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Sebastian Wallinstabot project
Sebastian Wallinstabot project

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We Launched on Product Hunt — 2 Weeks Building an API Where AI Agents Pay Per Request

#showdev #webdev #ai #opensource

Two weeks ago I shipped a weird idea: an Instagram influencer search API where you pay per request using USDC, with no API keys, no signup, no monthly billing.

We're launching on Product Hunt this Monday, March 16: https://www.producthunt.com/products/social-intel

Here's the honest 2-week build-in-public report.

What it does

Send a GET request to get HTTP 402 then pay $0.10 USDC on Base chain to get JSON results with Instagram influencer data.

# Step 1: discover the price
curl https://socialintel.dev/v1/search?query=fitness&country=US&limit=20
# returns HTTP 402 with payment instructions

# Step 2: pay and retry (x402 client handles this automatically)
# returns JSON: 20 influencers with username, followers, category, public email
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It also runs as an MCP server, so Claude Desktop and Cursor can search influencers directly. The agent pays autonomously from its own wallet.

2-week numbers (honest)

Metric Value
API hits (payment_402 events) 50
Paying customers 1
Revenue $1.20 USDC
Gross margin 99.7%
Conversion rate 0% (0 paying after the first customer)

The 0% conversion is the real story. Developers find the API, hit the 402, and... stop. Most don't have USDC on Base ready to go.

What worked

Distribution: Listed on x402scan, Smithery, mcp.so, Glama, awesome-mcp-servers, and registered on-chain via ERC-8004. First paying customer came from one of these discovery channels (Japan, Node.js MCP client).

Pricing model: $0.10/request at 99.7% margin is sustainable even at low volume.

MCP integration: Several developers reached out specifically about the Claude Desktop + MCP use case. This is the right audience.

What didn't work

USDC friction: The biggest blocker. Even technical developers who understand the concept bounce when they realize they need USDC on Base. Fixed: free-tier endpoint is now live -- ?demo=true returns 3 results with no payment required.

GitHub outreach: Posted issues on 14 repos related to x402/MCP. Zero replies after 72 hours. Low-signal channel.

Reddit: Post removed by spam filter (karma 0 account). Need to build karma before posting links.

The tech

  • FastAPI + FastMCP (Python)
  • x402 protocol (Coinbase open standard -- HTTP 402 for machine payments)
  • USDC on Base + Solana (multi-chain via x402 SDK 2.3.0)
  • DataLikers as the Instagram data source
  • Postgres for caching + financial tracking
  • Coolify for hosting

Full backend architecture: the x402 middleware intercepts requests, issues 402 responses with payment schemas, verifies on-chain payments via Coinbase CDP facilitator, and passes through to the data layer.

What's next

  1. Free tier endpoint -- SHIPPED: ?demo=true returns 3 results, no wallet needed
  2. Engagement rate data -- the most-requested feature
  3. TON chain support -- pending x402 SDK PR merge
  4. Max followers filter -- currently you can't isolate micro-influencers (<10K)

Support on PH

If you're building with AI agents, x402, or MCP -- we'd love your upvote this Monday: https://www.producthunt.com/products/social-intel

And if you have USDC on Base: try it live at https://socialintel.dev

MCP server (open source): https://github.com/socialinteldev/social-intel-mcp

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