Form builder Tally published the story behind its own growth on its official blog. One sentence stands out for stating the conclusion up front: "AI search overtook the viral loop to become our biggest acquisition channel."
MRR up 64% in 10 months
According to the growth timeline in Tally's official blog post "The road from $4M to $5M ARR," monthly recurring revenue (MRR) grew from $258,000 in June 2025 to $422,000 in April 2026. In annualized revenue (ARR) terms, that's a move from $3 million to $5 million. The team behind this growth was 10 to 11 people, with no outside funding.
In the same post, Tally said directly that the backdrop to this growth was that "AI-powered search is now the biggest acquisition channel, overtaking the viral loop." It named ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and AI Overviews as the main sources, adding that Claude in particular has grown quickly in recent months.
Why does AI recommend this service?
Marketing research firm Foundation Inc's GEO (generative engine optimization) case study broke these numbers down more specifically. In May alone, ChatGPT accounted for 9.6% of Tally's total web referral traffic, up 52% from the previous month, or about 125,000 visitors. Tally co-founder Marie Martens said that if you narrow it to late April through early May, 25% of new signups came through ChatGPT.
There's also evidence this isn't a coincidence. Search results actually show a tally.so/ai-info page that Tally built for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. It's a page that tells AI assistants directly who Tally is for and how its pricing works. In addition, it published an llms.txt organizing its product, pricing, customer, docs, API, and MCP pages, and, according to marketer Jake Ward on X, it even built a 21-tool MCP server and a ChatGPT app that can be used directly inside AI products.
One number isn't confirmed
Jake Ward's thread goes a step further, writing, "AI search is now their #1 acquisition channel, and they say 10,000+ new users a week discover Tally through AI platforms." The image he attached was an AI brand ranking table showing Tally in first place (100% visibility).
But the source of this image isn't Tally. As Ward himself said in a reply, "The screenshot is from Mentions.so," an AI visibility and prompt-tracking tool. Specific figures like "10,000 new users a week" and "May ChatGPT signups jumped 5x overnight" can't be matched to either Tally's official blog or Foundation Inc's case study, so we're leaving that part as not officially confirmed. Also keep in mind that the account that posted the thread was promoting a paid webinar on the same topic on August 26, so it has an incentive to emphasize the numbers.
ChatGPT's recommendation is a result, not the start
What stands out most in Ward's thread isn't the numbers but its last sentence. "Tally didn't start with a genius AI search strategy. Over several years, they built a product that people sincerely recommend on Reddit, in communities, and in reviews. ChatGPT recommends Tally because the internet already does."
AI search optimization isn't something you get by rearranging things when there's no content worth recommending. The repeatable elements in Tally's case are keeping comparison pages continuously updated with a ranking, pricing table, and pros-and-cons structure, asking new users directly how they found Tally (which prompt they used), and building a dedicated AI info page and llms.txt. More than how many people arrive each week, the question worth checking is whether you can apply this structure to your own product.