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Monetise my API

Your API is deployed. Now you want consumers using it — with subscriptions, credentials, metering, and cost visibility.

Already running your API somewhere else? It does not have to move. Upload the specification of the API you run today, deploy it with your service as the upstream, and it is sellable within minutes: customers sign themselves up, each with their own credentials scoped to the plan they chose, and every call is metered. Your service keeps running where it is; Apiway sits in front of it.

What you need

Section titled “What you need”
  • A deployed API on Apiway (ship one first if you haven’t)
  • At least one consumer (internal team or external partner)

The pipeline

Section titled “The pipeline”

  1. Define your SLA tiers

    Set what consumers get at each level — rate limits, throughput, support, and pricing.

    Terminal window
    curl -X POST https://core.api.apiway.net/v1/apis/{id}/sla \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -d '{
        "tiers": [
          { "name": "Free", "rateLimit": 100, "unit": "minute" },
          { "name": "Standard", "rateLimit": 1000, "unit": "minute" },
          { "name": "Enterprise", "rateLimit": 10000, "unit": "minute" }
        ]
      }'

    Tiers are enforced at the gateway. No custom code. See OpenSLA for the full specification.

  2. Publish to your marketplace

    Make the API discoverable in your developer portal:

    Terminal window
    curl -X POST https://core.api.apiway.net/v1/apis/{id}/publish \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

    Consumers can browse documentation, try endpoints in the sandbox, and subscribe — all self-service.

  3. Consumers subscribe

    When a consumer subscribes, the platform:

    • Creates credentials (OAuth 2.0 client or API key)
    • Applies the selected SLA tier
    • Configures gateway enforcement
    • Starts metering from the first request

    No manual provisioning. No shared API keys. Every consumer gets their own credentials.

  4. Track usage and costs

    Every request is metered as resource units:

    Terminal window
    curl https://core.api.apiway.net/v1/apis/{id}/metering \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

    See consumption per consumer, per operation, per time period.

  5. See your P&L

    The Wealth Engine aggregates revenue (what consumers pay) against cost (what your downstream dependencies cost you):

    Terminal window
    curl https://core.api.apiway.net/v1/wealth-engine/apis/{id} \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

    Margin per API. Per consumer. Per month. The CFO can finally see which APIs make money and which ones don’t.

What you got

Section titled “What you got”
  • Self-service consumer onboarding — no manual credential sharing
  • SLA enforcement — rate limits applied per tier at the gateway
  • Per-consumer metering — usage tracked automatically
  • Cost centre P&L — revenue vs. cost per API, per consumer
  • Credential lifecycle — expiry tracking and proactive rotation alerts

Selling it means not breaking it

Section titled “Selling it means not breaking it”

The first customers of an API are its references. Break one of their integrations, or miss a service level you sold them, and you lose more than the renewal — you lose the story you tell the next customer. For a young company that is the reputation.

  • Never break a paying customer. A breaking change is refused onto a version customers are calling; it becomes a new version beside it, and they move when they choose. See Versioning.
  • Sell service levels you can prove. Your plans are OpenSLA tiers — limits, quotas and the numbers you promise. Limits and quotas are enforced on every request, and risks are raised as they happen rather than reported by a customer afterwards. You are warned when you under- or over-deliver on what you promised. See OpenSLA.
  • Drift protection for your API and your consumers. Every deployment is verified against the contract; if what is running stops matching it, you are warned before a customer notices.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”