February 7, 2026
Built fast, killed faster
Watermark API – $0.01/image, 10x cheaper than Cloudinary
Built in 7 hours, shut down by comments: “do it locally”
TLDR: A developer launched a penny‑per‑image watermarking service positioned as 10x cheaper than big providers, then shut it down within hours after comments said it’s trivial with local tools and AI help. The debate split between convenience and DIY, with many asking if payments were harder than the product itself.
A solo dev rolled out a bare‑bones Watermark API promising to stamp logos on photos for just a penny per image (or $19/month unlimited), bragging a five‑minute setup and no bloated dashboard. The sales pitch: 10x cheaper than big names like Cloudinary, fast batch processing, and a clean "API‑first" approach.
Then the crowd showed up with the cold water. One power user basically said, “Why pay when a free command‑line tool like FFmpeg does it faster on your own computer?” Others chimed in that uploading tons of images to a remote service is slower and messier than just running a quick script. The curveball? A commenter wondered if the payment system looked harder than the actual watermarking.
And then came the plot twist worthy of a startup reality show: the maker returned hours later and declared the experiment over. The community’s verdict? It’s not a big enough problem to need a paid service when “Sharp + ChatGPT solves it in 10 minutes.” The founder called it a 7‑hour validation that did its job—and killed the product on the spot. Commenters cracked jokes about a “PMF speedrun” (product‑market fit any%) and “Ship it, clap it, scrap it” startup bingo.
Bottom line: a cheap, simple tool met a ruthless DIY crowd—and the DIY crowd won, loudly and hilariously.
Key Points
- •Watermark API is introduced as a fast, scalable image watermarking service priced at $0.01 per image, claimed to be 10x cheaper than Cloudinary.
- •Authentication uses an API key passed in the X-API-Key header, with example requests for /status and /health.
- •Single-image watermarking is performed via POST /api/v1/watermark with image, watermark, position, opacity, and scale parameters.
- •Batch processing is available via POST /api/v1/watermark/batch, accepting multiple images[] and a single watermark file.
- •Usage tracking and payments are supported via endpoints for usage/credits and payments (plans and checkout) with example curl commands.