Title: Hi HN,<p>Removing the background from images is a surprisingly common image processing task, and AI has made it really easy. The technology has come a long way since segment leader remove.bg launched here on hn in Dec 2018 [1]. Chasing remove.bg&#x27;s success, a legion of providers have come on the market offering varying levels of quality &amp; service.<p>Despite there being a large number of competing services, most still price for very high (~95%?) gross margins. Furthermore, subscriptions make the effective unit price a lot higher than the list price for infrequent users, and requires effort &amp; attention to ensure you&#x27;re getting value for money. This has prevented a host of use cases (e.g. infrequent professional &#x2F; hobbyist) and business models (e.g. ad-supported websites &amp; mobile apps).<p>We see this as an opportunity where we can jump to the market&#x27;s logical conclusion to gain market share and build goodwill: cost-plus PAYGO pricing, i.e. the &quot;S3 pricing model&quot;.<p>So we&#x27;ve built yet-another image background removal service ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai</a> - introductory post 6 months ago [2], a ton has been improved since then) but with a couple of twists:<p>1. Quantified quality comparison (90-120% of remove.bg, depending on image category), free for you to check your own images so you can make an informed choice.<p>2. Customer-friendly pricing (PAYGO @ 1-10% of competitors&#x27; subscriptions) with a generous free tier (and free while in beta).<p>3. A novel API result format: Delta PNG [3], which offers excellent latency &amp; bandwidth savings. Especially useful for mobile apps.<p>4. Operational transparency: actual volume &amp; latency metrics public, with more coming soon (all API providers should be showing this).<p>There&#x27;s of course more to it than just price and we see several sources of differentiation in this market: quality, price, capability, reliability, latency, and goodwill.<p>As a new entrant we&#x27;re looking to meet-or-beat the quality bar; beat on price, capability, reliability and latency; and to build up goodwill over time.<p>Our goal is to make it a no-brainer for new accounts to choose us, and to provide the tools and guidance necessary for existing accounts to make the switch with confidence.<p>We&#x27;d love for you to try it out and to hear your thoughts!<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=18697601" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=18697601</a>
[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33439405" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33439405</a>
[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai&#x2F;api&#x2F;deltaPng" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pixian.ai&#x2F;api&#x2F;deltaPng</a>
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