Developer tools

Payload

Website
Founded 2018Origin source ↗Checked 2026-09-15

Overview

Payload is a developer-first headless CMS and application framework built to finally give developers a better choice in the world of CMS. From documentation to design, Payload is crafted from the ground-up to save engineers time and effort while building the backend and admin panel for websites, native apps, ecommerce, SaaS, and any other product that needs to manage content. Payload is changing the CMS status quo—working to give developers the tools they want to build the CMS they need, all in clean and well-structured code.

Learn more at https://payloadcms.com.

Company description As recorded 2026-11-08
LinkedIn GitHub
Developer toolsAPI platformDevelopersDevelopersOpen source commercial

Product & workflow

“ We were impressed by the built-in flexibility and extensibility that kept our development workflow agile and in sync with marketing needs.

Source-reported As recorded 2026-09-16

Founders & team

Previously Payload CMS

Company history As recorded 2026-11-08

James Mikrut

Founder

James Mikrut is the founder and CEO of Payload CMS. He plays a leading role in shaping the future and vision of Payload, and is responsible for product design, marketing initiatives, and user experience design. He has been a full-stack engineer for over a decade, and has also founded the digital design agency TRBL, where he leads a team of user experience designers and full-stack TypeScript developers.

LinkedIn X
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15

Elliot DeNolf

Founder

Elliot DeNolf is founder and CTO of Payload CMS. He has worked extensively in design, development, and delivery of large, distributed, back-end services. His specializations include resilient, high-availability web services, containerization technologies, and CI/CD pipelines.

LinkedIn X
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15

Dan Ribbens

Founder

Dan Ribbens is founder and COO of Payload CMS, the best TypeScript CMS for developers. He has focused on database engineering and developer experience. While at Payload and throughout his career Dan has served as a senior developer, team lead, and architect for dozens of software teams. Dan earned his Masters in Computer Science at GVSU in 2013 and worked as a freelance consultant prior to Payload.

LinkedIn X
Founder profile As recorded 2026-09-15
3team members reported
Source-reported As recorded 2026-09-15

Founded 2018 · Source

News & product activity

Sources & observations

Y Combinator

Profile depthenriched profile
Website observationwebsite reachable
Last website check2026-11-11
Location · source statedGrand Rapids, MI, USA
Pricing evidenceNo pricing page confirmed
Maturity: Not assessed · 3 of 6 areas documented

Source-based assessment · automated evidence rules

The source reports an inactive or acquired company; current product identity needs review.

Maturity is an evidence-based assessment, not a success rating. It may understate the current stage where evidence is limited. Coverage records documented areas, not a complete or independently audited company history.

Stage definitions
independent websitesource corroborationreachable websitedescriptive evidenceclassified market and modelsourced peoplesourced founding yeardocumentation observedrecent publishing observed
startup.observe Directory coverage · Sources & method