APIs are a concept that enables systems to communicate with each other today. You must have seen lately that many systems communicate with each other through APIs. We can obtain or provide data from different systems with APIs. Do you know how you can provide an API that you developed to many different systems and multiple developers? The answer is very simple. Sell API. You can sell your API and serve multiple systems.
With the emergence of the concept of selling APIs, developers can find APIs in every field and category they need. For this reason, many developers are interested in purchasing APIs for the services they need. As a result of this, you can get many advantages when you sell your API. Now let’s talk about the benefits of selling APIs. Then let’s take a look at how we can develop an API and sell it.
What are the Benefits of Selling API?
There are so many benefits to selling APIs. Some of these benefits are as follows:
Monetization: The first benefit of selling APIs will be to earn money. You can sell the API you have developed as a service to different developers and earn financial income in return. Today, APIs in an particular are charged per use.
Network expansion: Selling your API gives you the opportunity to build a large network. You can easily sell the service you provide to every developer and institution in the world. In this way, you can find the opportunity to meet more than one developer and institution around the world and sell your new products to them.
Branding: Developers and institutions that you sell your API can evaluate your APIs. These evaluation results can be a reference for you. Thanks to these references, you have the chance to become a brand and to produce and sell new products easily.
Get ahead of the competition: By selling your API, you can get ahead of your competitors who provide the same service as you. If you update your marketing strategies in accordance with market conditions and keep customer satisfaction high, you will grow rapidly by serving developers from all over the world.
How to Build a RESTful API in Node.js?
In this part, we will develop a REST API with Node.js. For this, Node must be installed on our computer.
To develop our application, let’s first create a folder on the desktop and run the following command while inside this folder.
npm init
With this command, we will create our Node.js project with default settings. Then we will include Express.js, the web framework of Node.js, into the application with the following command.
| npm i express |
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Express.js is a very puppet web framework for Node.js. It provides several features that make web application development fast and easy.
Now let’s create a file named ‘index.js’ in the folder we created and paste the following codes
| const express = require(‘express’); const app = express(); const port = 3000;app.get(‘/api/hello’, (req, res) => { res.send(‘Hello World!’); }); app.listen(port, () => { |
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With this code, our application will run on port 3000 when it runs. We have added a REST API to our application and we will test it when we run the application.
To run the application, let’s add the following command to the ‘script’ field in the ‘package.json’ file
| “start”: “node index.js” |
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Now we are ready to run our application. We can run our application together with the following command
| npm start |
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After the application is running, we will see the text “Server is running at http://localhost:3000” in the application console. To test the API we have developed, we will send an HTTP GET request to the URL “http://localhost:3000/api/hello” via Postman. The response we got is as follows.
How to Sell Your API?
Now it’s time for us to sell the API we’ve developed. After hosting the API we developed on a server or cloud, it is quite simple to sell this API. While there are many options for selling APIs today, it’s best to upload them to an API marketplace visited by many developers and sell from there.
Today’s most popular and most visited API marketplace is APILayer. It enables our API to be discovered and used by businesses and developers worldwide. With APILayer, we can easily sell the API we developed in just a few steps.
After clicking the List Your API button on APILayer’s homepage, the following page will welcome us.
We can start selling your API quickly by filling in the required fields on this page and sending them to APILayer.
Conclusion
As a result, developing an API and selling it on the right platform benefits developers a lot. Developers can thus both make money and go branding while serving businesses and developers around the world.
FAQs
Q: What is the Best Place to Sell Your API?
A: Although there are many ways to sell your API today, developers who want to buy an API prefer API marketplaces for it. That’s why the best place to sell your API is API marketplaces like APILayer which receive a lot of visitors.
Q: Why is APILayer the Best API Marketplace?
A: There are several reasons why APILayer is the most popular API Marketplace in the market. First, all APIs listed under APILayer have both paid and free subscription plans. Then there are dozens of categories under APILayer, and many APIs are listed from these categories. In this way, developers can find APIs for almost any subject they may need.
Q: Is There a Free Subscription Plan for Each API in APILayer?
A: Yes, there is. This is the most important advantage that puts APILayer one step ahead of its competitors. In this way, Developers get the API they need free of charge with certain usage limits and perform their tests. Then, if he is satisfied with this free API, he can sign up for one of the paid subscription plans.
Q: Why Do Developers Sell API on the API Marketplace?
A: By selling their APIs in an API marketplace, developers appeal to and serve more users. In this case, the developer can earn more money and increase the recognition of his API. Additionally, selling APIs on an API marketplace can also help developers build their brands and reputations within the developer community.
