What's API Request and How to Estimate my Costs?

apio, as a software platform, provides various APIs for business automation and toolings. You can think API as outsourcing a simple task from you or your customer to our platform. Anything you don’t want to do: either manually or pay someone to do it, you make a call to apio platform and we’ll do it automatically for you. In this post, you can find simple explanation of API request and estimate your monthly cost per our pricing plan.

🤝 Join apio basic tier for just $10/month!

An API Request Example ¶

Take Post-It, our email automation service, for example. We integrate it with Chopin to send order confirmation. This task, if not using our API, you could setup google sheet update notification email, anytime you receive a notification, you can manually copy items ordered and customer email from google sheet and send the order confirmation to your customers accordingly.

The task is obviously tedious and that’s where our API comes in. We understand your pain so we offer a simple integration to watch for the update, based on the order submitted, send a confirmation to the customer for you. This task that we automated for you, counts as “1” API request.

Chopin API Request Flow ¶

Throughout the lifecycle of a Chopin store visit, there are various API involved:

When a user clicks on your store URL, our platform will:

1. Make sure the request is legit and not abusing our API
2. If it’s a Chopin store request, it will make a request on your behalf to access product data on your google sheet
3. If the customer submits an order, it will make a request on your behalf to update order data on your google sheet
4. If you enable email confirmation, it will make another request on your behalf to send email to the customer

Note: the dashed-double-direction arrow indicates an authentication request + a service request. The safety and security of all services running on our platform is our utmost concern, therefore, any service request will be authenticated on your behalf.

🛍️ Read more: quick introduction to online store creator Chopin

Long Story Short ¶

Although we want to be transparent about how our pricing and platform work, we understand you have better things to do other than learning how our platform API works.

Here’s a quick summary:

• When you make an impression (no purchase), there’s a total of 4 requests

  • 2 requests to chopin: auth + chopin service
  • 2 requests to waitress: auth + product catalog from google sheet

• When a purchase is made, there’s a total of 8 requests

  • 2 requests to chopin: auth + chopin service
  • 2 requests to waitress: auth + get product catalog from google sheet
  • 2 requests to waitress: auth + update order google sheet
  • 2 requests to post-it (if enabled): auth + send email on your behalf to customer

The more services integration you added to your chopin store, the more API requests it’d make and the more it’d cost.

Monthly Cost Calculator ¶

Scenarios: Cost Estimation ¶

Let’s do a quick comparison given different scenarios so you could get an idea of actual cost:

Hobbyist ¶

We offer a forever free tier for you to test the water. You can enjoy up to 5000 requests per month (which is more than enough!). Product recommendations from our affiliated partners will be displayed on your Chopin store.

Starting Out ¶

You just started a new business and built your customer base from scratch. You probably would have 500 visitors and 10 transactions each month (2% conversion). Our basic tier offers a more optimized experience with unlimited product listings, no affiliated product recommendations, and a custom online store URL.

It’ll be a total of 2040 requests consisted of:

• impressions: 4 * 490 = 1960 requests
• purchases: 8 * 10 = 80 requests

In our basic pricing plan, monthly cost will be a total of $10

• fixed: $10 (with 5000 requests included)

Growing Audience (Most Common) ¶

You’ve gradually grow your fan base and have a pretty stable clientele. You probably would have 1500 visitors and 50 transactions each month (3.33% conversion).

It’ll be a total of 6200 requests consisted of:

• impressions: 4 * 1450 = 5800 requests
• purchases: 8 * 50 = 400 requests

In our basic pricing plan, monthly cost will be a total of $11

• fixed: $10 (with 5000 requests included)
• volume: $1 for 1200 requests ($1 per 1000 requests)

Recurring Customers ¶

You’ve cerated your own empire with many loyal customers and heavy traffic to your website. At this point, you would probably have 2500 visitors and 100 transactions each month (2.5% conversion).

It’ll be a total of 10400 requests consisted of:

• impressions: 4 * 2400 = 9600 requests
• purchases: 8 * 100 = 800 requests

In our basic pricing plan, monthly cost will be a total of $15

• fixed: $10 (with 5000 requests included)
• volume: $5 for 5400 requests ($1 per 1000 requests)

Feel free to contact our sales team via email or Facebook Messenger if you’re still not sure about the cost!

Summary ¶

The state of e-commerce and no-code web development platform is extremely competitive. We want to bring an alternative perspective to the competition: more options and functionality does not solve business problems better.

Well-designed suite of toolings specifically for small business owners could help aspiring business owners off the ground to validate their products and ideas much faster. The flexibility to quickly pivot, experiment or even taking a break could be extremely crucial in the early stage of businesses.

For those who are just starting out, you could spend your valuable time learning an e-commerce platform to build a website. We argue, however, it’s so much more important to get off the ground fast, learn about your customers and improve your products and services. After all, for a business to truly succeed, it’s all about the customers.

Let apio help you to choose your own set of tools and grow the business together!

Happy Building Businesses! 💼