Pre-Launch Pricing Research Kit: Real-Time Database Syncing API

Executive Summary

Recommended pricing: $0.08-0.12 per 1M requests with tiered free/starter/pro/enterprise structure

Key findings:

• Your $0.10/1M requests sits in middle of fragmented competitive landscape ($0-$0.50 equivalent)
• Market shows strong preference for free tiers (developers expect 100K-500K free requests monthly)
• Data integration market growing 12-13% CAGR ($17.58B in 2025 → $33.24B by 2030)
• Direct competitors use row-based (Fivetran), execution-based (n8n), or connection-based (Supabase) pricing
• Request-based pricing is simpler and more transparent than alternatives

Next steps:

1. Validate request-based model vs. alternatives through customer interviews (Week 1-2)
2. Conduct 7-10 developer interviews testing $0.05-0.20/1M range (Week 2-3)
3. Design free tier (100K-500K requests/month) based on interview data (Week 3)
4. Finalize pricing and launch (Week 4)

1. Market Sizing

TAM: $17-33 billion

Data integration ($17.58B→$33.24B), API management ($7.49B→$35.3B), real-time database ($1.54B→$2.57B) markets combined.

SAM: $2-4 billion

Startups to mid-market companies (10-500 employees), teams with API integration capability, US/Europe/APAC.

SOM (Year 1): $80K-250K

Conservative: 50 customers × $100/mo = $80K. Optimistic: 150 customers × $200/mo = $250K.

2. Competitor Pricing Analysis

Data Integration APIs

Workflow Automation (Per-Task Pricing)

Real-Time/Messaging APIs

Your $0.10/1M requests = $0.0000001/request

• 50-100x cheaper than write-heavy APIs (Confluent, X API)
• 190x cheaper than task-based tools (Zapier)
• Simpler than row/connection/GB models

3. Customer Interview Script (20 minutes)

Target: Developers at startups/mid-market building dashboards

Opening: “I’m researching how developers handle real-time data synchronization across multiple databases for dashboard applications. This isn’t a sales call—I want to understand your challenges.”

Current Situation (5 min):

1. “Tell me about a recent project where you synced data from multiple sources into a dashboard. What databases/APIs were involved?”
2. “How do you handle the syncing today? Custom code, existing tools, polling vs. webhooks?”
3. “How often does your data need to update? Seconds, minutes, hours?”
4. “What does your current setup cost—paid tools, infrastructure, developer time?”

Pain Exploration (5 min):
5. “What’s most frustrating about your current data syncing approach?”
6. “Has this ever caused problems for your team or users? Tell me about a time things broke.”
7. “If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing, what would it be?”

Solution & Van Westendorp (5 min):
“Imagine an API for syncing data across MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB in real-time. You’d make API requests instead of writing custom sync code. Pricing would be per request—for example, 10 million requests/month syncing data would cost about $1.”

8a. “At what price per 1M requests would you consider this so cheap you’d question reliability?” $_____
8b. “At what price would this be a bargain?” $_____
8c. “At what price would it be expensive but still worth considering?” $_____
8d. “At what price would it be too expensive—you’d build it yourself?” $_____

9. “Would you pay $0.10 per million requests for this API?” Yes / No / Depends
10. “How many free requests per month would you need to properly evaluate it?” _____
11. “Would you prefer paying per-request, per-GB, per-connection, or something else?”

4. Launch Pricing Recommendation

Recommended Tier Structure

Pricing Strategy

• Annual discount: 20% off (Starter $182/year, Pro $758/year)
• No launch discount: Free tier provides low-friction entry
• Grandfather pricing: First 100 customers locked at launch pricing for 24 months
• Price increase timing: 6-12 months post-launch after feature maturity

5. Action Plan (4-Week Compressed Timeline)

Contingency: If can’t get 7+ interviews, proceed with 5 minimum and plan to adjust pricing at Month 3 based on real customer behavior.