Issue 1A new podium every week
GOAT of the MOAT is our weekly trophy for the apps we expect to still be standing in a few years. Code keeps getting cheaper, so we judge what's left when it's free: eight moats, from who trusts you to what's hard to keep running.
This week's podium
Issue 1 ·
- 1stThe Golden Horn
Stripe
For moving the money, not just the numbers about it.
UltraGiant
Allowed to act
Every customer makes it smarter
Someone official said yes
It moves the money itself, under the licences that takes, and its fraud screening learns from every payment on its network.
- Builds with AI
- Tools for AI agents to take payments
- Works with Runner
- Runner reads your monthly revenue from your own Stripe account.
- 2ndThe Hoof Cup
Gusto
For the accountants who bring the business in.
MarathonCategory leader
Buyers know and trust you
They don't check your work
Accountants run their clients' payroll from a workspace Gusto gives them for free, so the people small businesses trust most bring the business in. And payroll is the work owners stop checking.
- Builds with AI
- An accountant's AI can work across every client at once
- 3rdThe Summit
Avalara
For keeping up with every tax rule so nobody else has to.
MarathonCategory leader
Hard to keep running- They don't check your work
- Someone official said yes
It keeps sales tax rules current across thousands of places and files the returns, with the state certifications a newcomer has to earn first. The rules never stop changing, and keeping up is the moat.
- Builds with AI
- Agents that decide by rule, the same answer every time
Eight moats that hold when code is cheap
A feature can be copied over a weekend. These take years to build, and one or two put an app in good shape.
Tap a moat to see who holds it.
The whole field
Every app on this week's list, by the distance it runs. A 5K and an ultra are the same race at different lengths.
24 apps shown, page 1 of 2
5KSolo and indie
Bento
5K · Solo and indie
- Hard to run
- Acts
It sends a business's campaigns, automations and receipts, and a person reviews every account before it sends, so the sending reputation its customers share stays healthy.
- Builds with AI
- A hosted MCP server, and AI that drafts automations
Keygen
5K · Solo and indie
The record
It issues the licence keys, device activations and entitlements a developer's software checks against, so it holds the record of who owns what.
Visit keygen.sh
10KSmall team
Churnkey
10K · Small team
- Acts
- Gets smarter
It steps into the cancel flow and the failed payment and keeps the customer, and every save it runs grades the plays it hands the next business.
- Builds with AI
- Its whole playbook, open to AI agents
Moonlit
10K · Small team
- Hard to run
- Gets smarter
Laws, regulations and court decisions in a linked legal library kept current as the law changes, and enriched by expert review and validated contributions from its users.
- Builds with AI
- A data API and an MCP server for AI assistants
Handwrytten
10K · Small team
- Hard to run
- Acts
Robots holding real pens write the cards, then Handwrytten stamps and mails them, so a thank-you note can go out from a CRM or a chat.
- Builds with AI
- An MCP connector for Claude
DataForSEO
10K · Small team
- Hard to run
- Trusted
Live search results, keyword data and backlinks served through an API, and a whole trade of SEO tools and agencies builds its products on it.
- Builds with AI
- Its own MCP server for AI agents
- Works with Runner
- Runner reads the top ten for any keyword with your own DataForSEO key.
Ghost
10K · Small team
- Acts
- Trusted
It publishes a writer's posts to the web and delivers them as an email newsletter, paid subscriptions built in, and independent designers and developers build Ghost sites for a living.
Visit ghost.org
Polar
10K · Small team
- Acts
- Hard to run
It sells your software as the merchant of record, so filing and paying the sales tax becomes its job, and its meters bill tokens and agent runs straight onto the invoice.
- Builds with AI
- A hosted MCP server, and usage billing built for AI products
Quaderno
10K · Small team
- Hard to run
- Acts
It works out sales tax, VAT and GST at checkout, issues the invoices and receipts, and files the returns, with a team following rule changes in every market it covers.
Visit quaderno.io
HalfScale-up
Attio
Half · Scale-up
- The record
A team's relationships, emails and deals live in it, which makes it the record everything else reads from.
- Builds with AI
- A CRM built around AI from the first screen
- Works with Runner
- Runner reads your Attio contacts.
Apify
Half · Scale-up
Everyone's in- Hard to run
A store of ready-made web tools built by independent developers, who are paid each time someone runs theirs. Apify keeps the proxies and anti-blocking working, so builders keep publishing and buyers keep coming back.
- Builds with AI
- A hosted MCP server for AI agents
- Works with Runner
- Runner runs account research on an Apify account you connect.
Close
Half · Scale-up
- The record
- Acts
Calling, email and texting live inside the CRM, so a sales team's conversations sit beside the leads they belong to.
- Builds with AI
- AI agents that draft follow-ups and keep lead fields current
- Works with Runner
- Runner reads your Close contacts.
Score your own app
Eight questions, one tap each. Nothing you tap leaves this page.
Buyers know and trust you
Has someone built a business or a career on recommending you?
System of record
Would leaving mean rebuilding something that only lives in your app?
Allowed to act
Does your app do the work, not just advise on it?
They don't check your work
Do customers trust what it produces without checking it?
Someone official said yes
Do you hold an approval a rival would have to wait for?
Everyone's already in
Would a rival have to move everyone at once to win one account?
Every customer makes it smarter
Does one customer's result make it better for all the others?
Hard to keep running
Do you keep something running that nobody wants to run themselves?
Your goat
0 / 8 moats
Answer a few and your goat shows up here.
Nominate an app for a GOAT
Yours, or one you'd bet on. Every nomination goes to the people picking the next podium.
How we judge
- The Runner team picks the podium from what each company has shipped and published, against the eight moats.
- A trophy is our bet on what lasts. No company asked for or paid for its trophy.
- App names and icons belong to their owners, shown here to say which app we mean.
Building something with a moat?
Runner is an AI growth team built from your code or your POS sales. It does the growth work while you dig.
Build my team