More and more businesses are doubling down on an API strategy. Over 90% of developers use APIs, found a SlashData survey, and about three-quarters of business leaders are prioritizing API initiatives, according to Axway. APIs are the connectors of the digital age, working behind the scenes in banking, fintech, e-commerce, healthcare, IoT, AI, and beyond. The use cases for APIs are wide and varied. But one thing remains consistent across high-use and profitable APIs: a good developer portal.

58% of developers rely on internal documentation to learn APIs, found the 2024 State of the API Report, making developer portals and their associated references a critical tool in helping developers succeed. First impressions matter, as does the ongoing experience someone has when discovering APIs, onboarding, testing calls, and collaborating with others. Developer portals are also the foundation for API-based products, making them a lynchpin to support the lifecycle of an API-first business. Yet, not every portal is made the same.

As developer experience expectations soar, organizations require a dynamic developer portal that goes beyond a barebones index. This often means adding value to what the cloud service providers (CSPs) natively provide for API management and consumption. As we'll see below, the benefits of a high-quality API developer portal extend beyond just helpful documentation — it can increase sales, improve security and governance, and propel an API-first initiative to new heights.

Enhance developer experience

First off, improvements to developer portals can directly enhance the developer experience. For instance, API-related knowledge is often fragmented across an organization, living in silos. A lack of documentation is the primary obstacle to consuming an API, according to the Postman 2023 State of API Report, followed by difficulty in discovering APIs. 

A good portal centralizes this information and presents it in a way that is clear, up-to-date, and well-structured. For example, Experian, a global credit information and analytics provider, centralized its API docs, resulting in a 300% increase in its API catalog in 6 months. These efforts led to enhanced developer adoption, increased product innovation, and top-line revenue growth.

A developer portal is integral to lowering the barrier to entry by abstracting complexity and improving your inventory management. By aggregating disparate specifications and release notes into an integrated developer portal, you also enhance discoverability for APIs. Good developer portals are typically equipped with other perks that improve developer experience, too, such as self-service API key generation and rotation capabilities.

Improve security and governance

Another tangible reason to improve your developer portal is to tighten API security. Too often, typical API management doesn't provide enough access control to ward off the top OWASP risks for APIs, which can cause gaps for attackers. One method to avoid data overexposure and broken access control is to equip developer portals with fine-grained authentication and role-based authorization. Segmenting user types ensures only those with the proper credentials can access sensitive endpoints.

Better API inventorizing has another positive side effect of reducing shadow or zombie APIs, which improves security. A 2024 study from Salt Security found that zombie APIs (outdated, forgotten APIs within large systems) are a top concern for IT and security professionals. Good developer portals help retain awareness for APIs, help avoid unintendedly leaky endpoints and aid in ongoing visibility and auditing. Last but not least, better API inventory management helps meet organizational standards for API governance, a practice becoming top of mind for today's savvy executives.

Generate revenue

API-first business is on the rise — from routing partner ecosystems to powering public API products and complementing existing software-as-a-service platforms, APIs are at the heart of direct and indirect monetization efforts. In turn, developer portals are at the frontlines of many digital business models since they are the face of the API product. In fact, 21% of businesses generate 75% of their revenue through APIs, according to the aforementioned report.

A great developer portal increases sales and revenue. It does so by streamlining the journey toward `Hello World` to convert users into happy customers. Good developer portals also provide transparency to users with an accounting dashboard to track their API usage over time. For instance, cutting-edge developer portals from API-driven companies like OpenAI, Plaid, Twilio, or Stripe are optimized for frictionless self-service development and productization. 

Bring cost savings

Not only can a streamlined developer portal enhance sales, but it can also equate to cost savings. API portals enhance usability, and better developer experiences are proven to reduce costs. Improved DX leads to less support overhead and less turnover. For instance, standard functionality within portals, like API testing tools, playgrounds, or interactive sandboxes, can aid onboarding and cut down on support queries.

Plus, more awareness around an organization's API or microservices inventory leads to less re-engineering of duplicate functions and a faster time-to-market. Especially for internal or partner-facing API initiatives, improving DX improves efficiency and, in effect, reduces cost.

Complement internal portals

Internal developer platforms like Backstage are in vogue for backend platform architecture. Yet, they do not cater well to public or partner APIs, which must be designed explicitly for the needs of external consumers. Open APIs, instead, should abstract internal complexity with domain-specific functionality. External portals must be more open, multi-tenant, and accessible in different regions.

Therefore, external-facing portals complement, rather than replace, an internal technology catalog. But this doesn't mean they should look or feel vastly different. Great portals adopt consistent branding, color palettes, and UX features unique to the company behind the API.

Cater to new customer types

Developers are no longer the only ones interested in APIs. Product managers, quality assurance engineers, UX designers, and plenty of other roles often view API documentation. As such, a quality developer portal must act as a product information gateway for both technically-minded and non-developers.

For instance, Experian's API Developer Hub is opening its doors to new audiences. "We're enabling new types of clients to come into Experian and start working with our data — clients who would have never done that before," says Carl Stronach, Product Manager for the Experian Developer Hub. "So, we're really opening the market to these types of developers to create new innovations."

Unify API gateways

For some time, software development at large has been trying to strike a balance between monolithic architectures and very small microservices. Large, centralized API management platforms can be challenging to optimize for the specific needs of smaller business units. As such, companies often use many API gateways to wrap and expose specific domains.

Lightweight gateways can provide extremely low latency compared to the more robust API lifecycle management platforms. Cost, performance, and regulatory optimizations have also encouraged organizations to adopt a variety of API gateways. For these reasons, large organizations often have many gateways in use but lack a unified view of them. This is where developer portals can play a role in unifying a disparate portfolio by acting as a common layer across API gateways.

Getting an ROI from developer portals

A well-designed developer portal is invaluable, serving as the foundation for modern API-based products. It enhances developer satisfaction and boosts revenue potential.

Developer portals go hand-in-hand with developer-centric growth. For instance, in 2023, Danfoss, a Danish leader in energy solutions, unified its APIs with a custom portal that exceeded Apigee’s native capabilities. This effort streamlined migrations, supported CI/CD processes, and attracted 5,000 developers by year-end.

However, many enterprises still lag in their API documentation culture. Astonishingly, only 10% of organizations fully document their APIs. Looking to the future, developer portals will play an essential role in fixing the great documentation divide, as well as unifying gateways, enforcing governance, and avoiding technology sprawl as executives prioritize API management.

Developer portals also strengthen an organization’s security, reducing overlooked endpoints and the likelihood of forgotten endpoints. Many of the other benefits accelerate application development and partner innovation, cementing portals as critical to business success.

With over 22 years of developer portal experience, Achieve Internet enhances the API management ecosystem with tools like Apiboost, helping companies realize substantial ROI from their API-first strategies.