Has anyone here created an income by building and selling an API?

Question

I wonder if any of HN users managed to build and sell an API of some sort and have created a stable income by catering to fellow developers as an indie hacker.Please share your story - how did you start, what&rsquo;s the product, what&rsquo;s the magnitude of revenue.

pcunite · Accepted Answer

The owner of SerpApi.com posts here. The api allows for searching popular indexes and getting the data back in JSON format. Developer friendly product, of course. Not sure you'll get such detailed information about operations, but an interesting question. Perhaps the future for all of us, is APIs.
I think the secret is building an api that on its own is a true niche offering. It would fit within an app that you can imagine others might build. That is key. A given feature of this mythical app, but be solved by the api. But solving a problem so complicated on its own, that someone would venture to not do it themselves, in a weekend.
Such is the case I suspect with SerpApi and Stripe, and the like. I've used a certain SQL layer, and considered crypto api layers before. Perhaps think about those domains?

rozenmd · Answer

Jon Yongfook reached almost 30k MRR selling an image generation API, here's his story from 0-10k MRR: https://www.bannerbear.com/journey-to-10k-mrr/

taf2 · Answer

Twilio, sendgrid and stripe come to mind&hellip;

Has anyone here created an income by building and selling an API?

I wonder if any of HN users managed to build and sell an API of some sort and have created a stable income by catering to fellow developers as an indie hacker.
Please share your story - how did you start, what’s the product, what’s the magnitude of revenue.

Jon Yongfook reached almost 30k MRR selling an image generation API, here's his story from 0-10k MRR: https://www.bannerbear.com/journey-to-10k-mrr/

Twilio, sendgrid and stripe come to mind…