DoP Deep - API product strategies explored
Unpacking the API strategies from top tier companies including Uber, Reddit, Shopify, Twilio and more
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Hi product people 👋,
Meta finally released its Threads API this past week and it’s now been a year since Reddit found out the hard way that changing the pricing structure of your API can have significant (and unfortunate) consequences.
In this DoP Deep dive, we’re going to dig deep into the API strategies of top tier tech companies including Uber, Shopify, Reddit, Twilio and more so that you’re fully up to speed with what API product strategy looks like in 2024.
We’ll look at distinct dimensions including pricing models, the technology used (REST vs GraphQL), documentation UI design and more. If you’re working on developing an API strategy of your own, you can use this as inspiration to help inform your decision making.
Coming up:
How this analysis is structured
A deep dive into the API strategies of top tier tech companies including Uber, Reddit, Shopify, Mixpanel, Twilio, Databricks and more
Key API trends to inform your API strategy
How to develop your own product’s API strategy
The list of companies and APIs featured in full
How this analysis is structured
To get a solid understanding of each company’s API strategy, for this deep dive, we’re exploring each of the APIs featured across different dimensions, along with some aggregate trends to take away.
Here’s a summary of the dimensions we’re using for this deep dive:
Value and features - what do the company’s APIs actually do? What value and features do they offer to end users including the engineers who use it?
Innovative use cases - does the API have any innovative use cases beyond conventional features that worth knowing about? These can be used as inspiration for your own product, too.
Technology - does the API use REST, GraphQL or both? GraphQL has risen in popularity over the past few years but has plateaued a little since then. We’ll share which companies use which technology, with examples for each.
Pricing model - how does the API product generate revenue? is the API free or open sourced, volume based, size based, license based or other?
Documentation - what type of documentation is available?
DevRel tactics - does the company have a dedicated developer relations team and if so, what tactics do they deploy to attract engineers to build using the API e.g. conferences, courses, free webinars, Subreddit groups, Discord channels and more.
UI inspiration - well designed API documentation is critical for developer adoption. For each of the companies featured, we’ve got full examples of how those companies design their API docs. We’ll share any emerging patterns and functionality that you can use as inspiration for your own API docs design.
Looking specifically at the monetization models, this is broken down further into:
Free tier - the company offers a free tier, potentially alongside paid plans.
Volume usage based - users of the API pay above a specific threshold of API calls per month.
Size based - Monetization is based on the size of the customer. For example, larger companies pay more than smaller companies.
Commercial clients vs non-profits - does the API offer discounts for commercial or non-profits?
Revenue share - does the API offer any revenue share agreements?
The full list of all of the companies featured in the deep dive is available at the end of the post.
A deep dive into the API strategies of top tier tech companies
Now that we’ve set the context and explained how this analysis works, let’s take a look at the first company on our list.