How Flowcode Transitioned to API-First Through API Monetization

Overview

Flowcode is the leading QR code provider, bridging the gap between offline consumers and digital experiences. Using Flowcode’s QR technology, brands can accelerate growth by better managing relationships with offline shoppers, harmonizing off- and on-line strategies and reducing customer experience friction.

Through an online tool suite for data preparation, lead generation and analytics, Flowcode allows its customers to; own their first-party data such as geo-location and device type, provide deep analytics into business critical issues such as user acquisition funnels, and programmatically change codes.

As Flowcode grew exponentially, they launched a developer API portal to allow users to create and measure QR codes directly in their own workflows and applications. They also adopted an “API-first mindset” when reworking their platform, to make sure that they could fully utilize the flexibility and power that APIs provide. They needed a partner who was deeply conversant in API architectures, specifically monetization and analytics.

Challenge

As the QR code market blossomed, and as Flowcode exhibited exponential growth, they looked to the power of their APIs to differentiate themselves from their competitors. They already had analytics, but wanted to make their API product one that could fill in the gaps inherent in their UI offering.

There was also discussion internally about the need for a nuanced approach to usage based billing, given that their products were highly monetizable, but too complex for a “one size fits all” billing solution. Having visibility and control over their APIs was a top priority for Flowcode, so they turned to Moesif to avoid engineering maintenance and launch delays. By reporting on their APIs at a granular level, Moesif enabled Flowcode to track usage without requiring overwhelming engineering overhead.

Flowcode also needed an API-first analytics tool that would give them visibility of their tech stack at the user and account levels. They wanted to see their API call volume split by use case, and wanted control over access to their APIs. Because they bill customers off of volume, they needed the granular visibility Moesif offers for clarity into their usage and user behavior. By looking at API call logs, Flowcode wanted to be able to get ahead of potential issues and make their APIs easier to use.

Moesif was a pretty neat solution that already existed. Sharing it internally with our team, we thought it made sense and was an actionable answer to our observability issue.

Johnny Driscoll, Product Manager

Solution

Easy to Bring Online

Prior to testing Moesif, Flowcode hadn’t found anything that met their needs for an API analytics solution. Early in their discovery process, Flowcode knew they needed a partner that worked seamlessly with their existing tech stack. When they found Moesif, they were able to integrate in minutes and stand up an environment thanks to Moesif’s close partnership with Kong’s Gateway.

Problem Resolution From Days to Minutes

Flowcode was able to reduce their timeline for problem resolution from days to hours, sometimes even minutes. Because they have a bird’s eye view of their entire product stack with Moesif, they can diagnose client issues much quicker than before.

If we see a large chunk of failed API calls, we can see what went wrong thanks to Moesif’s granular level of insights. It’s helped us triage more effectively and quickly.

Andrew Martone, API Solutions Engineer

Flowcode was able to reduce their timeline for problem resolution from days to hours, sometimes even minutes. Because they have a bird’s eye view of their entire product stack with Moesif, they can diagnose client issues much quicker than before.

Metered Billing with Complex Rules

Flowcode had been using Cloudflare logs to determine usage. By employing Moesif’s deep analytical capabilities, they are now able to tie user behavior to individual accounts, and get a much higher level of visibility. These granular user insights enable Flowcode to accurately report on use at the client level, giving them the confidence they need to build complex, custom billing meters and solutions for their users. Today Flowcode can more precisely and accurately invoice customers thanks to Moesif.

Since Moesif’s dashboards are highly shareable, exporting data reports and sharing insights across finance teams has gone from taking days to mere minutes.

Deep Insights for Product-Led Growth

Flowcode uses Moesif to track usage to accelerate not only their business goals, but their product ones. By having total visibility into their API usage at the user level, Flowcode is able to understand their enterprise users more effectively. They knew prior to setting up Moesif that enterprise organizations typically use more than one seat, but wanted more clarity on how usage breaks down within a group account.

By being able to split by use case (API vs code), Flowcode is able to control access to their products while simultaneously gaining insight into customer usage, helping to shape their product roadmaps. By understanding how customers use their products, Flowcode is able to shape their feature updates and new products based on their real user behavior. Flowcode is able to expand their product offerings and tools with confidence thanks to Moesif’s deep, user centric analytics.

The sky's the limit on Flowcode’s growth. And I see our API usage and volume continuing to scale accordingly as well, and generating corresponding analytics. Moesif will enable us to measure them.

Johnny Driscoll

Summary

Through harnessing the power of reliable API analytics, Flowcode has been able to monetize their API product more efficiently with Moesif. By implementing a go-to-market workflow with meaningful, API-first steps and metric qualifiers, Flowcode accelerated the product development process for their developer portal and launched on schedule.

By utilizing Moesif’s reporting suite, Flowcode has accelerated their internal processes by truly becoming an API-first organization. With Moesif, analytics driven monetization is made fast and simple, allowing Flowcode’s internal teams to focus on innovation and customer success rather than product monitoring and maintenance.