Comment by cx42net

I've been running PDFShift.io, an API to convert HTML to PDF for seven years now. It's profitable (around $12K MRR) and still growing.

It took quite some efforts to have a service of really high quality, resilient and bug-free but I'm nearing this and it's a real pleasure.

To answer all your other points :

- What's your API: An API to convert HTML documents (URL/Raw) to PDF - How much MRR: About $12k - Pricing model: Subscription plan with limits in the number of converted documents that depends on the plan. The rest is the same for all the plans (no features unlocked at certain level). - First paying customers: Mostly from IndieHackers and Quora at the beginning, and a successful launch on ProductHunt when it was still big. - Problem I'm solving: Not having to manage your own servers to handle conversion. It can be done locally for sure, but as the service grow, the need for resources increases too and can lead to issues down the road. With PDFShift, it's just set up and forget it. - Biggest challenge: I was initially at OVH Strasbourg, when it caught fire, and lost a lot. I had to rebuilt the database from data I had around and gave access to everyone for free until I had all sorted up (took 2 days). This was a good lesson to learn to not save the backup on the same service and at the same place! - I would definitely do it again. (I'm thinking of this frequently for other services too :D)