Support and documentation

The more popular an API is, the higher its support costs are. In the beginning, the only costs your API has are related to its development. During the API design and development stages, you spend time and resources ensuring you can launch your API. After that stage, you focus on having your API running, and you quickly start having infrastructure costs. Over time, as you start getting API users, significant costs will be related to support. More users interacting with your API means you’ll have to provide more technical assistance. Even if your API looks like the easiest one to use, there will be users who will need help. The cost of support grows to the point where you introduce a new version that addresses most user issues. However, with any new API version introduced, more challenges will emerge, and more users will require support assistance.

Support is one of the most underrated parts of operating a successful API product. Without a viable support...