Hacker News Success: 12K Readers, SEO Boost & Product Launch Insights
A developer’s minimalist project, designed primarily as a long-term search engine optimization (SEO) play, recently experienced an unexpected surge of attention, demonstrating the potent, if unpredictable, power of online communities. The project, named “Price Per Token,” is a straightforward website featuring a single table that displays the current per-dollar prices for major large language model (LLM) APIs.
Conceived with the goal of capturing search queries like “GPT 4o price,” the developer built the site in just a few hours, manually curating pricing data into a simple spreadsheet. The intention was to create automated web pages for each model, consolidating pricing information in one accessible location. With the basic site live, the developer decided to seek initial traction by submitting a link to Hacker News.
The submission, titled “LLM API Pricing Data,” went live around 8 AM EST. Within an hour, the post rapidly accumulated upvotes, surging to the third position on Hacker News’s overall leaderboard. The immediate impact was profound: traffic monitoring tools showed 1,000 visitors flocking to the site within that first hour, with no signs of slowing. Recognizing the ephemeral nature of such exposure, the developer swiftly implemented a newsletter sign-up form, placed strategically beneath the pricing table, aiming to convert transient traffic into lasting engagement.
The momentum quickly spilled over onto X (formerly Twitter), where the project began to trend, with users tagging the developer and requesting an API for the data. Concurrently, comments on the Hacker News post itself grew, offering feedback that ranged from requests for additional providers to suggestions for UI enhancements, and even pointing out minor data inaccuracies. The developer responded in real-time, pushing out immediate updates to the website: correcting data points, adding new models like Xai, and addressing future UI changes.
By the following day, the project had garnered over 100 newsletter subscribers and attracted an impressive 12,000 unique visitors. The ripple effect of topping Hacker News extended far beyond direct traffic. Within 24 hours, the website secured over 100 backlinks from platforms that aggregate popular Hacker News content, leading to a significant Domain Authority score of 13, according to Ahrefs, a key indicator of search engine credibility. Throughout the subsequent week, the site was featured on multiple podcasts and newsletters, helping to sustain daily traffic at over 1,000 visitors.
This initial success spurred further development. Over that week, the newsletter subscriber base grew to 250, and the site was updated to include image models. The developer also launched a complementary free tool, an AI Coding Tracker, which quickly acquired approximately 20 active users. Looking ahead, the strategy involves leveraging the Hacker News success to continually enhance the site’s authority through backlink optimization and the creation of more SEO-focused pages, such as a new token counter and a pricing calculator. The long-term vision sees “Price Per Token” evolving into a comprehensive API designed to help developers lower their LLM usage costs. The sustained interest from the developer community, evidenced by the site’s growing audience and newsletter, confirms a clear demand for such a service.
The experience offered a unique lesson in the unpredictable dynamics of online virality. While subsequent Hacker News submissions for other projects failed to gain traction, the developer posits that the internet’s inherent randomness means consistent outreach can sometimes create its own luck. Alternatively, it underscores that while viral moments can be rare without an established audience, preparedness is key to seizing them when they occur. Ultimately, the focus remains on building sustainable traffic and evolving “Price Per Token” beyond a mere pricing table into a more valuable resource for developers.