[HN Gopher] Building a starter pack for an API-as-a-Service ___________________________________________________________________ Building a starter pack for an API-as-a-Service Author : f35caleb Score : 21 points Date : 2023-11-20 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.resteasyapi.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.resteasyapi.com) | f35caleb wrote: | I am cofounding a new SaaS "starter pack", but for a very | specific niche. This product aims to serve as the frontend and | middleware for anyone planning to launch an API-as-a-Service | product. The idea for this product is straightforward: once | you've built an awesome API service and are ready to share it | with the world, you've only done like 20% of the work. You need | to build an entire UI so that your customers can create accounts, | issue API keys, set up billing information, keep track of API | usage, logging, admin UI's to track all of this, and the list | goes on... | | Our product, which we're calling "RestEasy", is the 'as-a- | Service' to your API. You're going to be able to stand up a | completely white-labelled user portal on your own custom URL, | complete with your own color scheme and logo. We will also | provide white-labelled admin portals so you can manage your | users, API keys, pricing, check usage logs, some basic analytics, | etc. | | Check out the homepage and let me know what you think! Are there | any specific use cases you would want to see covered in the | platform? | | Be sure to sign up for the waitlist. We'll be sending out | periodic updates along the way to keep you updated on how we're | doing. | | [Website Link](https://www.resteasyapi.com/) | hbcondo714 wrote: | So there is no actual functionality to try out right now? From | what I browsed, the site is essentially a landing page + email | signup. | obblekk wrote: | Very cool, I've been thinking about the need for a service like | this. | | Does the 22% fee you're charging mean a 22% revenue share of what | the customer pays? If so... that's very expensive. | GordonS wrote: | Thus sounded _really_ interesting, right up until I saw 22% - | that is a lot. | simlevesque wrote: | I'm using Deno's SaaSKit for this: | https://github.com/denoland/saaskit | mtlynch wrote: | I sell an API as a service,[0] and I've been using RapidAPI for | years. I've never been happy with them. They charge a 20% fee, | and then there's another 3-5% fee for payments via PayPal. And | they do many small transactions per month, so you pay PayPal's | minimum fees over and over, making the total fees about 25-30%. | | On top of that, their service is terrible. Customer support is | rarely helpful, they frequently fail to bill my customers and | just shrug it off, their dashboard takes 20+ seconds to load | simple views. I could go on and on. | | I welcome competitors in this space because I've been surprised | at how few vendors offer what I'd expect to be not so hard a | service. | | The thing that kills this deal for me is that RestEasy isn't the | merchant of record, so the API owner still has to figure out how | to pay taxes in every state/country where they're liable for | taxes. | | The other thing that would make me nervous is that you're a brand | new company, and you're a point of failure for my API. If | RestEasy goes down, my service goes down. | | RestEasy's site also currently has a lot of typos, which would | also make me nervous about betting my uptime on this service. | | I'm currently in the process of migrating to Paddle. They act as | merchant of record, and their fees are 5%, though they require me | to write a lot of my own custom code to integrate with their | system. | | [0] https://zestfuldata.com/ | j45 wrote: | Tying in paddle as merchant of record for all installs | shouldn't be that challenging no? | | Stripe has connect as well to split but I'm not sure their | merchant of record features are as mature. | mtlynch wrote: | > _Tying in paddle as merchant of record for all installs | shouldn't be that challenging no?_ | | It's not that hard, but I'm anticipating like 40 hours of | work start to finish to get Paddle set up and write the | integration. | | The one positive thing I'll say about RapidAPI is that they | made onboarding easy. They handle all of user signup, | payments, etc. and they just forward your API requests from | users. The only code I had to write is a few lines to | populate a custom HTTP response header to tell RapidAPI how | many units of my service the request consumed. | | Paddle provides a lot less infrastructure, so I still have to | write my own user signup flow. Paddle offers a JS library | that does the heavy lifting for user signup, but I still have | to integrate it with my website. And then they don't have the | proxy model at all, so users talk directly to my backend, and | my backend has to check with Paddle to see whether the user | is valid or not. Then my backend has to both respond to the | user and send a separate request to Paddle to add to the | user's bill. | | > _Stripe has connect as well to split but I'm not sure their | merchant of record features are as mature._ | | I didn't realize Stripe offered MoR at all, but it looks like | they do now. My reading is that if I were to sell under | RestEasy, then Stripe would indeed act as my MoR because I'm | the "third-party seller": | | > _Is Stripe a merchant of record?_ | | > _Stripe is an MoR, but only for its Stripe Connect | platform. With Stripe Connect, businesses can create | platforms or marketplaces that process payments for third- | party sellers. In this case, Stripe serves as the MoR, | processing payments and assuming the associated | responsibilities on behalf of the third-party sellers._ | | > _However, when businesses use Stripe to process payments | for regular direct transactions, the business itself remains | the MoR while Stripe acts as a payment processor or payment | gateway. This means that the business is responsible for | transactional compliance, tax obligations, and managing | refunds and chargebacks, while Stripe handles the technical | aspects of transaction processing._ | | https://stripe.com/resources/more/merchant-of-record | htrp wrote: | > Pricing | | > $5/month per organization | | > 22% fee for paid endpoints | | > $5/month fee credit | | How does this work ? | matt_s wrote: | If I were building an API service, I think I would want control | over the security around the API and the site doesn't describe in | depth how the actual customer's data is secured, just "assign a | random token". | | What domain would this white-label admin interface reside on if a | sales/signup page and my actual API endpoints are on my domain | for example? Wouldn't customers find it jarring to be going to | "myawesomeAPI.com" to signup and then the domain for actual API | calls ends up on "resteasyapi.com"? | whalesalad wrote: | Tip: utilize hover effects for hyperlinks. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-20 23:00 UTC)