ScreenshotOne: A screenshot API

Guess what one of the customers requested it recently and is now available for everybody?

ScreenshotOne now supports asynchronous screenshot rendering and webhooks 🔥

Let me know what you think about it.

To signal long-term plans and cultivate trust for screenshot API, I decided to share an approximate product roadmap until the middle of 2024.

Regardless of my plans to sell the product or to continue working on it, it makes sense to share the roadmap openly.

As a solopreneur, you don't have the luxury of frequently chatting with customers and executing support tickets. Your time is limited.

I decided that I will strategically make ScreenshotOne as autonomous as possible—ideally, complete customer self-service.

One of the first features in that direction is the pay-as-you-go option once a customer reaches their plan limit.

I top-up screenshot balance for some customers 2-3 times a week and made a few mistakes. Don't want to repeat it more.

With a few more hours of testing and development, I think it will be production-ready 👉 charging extra.

An open April 2023 report for the best screenshot API:

📉 5100 unique visitors (-1100)
👎 4.14% landing page conversion rate (-2.2%)
❤️ 41 paying customers (+3)
💔 ~6 churned
💰 $2465.6 monthly revenue (+$1449.38)
🤑 $907 MRR

The churn month. It was harsh!

An open March 2023 report for my screenshot API:

📈 6200 unique visitors (+3400)
👌 6.32% landing page conversion rate (-0.27%)
❤️ 38 paying customers (+11)
💔 1 churned
💰 $1016.22 monthly revenue (+$815.36),

It was the best month so far. I crossed the first time $1K in monthly revenue.

The key drivers of growth are the Product Hunt launch and SEO.

And it was the first month when my friends started to take my business seriously.

I am super grateful to Andy Robinson, who built an SDK for C# (.NET) for ScreenshotOne. Look at how easy and convenient to use.

Installation

Add the library via nuget using the package manager console:

PM> Install-Package ScreenshotOne.dotnetsdk

Or from the .NET CLI as:

dotnet add package ScreenshotOne.dotnetsdk

Usage

Don't forget to sign up to get access and secret keys. And generate a screenshot URL without executing request:

var client = new Client("<access key>", "<secret key>");	
var options = TakeOptions.Url("https://www.amazon.com")
  .FullPage(true)
  .Format(Format.PNG)
  .BlockCookieBanners(true);
  
var url = client.GenerateTakeUrl(options);

// url = https://api.screenshotone.com/take?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com&full_page=true&format=png&block_cookie_banners=true&access_key=_OzqMIjpCw-ARQ&signature=8a08e62d13a5c3490fda0734b6707791d3decc9ab9ba41e8cc045288a39db502	

Take a screenshot and save the image in the file:

var client = new Client("<access key>", "<secret key>");	
var options = TakeOptions.Url("https://www.google.com")
  .FullPage(true)
  .Format(Format.PNG)
  .BlockCookieBanners(true);
  
var bytes = await client.Take(options);

File.WriteAllBytes(@"c:\temp\example.png", bytes);	

That's it!

Learn More

In addition, I shared how you can generate a screenshot from an URL in C# (.NET).

A quick report for the February 2023 numbers for my lovely website screenshot API:

📈 2800 unique visitors (-500)
👌 6.61% landing page conversion rate (+2.25%)
❤️ 28 paying customers (+6)
🤩 0 churned
💰 $982.18 total revenue (+$200.86)

The overall trend is still 👌 The next goal is to build a strategic plan and think about what I want to do with the product next.

Numbers

Let's look at the raw numbers:

• top 4 product of the day and 4 hours of sleep
• 450+ upvotes
• 200+ comments
• 40,000+ the launch tweet impressions
• 300+ new Twitter followers
• 1800+ unique visits
• 80+ sign-ups
• chatting with 5+ new users about the potential integration
• 1 proposal for acquisition
• 1 upgrade to a yearly plan ($140)

The real impact will be seen after a while since it is an API product, and it takes time to integrate it and start paying. In addition, Product Hunt shares a dofollow link, and I believe it will profoundly impact my SEO.

It is a colossal win for me on all sides.

Thank you

It is not the product. It is not me. This win is attributed to you all who supported me. Without you, I am nobody from nowhere who built a no-name product.

Thank you, my friends. I won’t stop repeating, but it was true before, and it stays true after the launch—you can count on me.

Don’t hesitate to message me on Twitter and ask for support or help.

Now, I can go and read that Product Hunt launch guide.

I have stopped procrastinating and rationalizing my fears and just launched ScreenshotOne on ProductHunt.

I appreciate any kind of support. A vote, comment, sharing the link to the lauch—everything counts.

I forgot to share January 2023 numbers for my URL and HTML rendering API:

📈 3300 unique visitors (+1400)
👌 4.36% landing page conversion rate (+1.7%)
❤️ 22 paying customers (+11)
🤩 0 churned
💰 $819.34 total revenue (+$198.92)

The overall trend is still 👌 The next goal is to launch on Product Hunt.