Dev tools + APIs
Dev tool websites that engineers don't close in four seconds.
Judged on: can I try it in five minutes without talking to you?
Developers evaluate you like a tool, not a brochure. They want to see the code, the limits and the price, then try it without talking to anyone. We build sites that let them, and still give their manager a reason to pay.
Who's reading your website
Engineer
Code, docs and a free way to try it
Engineering manager
Maintenance load, reliability and support
Platform or security lead
Self-hosting, SSO, data handling and audit logs
Finance or procurement
Usage-based pricing that won't surprise them
The problem
Why dev tool websites are hard
- 01
Marketing copy reads as a red flag
Adjectives without code make engineers assume there's nothing underneath. They leave before they scroll.
- 02
Docs sit in a different world
The marketing site and the docs look and feel unrelated, so the handoff from interest to first request breaks.
- 03
Pricing that hides usage
Per-seat tables tell an engineer nothing about what 20 million calls a month will cost.
- 04
Two audiences, one page
The engineer wants depth, their manager wants risk removed. A single generic homepage serves neither.
The four-second test
What an engineer checks first
Developers open four things in four tabs, in this order. If any one of them stalls, the evaluation ends there.
Homepage
A copyable snippet that does something real
Three adjectives and a demo form
Docs
Open, searchable, no signup wall
A gated portal or a PDF
Pricing
Usage units, limits and overage in numbers
Contact us for all tiers
Status + changelog
Recent entries and honest incident history
Nothing shipped in eight months
The fix
What your website has to do
Put real code above the fold
A copyable snippet that does something useful in five lines beats any headline you could write.
Make time-to-first-call obvious
Install, authenticate, call. Three steps, on the homepage, with a link straight into the quickstart.
Show limits honestly
Rate limits, latency, regions, SDK coverage and what the free tier actually includes. Hidden limits get found and posted about.
Give the manager a page of their own
Reliability, support, security and migration effort, so the person approving the invoice has something to read.
Proof
Trust signals buyers look for
Put these where buyers make decisions: near CTAs, on pricing and in the footer. Not buried on an About page.
- Public docs with no signup
- Status page and uptime history
- GitHub stars, issues and release cadence
- SDKs and framework coverage
- SOC 2 and data residency
- Usage-based pricing with a calculator
94%
of buying groups rank their preferred vendors before first contact with sales.
If your website doesn't make the shortlist, sales never gets a shot.
Where to start
Pages we'd build first
A typical starting sitemap for dev tool companies. We adjust it after the audit.
Homepage
Snippet, quickstart, proof
Docs + quickstart
Same design language
Pricing + usage calculator
Limits and overage in plain numbers
Use case pages
One per integration pattern
Security + compliance
For the platform team
Changelog
Proof of momentum
Dev tools + APIs FAQ
Questions we hear a lot
Something else? Email admin@baddesign.io. The founder replies.
Should the docs live on the marketing site?
They should feel like the same product. Shared type, colour and navigation, even if they run on different systems.
Do we need a free tier?
Some way to try it without a call, yes. A sandbox key or a generous trial usually beats a demo request form.
Is a developer blog worth it?
If engineers on your team will write it, yes. Ghostwritten technical content gets spotted immediately.
Let's fix your dev tool site.
Send your URL. We'll review it against what buyers in your industry look for, and send the top fixes free.