Choose your pattern

Which kind of product to build follows from what your buyer receives and how it pays: the first question you answer yes to names it.

Which kind of product to build, in seven questionsCopy Anchor Link

Ask them in order. A later pattern can do what an earlier one does, but costs you more to run.

1. Does the buyer get facts about a thing, from a source you own or license? Build a Dataset API, priced per answer, from Sources and a Mapping.
2. A place its own team keeps records? Build a Headless SaaS, priced by plan and seat, from Nouns and a lifecycle.
3. One answer to one call, from code, a model, an agent or a person? Build a Function API, priced per call by kind, from a Function.
4. A worker that does a job for it, again and again? Build an Agent API, billed by its tokens and minutes.
5. A piece of work, finished and accepted? Build a Service API, charged once on acceptance, from a Workflow and an Outcome contract.
6. Editions you write and publish? Build Content, sold by the read or a membership.
7. What many other suppliers offer, under your brand? Build a Marketplace, paid by your take of each sale.

When two fitCopy Anchor Link

A pattern is what you write, not a setting, so one file can hold two. Each Noun sells its own way.

One job, two waysCopy Anchor Link

An answer found by an agent, sold per call, is a Function API in a few lines.

import { define, agentic } from 'apis.dev'

/** The head of sales at any company, found by an agent, priced per answer. */
export default define({
  name: 'summaries', domain: 'summaries.apis.dev',
  Company: {
    domain:   'url!#',
    research: agentic('Find the head of sales at {domain}',
      { returns: { headOfSales: 'string' } }),
  },
  offer: { 'Company.research': 0.5 },
})

Charged only when the buyer accepts the name, the same job is a Service API. Its price moves to an outcome, and its Verb to a lifecycle.

What APIs.Dev refuses to beCopy Anchor Link

APIs.Dev never stands between you and your buyers: your Customers, your brand and your Stripe account stay yours, and nothing they read names it.