Channel3

What do they actually do

Channel3 provides a hosted product-catalog API that developers can query by text or image to get structured product results. Responses return canonical products with variant-level details like brand, images, price, availability, and deep links to merchants. SDKs are available for TypeScript and Python, and there’s a single search endpoint for quick integration (homepage | quickstart docs).

The catalog is pre-indexed for fast results, currently focused on U.S. products from “50k+ brands” and “millions of products,” with variant-level deduplication across merchants (homepage | YC profile | HN launch thread). Channel3 monetizes via per-search pricing (1,000 free searches, then $7 per 1,000) and built-in affiliate-style revenue share where developers earn a percentage of purchases they drive and Channel3 takes a cut. They handle discovery, linking, and tracking, but not payments or shipping (homepage | HN launch thread).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Indie developers and small startups building shopping UIs: Don’t want to crawl merchants, deduplicate SKUs, or keep variant prices/availability in sync. Need a ready-made, searchable product graph to avoid building data infrastructure themselves.
• Affiliate publishers and creators adding product links to content: Need reliable product pages, consistent images/prices, and simple click-to-sale tracking without managing dozens of affiliate relationships or custom reporting.
• Builders of AI shopping assistants and agentic commerce apps: Require structured, multimodal product data (text+image) and canonicalization so agents don’t recommend duplicates, plus fast search to support conversational flows.
• Comparison-shopping apps and price-tracking tools: Struggle to match the same variant across many merchants and keep accurate, up-to-date prices and availability; poor canonicalization creates wrong links and bad UX.
• Headless storefronts and commerce SaaS platforms: Want drop-in catalogs and simple monetization without onboarding individual merchants or building payment/affiliate plumbing.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Directly onboard builders who’ve posted shopping/agent projects in YC/HN circles; provide hands-on Slack support and copy‑paste SDK examples so they ship in days, plus small promos (extra free searches or higher short-term commission splits) (quickstart | HN launch thread).
• First 50: Publish turnkey templates (Next.js storefront, WordPress plugin, newsletter widgets) and run targeted tutorials in dev/creator communities; seed creator partners with dashboards to test revenue quickly using deeplinks and built-in tracking (homepage | quickstart).
• First 100: Secure integrations with headless storefronts and affiliate platforms so Channel3 becomes a built-in catalog; promote via marketplaces and partner newsletters, and ship requested features (price alerts, bulk export, webhooks) to retain and upsell (homepage | YC profile).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Channel3’s immediate market is the affiliate-driven slice of U.S. ecommerce. U.S. online sales were about $1.19T in 2024, and industry summaries often cite ~16% of ecommerce as affiliate-driven (Digital Commerce 360 | OptinMonster summary).

Bottom-up calculation:

Applying a 5% average commission (what Channel3 cites) to ~$190.7B of affiliate-attributed GMV (1.19T × 16%) yields roughly $9.5B/year in U.S. affiliate commissions — the pool Channel3 can help route and share (Channel3 | DC360 | OptinMonster).

Assumptions:

• Affiliate share of ecommerce ≈16% in the U.S.
• Average commission rate ≈5% (Channel3’s published average).
• Scope limited to 2024 U.S. ecommerce; excludes non‑affiliate channels and non‑U.S. markets.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Amazon Product Advertising API: Amazon’s official affiliate API provides product data and affiliate links for Amazon’s catalog, widely used by publishers and app developers to monetize commerce content (docs).
• CJ (Commission Junction): Large affiliate network offering a Product Search API for publisher discovery and deeplinks from advertiser product feeds (CJ Product Search | Product Feed API).
• Rakuten Advertising: Affiliate network with a Product Search API that lets publishers query product data and generate links across participating advertisers (docs).
• Awin: Global affiliate network providing product feeds and APIs for publishers to ingest catalogs and build commerce experiences (Awin developer docs).
• SerpApi (Google Shopping API): Scrapes Google Shopping results into structured JSON for cross‑merchant product discovery, often used as a data source alternative to curated product graphs (docs).