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Independent, built in Berlin
About ConvertNow
ConvertNow makes cookieless analytics that counts real people, not bots, plus 150+ free browser tools and practical guides. One developer builds and runs all of it, from Berlin.
What we make
Three things, one standard
Everything here is built to do one job properly, say how it works, and stay out of your way.
Analytics that counts people, not bots
Bots, AI crawlers and link previews are filtered out and listed by name. No cookies, so no consent banner needed for it.
- ConvertDash, hosted for any site or self hosted with Docker
- ConvertNow Analytics, free for WordPress
- 60+ reports, including AI traffic and authors
150+ tools that just work
Converters, calculators and formatters across 12 categories. Most run in your browser, so what you paste stays on your device. No signup.
Browse the tools → Guides60+ practical guides
Short write-ups on code, money, SEO and security, and the questions people email us most.
Read the blog →The tab that started it
It was a Tuesday night and I had one job left before logging off: make an ugly API response readable so I could find the field that was breaking a build. Four seconds of work.
The first result asked me to sign in with Google. The second showed a cookie wall, then an ad that covered the input box on mobile. The third worked, but only for the first 500 lines, and told me to upgrade for the rest. By the time I found something usable, twenty minutes had gone and I was angrier than the bug deserved.
I have had that exact evening more times than I can count. Small jobs, all of them, sitting behind a signup form or a paywall or a page so cluttered that the tool itself was below the fold. So I started building my own, one utility at a time.
The first ones were for me. It turned out a lot of people wanted the same thing.
From tools to analytics
Running a site with 150 tools means watching its traffic, and the usual analytics kept counting bots, AI crawlers and link previews as readers. So I built the analytics I wanted: no cookies, every filtered visit listed by name, and the data kept where you can check it.
It started as the plugin this site runs on. Today that is ConvertNow Analytics, free on WordPress.org, and ConvertDash, the same reports for any site, hosted by us or on your own server.
What I actually do
By trade I am a software developer in Berlin, with 8+ years of building things that have to work in production rather than in a demo. Most of that time has been in software and ML solutions, API building and dashboarding, which is why the developer and data side of this site runs deepest.
ConvertNow is what I build in the evenings and at weekends, usually because I hit a problem during the day and thought, that should have taken ten seconds.
How a tool gets made
- It starts as an annoyance. Either mine, or an email from someone who could not find a tool that does the specific thing they needed.
- I read the actual specification. RFC 4648 for Base64, the Mifflin St Jeor paper for BMR, the WCAG definition of relative luminance for contrast.
- I try to break it before you can. Empty input, enormous input, emoji, leap years, negative numbers, daylight saving boundaries, malformed syntax.
- It runs in your browser if it possibly can. Sending your data to a server is a last resort, not a default.
- The page says how it works. Which formula, which standard, and where the answer should not be trusted blindly.
How it is paid for
The free tools and guides are covered by a small amount of advertising and an optional coffee button. ConvertDash is the paid part: yearly plans and a lifetime licence for people who want more than the free plan. The WordPress plugin stays free.
No tool will ever be locked, no result watermarked and no export capped. If I ever cannot make that work, I would rather say so plainly than quietly start charging for the thing you came here for.
Things I refuse to do
I will not put a tool behind an email form. I will not store what you paste in, or use it to train anything. I will not add a popup that covers the input on mobile. And I will not publish a calculator without saying what it assumes.
Analytics on this site are aggregate only, through our own cookieless ConvertDash and, only if you allow it, Jetpack Stats. It is all spelled out in the privacy policy.
Where the roadmap comes from
Almost entirely from email. Someone describes a job they do by hand every week, and if it fits, it usually exists a fortnight later. Bug reports land with the person who wrote the code, not a ticket queue. If there is something you keep wishing existed, tell me about it.
The promises
Six things I hold myself to
Not marketing lines. These are the checks every tool and every release goes through before it ships.
No sign up, ever
You will never hit an account wall to use a free tool. Open the page, get your answer, close the tab.
It runs on your machine
Most tools process everything locally in your browser. Your JSON, your salary figure, your photo, none of it is uploaded just to compute a result.
Built off the actual spec
Converters follow the published standard and calculators the named formula, and each page says which one.
Honest numbers
The same rule runs through the analytics: bots and crawlers are filtered out and listed by name, so a visitor count is one you can check.
Clear about tracking
Cookieless analytics through ConvertDash, Jetpack Stats only if you allow it, and ads through AdSense. That is the full list.
Your email reaches me
Bug reports and requests go straight to the person who wrote the code. No support queue and no ticket number.
The same engineering, pointed at your problem
Everything on this site is something we built to solve a real problem quickly and properly. We do that as consulting work too. If your team has a job that a spreadsheet has outgrown, or a process that runs on somebody manually copying data between two systems, that is the kind of thing we are good at.
Small, focused engagements rather than year long programmes. Usually a scoped build with a clear finish line, handed over with documentation so you are not tied to us afterwards.
Custom internal tools
The calculator, converter or dashboard your team keeps rebuilding in a spreadsheet. Built once, properly, with your rules and your edge cases baked in.
APIs and integrations
Designing, building and documenting APIs, or wiring two systems together that were never meant to talk. Including the unglamorous parts: auth, rate limits, retries and error handling.
Web platforms
Full builds from the database up, or rescuing something that already exists and has become slow, fragile or impossible to change safely.
Data and machine learning
Turning messy data into something you can actually decide with. Cleaning and modelling, forecasting, classification, and getting a model into production instead of leaving it in a notebook.
Where we tend to be a good fit
- You know the outcome you need but not the shape of the solution
- A repetitive manual process is quietly eating hours every week
- You have data and a hunch, and want to know whether the hunch holds
- You want one senior person who ships, not a team you have to manage
Where we are honestly not
- Large multi team programmes that need a full agency behind them
- Anything that needs an answer today, since good scoping takes a week
- Projects where the brief is add AI to it with no problem attached
- Ongoing staff augmentation billed by the seat
Tell us what is slowing you down
A paragraph is enough to start. Describe the problem, roughly what success looks like and any deadline you are working to, and you will get an honest answer on whether it is a fit, including if the answer is no.
Who is behind ConvertNow?
One person. I am Prateek Zare, an independent software developer based in Berlin, and I design, build and maintain the tools, the guides and both analytics products myself. You can reach me at [email protected].
Is ConvertNow a company?
It is an independent business, not a funded startup. There is no investor and no roadmap decided in a meeting, which is also why things stay simple: nobody here needs to add features you did not ask for.
What do you sell?
ConvertDash, our cookieless analytics, has a free plan and paid yearly plans, plus a lifetime licence for your own servers. The ConvertNow Analytics plugin for WordPress is free. All tools and guides are free.
Will the free tools stay free?
Yes. They are paid for by a small amount of advertising and an optional coffee button. No tool will be locked, no result watermarked and no export capped.
Do you store anything I paste into a tool?
No. Most tools run in your browser, so your input never reaches a server. A few, such as DNS lookups, WHOIS and page speed checks, have to send what you type. It is used for that one request and not kept.
Why should I trust the results?
Each tool says what it follows: RFC 4648 for Base64, Mifflin St Jeor for BMR, exact SI factors for units. Health and finance tools are estimates, not advice. If something looks wrong, send me the input and I will reproduce it.
Can I request a tool?
Please do. Most of the site exists because somebody asked. Email what the tool should take in and give back. If it fits, it usually appears within a couple of weeks.
Do you take on client work?
Yes, a small number of projects at a time: internal tools, APIs and integrations, web platforms, and data and machine learning work. Each has a clear finish line and documentation, so you are not tied to us afterwards.
Pick where to start
Measure your real readers, grab a tool for the job in front of you, or tell me about the problem you keep running into.