API Monetization support

[msavy]

Monetization (aka: monetisation, billing, payment capture)

Let us know if you want monetisation in Apiman. And what it should look like?

Likely we would not support any complex billing logic inside of Apiman itself, but we could let people integrate externally.

Also, legal prose / terms & conditions?

[cboergermann]

From my personal perspective I do not need a monetisation API but I need metrics that depend on contracts rather than clients or APIs. Then you could easily attach external billing systems for that purpose.

[msavy]

Thanks @cboergermann, I'm currently working on Apiman 4.x, and am considering what to put in open source vs what to retain for my supported customers in this area.

I've also been looking at significant increasing the number of events that are emitted from Apiman to provide additional data for billing, metrics, data insights, policy state, etc.

For example, events when a user hits their rate limit, which could then be used to send an email to the user, implement more complex billing schemes, (etc).

Ultimately, I need to generate income so I can continue developing the project (rather than everyone else making money from Apiman other than me!), so these are some key decisions I am in the process of making.

[cboergermann]

Sure, same here. :)

Probably the wrong place but here are my 2ct. about generate income with apiman.

Currently we (a small agency for web development) are using apiman for internal services and evaluation and then we would like to add it to the offering for our customers. What our customers would pay for, is e.g. stuff regarding reporting and monitoring like healthchecks for the apis behind the gateway and analytics information (who called when, from where, with which devices...). Don't know: Integration with Grafana, Icinga etc.. Of course we can already do a lot of stuff for example with elasticsearch but those custom solutions are expensive. If there are ready to use components from the vendor they are always preferred.

On the other hand: What about a SaaS solution for Apiman?

[msavy]

I would love to take your feedback on what your customers want so I can consider that for the 4.x programme.

Email: marc@blackparrotlabs.io - I am also on LinkedIn www.Linkedin.com/in/MarcSavy

Or www.cal.com/MarcSavy to just set up a short meeting at your convenience 👍. Whatever works for you.

I've already produced a range of addons and I'll be making more based on what people indicate is important for them — https://www.blackparrotlabs.io/black-parrot-labs-enterprise

[1e1]

Dear Apiman,

I think a light monetization system could be a well starter for small business. Then a big business could require a big system with a lot of exceptions ;)
The real issue is the integration to which providers? Every user would have its own favorite provider: Stripe, Adyen, etc…
Concerning the API, if I can tag some routes as paying quota and if I can create a price for every paying quotas it could lead to a POC of Monetization.
Then the company rise some billions and it writes its own solution ;)

Regards

[msavy]

Thanks for your comment @1e1. Yes, I would have to design an abstraction, then provider-specific integrations for each provider as there are many different ones.

It is probably something I would provide via my company (included in all support packages).

I am happy to also discuss a collaboration with your company if that's valuable (I had a great conversation with @cboergermann which I think will be fruitful). Please do reach out if you want 👍.