The API Rating Rubric, Explained

About this paper

A rating is an argument. When apis.io puts a 76.2 on Stripe and a 31.7 on some other payments provider, it is making a claim about which one an integrator — or an agent — should reach for first, and it had better be able to defend that claim line by line. This paper is that defense. It is the entire scoring methodology in the open: the six things measured, the weight each carries, the signals behind them, and — the part most rating systems never admit — what the score deliberately refuses to look at.

I am writing it for two readers. If you publish an API and you want your number to go up, the back half is a playbook. If you cite these numbers — a journalist, an analyst, a buyer building a shortlist — the front half is the methodology you need to defend the citation, and the “how to read someone else’s score” section is the fine print that keeps you from being fooled.

What's inside

1. What the rating is — and what it is not
2. The composite, in one picture
3. The six facets — what each measures, why its weight, how to move it
4. The bands, and why trend beats a snapshot
5. What the rubric refuses to measure
6. How to read someone else's score
7. Moving your own score — cheapest wins first
8. Self-assessment, and where the weights are going

What you get for $25.00