I created a free search engine for memes, now I need help keeping it online
Hi there 👋
A few days ago I launched my side project Memegine (a search engine for internet memes) on ProductHunt. The launch went well, I even ended up being #1 Product of the Day 🙌
This service is available to everyone for free and without ads (and I intend to keep it that way).
The thing is, with more new users visiting the website every day, the servers required to run this service are getting pretty expensive to cover by myself.
To help with the server cost, I set up a donation option (on buymeacoffee.com) but I doubt this is viable for the long term.
So I am turning to you fellow indie hackers, In the hope that together, we can brainstorm ideas of ways to monetize this service enough to keep it online.
All ideas are welcome ❤️
Here are some random ideas I had:
- Company sponsorship (display a small banner in the header)
- User donations (currently implemented)
- Get Google Cloud Credits (via Google Cloud for Startup if eligible)
- Sell API access to the engine
Cheers! 🛠
Great work on memegine! My suggestion would be to go the API route. Several IH's including @yongfook who worked on Bannerbear have had a lot of success with building an API.
Thanks for the feedback! I like that idea too as it has bring no compromises for the users.
But I wonder what would be a fair pricing, let's say for a 1000 requests. I'm thinking in the 0.5$ to 2$ range but it's hard to find a similar product to compare pricing 🙃
Perhaps @yongfook might have some insights?