Show HN: I made a credit system API

[fraromeo]

I'm a solopreneur and I made it very easy to integrate a credit system into your apps and games using Creduse.

I built Creduse because more and more users want pay-as-you-go models, and founders need new ways to increase user engagement or nicely limit cost-intensive features (see AI).

Creduse is built by a developer for developers. I hope it will help as many startups as possible.

Feedback are very much appreciated.

Francesco

[sparky_]

The difficulty you'll face for mobile is users man-in-the-middling their own device to find your developer's API key, and then making their own POST requests to increment their credit balance. This is why platforms like the App Store offer the ability to validate receipts of transactions [1].

Probably something you'll need to grow support for if you want this to be a drop-in solution for mobile devs.

[1] https://medium.com/@ronaldmannak/how-to-validate-ios-and-mac...

[fraromeo]

Very interesting point. Thanks for bringing this up.

Couple of questions: shouldn't my customers be taking care of this since I don't know their architecture? I think mobile devs can hugely benefit from Creduse, can you point me on how to support them for this scenario?

open to discuss via email if you prefer: [e-mail]

[lwansbrough]

If you’re intending for your API to be server to server then it’s not an issue. But that may limit uptake from mobile devs who may be looking for a more plug and play solution to dodge the need to build their own infra.

[fraromeo]

I intend it as server to server but you made me think about this specific case. I might have found a solution that bypass and solve the problem you are referring to but I need to deeply think about it. Not only needs to be secured the API Key (which is solved by the solution I have in mind), but also the content/payload of the request (otherwise the client would change the amount of credits).

[boopdewoop]

Why would you use this on the frontend? anything that requires auth tokens should never be used on the front end, You would be using this on your own server

[fraromeo]

Totally agree. I understand his point but can’t do much unless I implement some very complex stuff specifically for mobile (and I’m not even sure it would work safely)

[darrenwestall]

We’re about to implement a credit system for a new product, I’ll try this instead and feedback to you.

Would be amazing if you handled the buying of additional pay as you go credits for us too - that’s the next thing we’d need to build.

[darrenwestall]

Having to pay to try is a little disappointing, but I’ve done it.

Sent you a chat with some queries - we need to use cycles and payg in combination, and the api call to get remaining credits should include the cycle start and renewal date, with the different credit types remaining too.

The option to choose which credit type subtract should come from by default would be good too - to allow users to use their cycle credits first and then eat into their payg back up credits.

[fraromeo]

It's possible to use cycle and payg in combination, it's exactly the strength of Creduse.

About the `get-active-balance` endpoint - you're right, it's pretty basic at the moment. It just gives you the total active balance and user ID. It doesn't break down cycle vs PAYG credits or show cycle dates yet.

I've add it to the top of my pipeline. I'll be working on improving this endpoint to give you more detailed info about the user's credit balance.

Regarding the option to choose which credit type to subtract from, I'll keep this in mind and consider its feasibility. Can't promise anything on this just yet, but I appreciate the idea.

I really like your suggestions though! It's exactly the kind of feedback I'm looking for. Thanks for bringing this up, and thanks for subscribing!

[fraromeo]

Great! Thanks for giving Creduse a try.

By "handled the buying of additional payg credits" do you mean the payment processing?

[darrenwestall]

I do. I mean providing a JavaScript widget that lets people see their credits, renewal dates and buy more. Then it would be an end to end credit solution.

[rany_]

Can you make an OTE environment so we can test without payment or needing to contact you?

[fraromeo]

Update - just released a 7 days free trial

[fraromeo]

I'm thinking about it. Would you be more interested in testing the API or see Creduse in action in an existing web app for example? (I imagine testing the api)

[msnkarthik]

congrats man. This is cool. Does the work on mobile apps too? We are coming up with a mobile app where users have to buy AI credits as add-ons - and we were building out own credit sysyem. How can this help?

[fraromeo]

BTW this would exactly your case https://doc.creduse.com/use-cases/payasyougo.html

[fraromeo]

Hey there! Thanks a lot! Of course, it would work also on mobile apps. As long as you can make an http request to api.creduse.com/endpoint, you can run it wherever you want :) In your case if the user's payment is completed you can send a POST request to /add with the amount of credits you want to add. The user then, will receive his credits. That's it.

You can find a lot more details on doc.creduse.com

[msnkarthik]

Awesome. I checked it out and forwarded it to my team. However their feedback back that since we already use chargebee for subscription management, this might add little value for our usecase. This requires the management of when to start the cycle, when to subtract credits, how much of credits to subtract at our end itself. Added info if required to be extracted will need to be passed on via apis - which might add more work to implement this. Thought i'll share the feedback so that you can think in this direction in the future. All the best!

[imarkphillips]

Do you have some use cases that can show different ways of using the service?

[fraromeo]

This is a great question. I'm actually working on it. In the meantime in the documentation there is a section called "Use cases" - here's the pay as you go model for example: https://doc.creduse.com/use-cases/payasyougo.html

I want to implement Creduse into a free ai character chatbot I've created in the past (hellspitching .com) to showcase its use.

[anxman]

Can we get a trial to test this out? Been looking for this.

[fraromeo]

Update - Just released a 7 days free trial!

[fraromeo]

Working on it. I'll let you know. Thanks for the interest!