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0 pointsstanmancan6y ago0 comments

I made an API for myself in 2011 that I could consume at work. I made a site that lets people query it from a web app and docs on the API. Didn’t think anyone would actually use it though. Tossed an ad on it and forgot about it.

The API has been rewritten a few times now, it gets over 300 million requests a month. All organic growth, I can’t take any credit for it because I honestly have done nothing to aid it. Only use Google AdWords and it runs on a $40/m VPS.

We introduced paid plans a year ago and had a few sign ups. I think the paid accounts are about $440MRR but I split it with a friend who did all the work around paid accounts. (I didn’t think it would be worthwhile, he did, so he did the work around paid subscriptions)

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aerovistae6y ago

This is super interesting to me. I have a couple questions! Although, by the way, found a typo on your /api page-- "The power behind MAC Vendors API is it's simplicity. Get started instantly, no registration required." That should be `its`, not `it's`.

Anyway, this whole thing confuses the hell out of me. You're receiving 3.6 billion requests per year and you've been serving it all for free with a single adsense ad and only making a couple grand a month off of it? I feel like I don't really understand. Shouldn't the hosting costs for multiple billions of requests be huge? Shouldn't you be charging for that? I'm speaking as someone who's never built anything like this, so I don't really know.

stanmancanOP6y ago

300 million a month only works out to around 115 a second. The API has been optimized a lot. We could probably handle 2x the traffic we are currently getting before needing to upgrade the server.

We do have paid accounts now but it doesn’t amount to a ton, around $440MRR.

I hesitated adding paid accounts for a long time because it cost so little to run but the ad revenue was alright.

Lots of niche markets out there, but my at revenue did take a long, slow path over 8 years to get to this point.

_-___________-_6y ago

It really doesn't need to be expensive to serve hundreds-to-thousands of requests per second. Despite what some people will tell you, that's not actually very significant load.

lossolo6y ago

I am serving around 3 billion requests a month (so around 10x more than OP) from one dedicated server that cost less than 100 euro a month.

stef256y ago

Adwords, as in you pay to advertise the site on Google?

I found your project since you previously posted it on HN and linked to it in an answer below (hope you don't mind, I'll remove it if you want).

stanmancanOP6y ago

Sorry, Adsense

rhlsthrm6y ago

What's the API do if you don't mind sharing?

stef256y ago

In his submissions on HN there's a link to macvendors.com

Pretty cool simple idea.

crobertsbmw6y ago

I visited the site, and turned off my adblocker, but am not seeing any ads. Are the ads hidden somewhere? What does one have to do to see ads these days? Edit - Nevermind, I thought I had my ad blocker off, but apparently incognito mode didn't turn it off like I expected it would.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsstanmancan6y ago0 comments

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aerovistae6y ago

stanmancanOP6y ago

300 million a month only works out to around 115 a second. The API has been optimized a lot. We could probably handle 2x the traffic we are currently getting before needing to upgrade the server.

We do have paid accounts now but it doesn’t amount to a ton, around $440MRR.

I hesitated adding paid accounts for a long time because it cost so little to run but the ad revenue was alright.

Lots of niche markets out there, but my at revenue did take a long, slow path over 8 years to get to this point.

_-___________-_6y ago

It really doesn't need to be expensive to serve hundreds-to-thousands of requests per second. Despite what some people will tell you, that's not actually very significant load.

lossolo6y ago

I am serving around 3 billion requests a month (so around 10x more than OP) from one dedicated server that cost less than 100 euro a month.

stef256y ago

Adwords, as in you pay to advertise the site on Google?

I found your project since you previously posted it on HN and linked to it in an answer below (hope you don't mind, I'll remove it if you want).

stanmancanOP6y ago

Sorry, Adsense

rhlsthrm6y ago

What's the API do if you don't mind sharing?

stef256y ago

In his submissions on HN there's a link to macvendors.com

Pretty cool simple idea.

crobertsbmw6y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse