### Creator Profiles

- Public, shareable profile page for every creator (`yoursite.com/profile.php?username=...`)
- Editable photo, bio, and cover
- Home / Memberships / Shop / About tabs
- Feed of text, photo, and video posts, with a click-to-enlarge lightbox
- Likes and comments on every post
- Members-only posts shown as a locked preview card — text stays visible, media is
replaced with a generic placeholder and a "Become a member" call to action, never a
leaked thumbnail

### Fully Customizable Support Unit
- Creators aren't locked into "pizza slices" — pick from Coffee ☕, Tea 🍵, Soda 🥤,
Beer 🍺, Donut 🍩, the default Pizza slice 🍕, or define a completely custom emoji + name
- Quantity presets (x1 / x3 / x5 / x10) supporters can choose from
- Optional supporter message with every purchase

### Multi-Currency, Per Creator
- Each creator independently chooses their currency: **USD, EUR, MXN, or ARS**
- Applies automatically across their profile, shop, memberships, and every checkout flow

### Direct-to-Creator Payments — 10 Gateways, Zero Platform Custody
Every gateway below sends money straight to the creator — never through the platform —
and creators can enable as many at once as they like:

- **Stripe** — full Stripe Connect (Express) onboarding
- **PayPal** — creators enter only their email, zero API setup
- **Mercado Pago** — OAuth Connect, strong across Latin America
- **Mollie** — OAuth Connect, strong across Europe (iDEAL, cards, Bancontact)
- **Paystack** — automatic split-payment Subaccounts, strong across Africa
- **Square** — OAuth Connect (Payment Links), strong in the US/Canada/UK/Australia
- **Razorpay** — Route split-payment Linked Accounts, the leading gateway in India
- **PayU** — creator-owned merchant credentials, strong across Latin America
- **CCBill** — creator-owned merchant credentials, specialized recurring billing
- **PIX** (Brazil) — manual key-sharing, like bank transfer
- Plus a manual **Bank transfer** option

Built with raw REST/OAuth calls to each provider's API — no bloated SDKs, no Composer
dependency required. Every OAuth-based gateway follows the same clean pattern: the
creator clicks Connect, authorizes their own account, and every future payment routes
there automatically, confirmed server-to-server via signed webhooks (never trusting the
browser redirect alone).

### Memberships (Recurring Support)
- Creators define unlimited membership tiers (name, price, billing period, description)
- Dedicated public Memberships tab per creator
- Members automatically unlock that creator's members-only post content

### Built-in Mini Shop
- Creators list physical or digital products with photos, pricing, and descriptions
- Shipping method per product: "to arrange with buyer" or "free shipping"
- Full order tracking (pending/paid) visible in the creator dashboard
- Checkout reuses the same connected payment methods — no extra setup
- Can be toggled on/off per subscription plan (see Admin Panel below)

### Direct Messaging
- Built-in inbox — any two users (creator ↔ supporter) can message each other
- Unread indicators, conversation list, simple threaded view
- "Message" button available right from any creator's profile

### Creator Dashboard
A full self-service dashboard with a clean sidebar:
- **Overview** — earnings summary, recent supporters
- **Edit Profile** — photo upload, display name, bio
- **Posts** — publish text/photo/video, edit or delete existing posts, mark as
members-only
- **Pricing** — support unit, price, currency, and full membership tier management
(create/edit/delete)
- **Shop** — product management and order history
- **Payments** — independent on/off toggles for all 10 gateways — a creator can run
several simultaneously, and locked-but-unavailable methods clearly explain why
(platform-disabled vs. plan-restricted)
- **Settings** — username, email, country, and password changes

### Admin Panel
Complete platform control, restricted to admin accounts, organized under `/admin/`:
- **Overview** — total users, new signups, total support volume, active memberships,
creators with payouts configured
- **User Management** — search, edit, promote to admin, or delete any account
- **Plans** — define subscription plans *you* charge creators, each with real
enforced limits:
- Post cap (or unlimited)
- Shop feature on/off
- Which of the 10 payout methods that plan's creators are allowed to use
- **Plan Payments** — a manual ledger to record what each creator has paid/owes for
their plan, with paid/pending/failed status tracking
- **Payment Methods** — a site-wide kill switch for each of the 10 gateways (stacks
with per-plan restrictions — a method needs both to be enabled to show up for a
creator), plus settings for how you plan to bill creators for their own plan
- **Site Settings** — edit the site name, upload a custom logo (or keep the default
text logo), and edit the footer text — all reflected instantly, site-wide

### Security & Code Quality
- Passwords hashed with PHP's `password_hash()` / verified with `password_verify()`
- 100% prepared statements (PDO) — no raw SQL string concatenation
- All output escaped (XSS-safe)
- Upload validation by file extension and size, random filenames, dedicated upload folders
- Signed webhook verification on every gateway that supports it (Stripe, Mercado Pago,
Mollie, Paystack, Square, Razorpay) — payments are only ever confirmed server-to-server
- Clean separation of concerns: `includes/` for shared logic, `dashboard/` for the
creator area, `admin/` for the admin panel, one file per public-facing action

### Design
- Clean, modern interface inspired by Buy Me a Coffee's aesthetic — bold typography
(Inter), a signature yellow/black palette, rounded cards, and generous white space
- Fully responsive layout
- No build step — plain HTML/CSS/PHP, easy to reskin or white-label

## Tech Stack

- **Backend:** PHP 8+ (PDO, sessions, no framework)
- **Database:** MySQL 5.7+ / MariaDB 10.3+
- **Frontend:** Plain HTML/CSS + a touch of vanilla JS (no build tools, no npm required)
- **Payments:** Direct REST/OAuth integration (cURL) with all 10 gateways listed above
- Works on any standard shared hosting (developed and tested on Hostinger)

## What's Included

- Full PHP source code, uncompiled and fully commented
- Complete MySQL schema (single-file fresh install, plus incremental migration files
for upgrading an existing installation)
- Step-by-step HTML installation guide covering hosting setup, database import,
`config.php` setup, folder permissions, admin account creation, and full setup
instructions for all 10 payment gateways
- Sample seed script to generate 20 realistic demo creator profiles (with public and
members-only posts, shop products, and a membership tier each) so the site is fully
explorable immediately after install