails for podcasts

Paste a podcast link and get covers that look like a show made them.

Podcasters post clips with whatever frame the app picks, and it's usually a blink or a blur. ClipCover takes the episode link, finds the good frames, writes the headline from what was said, and lays out covers and thumbnails from the real footage.

Paste a link
Find the frames
Write the headline
Lay out the cover

clipcover.ai

ClipCover product screen
80podcast covers taken apart to write the playbook
Client
ClipCover, my own product
Sector
Covers and thumbnails for podcasts
Built
Frame picker, headline from the audio, layout engine, accounts and billing
Status
Launched July 2026. Paused for now

clipcover.ai

The problem

The auto-picked frame is usually a blink.

The cover is the first thing anyone sees of a clip, and most shows leave it to the app.

The other option is an image generator. It invents a picture instead of using the footage, so the result looks like AI and not like the show.

What I built

It designs the cover from the episode itself.

Five stages run on every link.

  1. 01Find the usable framesIt samples the video, throws out the blurry and badly exposed frames, and finds the faces.
  2. 02Pick the best oneA vision model ranks what is left against a playbook I built by taking apart about 80 of the best podcast covers.
  3. 03Write the words from the audioThe episode is transcribed, and the tool pulls a short hook, the word to highlight and the tone. Those decide the layout.
  4. 04Lay it outThe speaker is cut out from the background and lit, and the type is set from a house set of seven typefaces. Vertical covers for clips, wide thumbnails for YouTube, from links up to two hours long.
  5. 05Run it as a productAccounts, Stripe subscriptions and credit packs, brand kits, saved layouts, batch mode, and English, Spanish and Japanese.

What changed

Launched, then paused while nobody pays.

It launched publicly in July 2026 with accounts, billing and three languages. Nobody besides me has paid for it, so it is paused to keep it from costing money while it waits.

80covers studied for the playbook
7house typefaces
3languages

Build notes

  • Frame sampling and encoding with ffmpeg
  • Blur and exposure filters before any model is called
  • Vision model ranking against a written design playbook
  • Stripe for subscriptions and credit packs
  • New accounts are capped at 150 so the free tier stays affordable to run

Scope and limits

ClipCover has no paying customers besides me yet. It is paused right now, so it isn't costing money while nobody is paying. I'm showing it for the build. It hasn't made money.

Next caseAnalytics that measure if you're growing a loyal fan base. Have a job like this? Let's talk

Matt Smith, Chicago. matt@visibilitybuddy.com