We build membership sites, paywalled media, streaming and community platforms for founders and creators in the US, UK and EU. Payouts, moderation and content delivery are treated as core features, because they are.
Creators leave platforms for two reasons: the money arrives late, or the audience cannot find them. Most other flaws are tolerated. A creator platform that gets payouts, tiers and discovery right can launch with a plain design and still grow. One that gets them wrong will lose its best creators first.
appico is an AI-amplified product agency based in India, working with founders, publishers and creators in the US, UK and EU. AI shortens scoping, concept and front-end work. Architecture, payment and payout integrations, security and hardening are done by senior engineers. An MVP starts from $10,000 for a well-scoped idea and a mobile app from $12,000. Payment is by milestone. Source code, domain, hosting and payment accounts sit in your name from day one, and we sign an NDA on request.
Tiers, paywalls, free trials and member-only posts, with billing that handles upgrades and failed cards.
Upload, transcoding, adaptive playback and downloads, with storage costs planned from the start.
Earnings dashboards, platform fees, payout schedules and tax details through a marketplace payment provider.
Comments, direct messages, live chat and notifications, with moderation tools attached.
Downloads, lessons, certificates and one-off purchases alongside recurring memberships.
Captions, clips, summaries and merch mock-ups generated for the creator to approve before publishing.
The standards that usually apply in the US, UK and EU. We build to the ones your product needs and tell you plainly which those are.
Platforms hosting user uploads need a notice and takedown process and a named contact to keep their legal protection.
Platforms with user content have duties on illegal content, reporting tools and transparent terms, scaled by size.
If under-13s in the US or children in the UK may use the service, data collection and default settings are restricted.
Fan and creator data needs a lawful basis, export and deletion, and care with any tracking used for recommendations.
Digital sales to UK and EU consumers are taxed where the buyer lives, so billing must record location and apply the right rate.
We define who the platform is for, what fans pay for and how money reaches the creator, including fees and timing.
AI-assisted concepts produce a staging link by day 3, showing both the public page and the creator dashboard.
Engineers implement subscriptions, payouts, content delivery and reporting tools, and review access rules so paid content stays paid.
A small group publishes real content and receives a real payout before public launch. A 14-day bug-fix window follows.
If the media file has a public address, the paywall is decoration. Access must be checked on the server, with signed or expiring links.
User-generated content brings spam, abuse and copyright complaints. Reporting and takedown tools are simpler to build before launch than in the middle of an incident.
Subscriptions sold inside iOS and Android apps pay a store commission. If that is not in your fee model, the platform or the creator absorbs it.
Paying creators across borders means identity checks and tax information. Skipping them in version one leads to frozen payouts later.
A focused MVP with creator pages, tiers, billing and payouts starts from $10,000. Video hosting, mobile apps, community features and recommendation systems add to that. We quote a fixed scope with milestone payments. Payment provider fees, media storage and streaming are ongoing costs billed directly to you by those providers.
Build when you need something existing platforms will not give you: your own fee structure, direct ownership of the audience relationship, or tools specific to one kind of creator. If a standard membership page covers your needs, use an existing platform. We will say so if that is the case.
Through a marketplace payment provider. Fans pay the platform, your fee is deducted and the balance is sent to the creator on a schedule. The provider verifies identity and collects tax details. Creators see earnings, pending amounts and payout history in their dashboard, which cuts down on support requests.
By deciding early how video is encoded, stored and delivered. We compress on upload, serve adaptive quality so phones are not sent large files, and choose a delivery provider that fits your expected volume. We also set limits on upload length and resolution, which can be raised as revenue grows.
On the web, yes, using your own payment provider. Inside iOS and Android apps, digital subscriptions generally go through store billing, with rules that vary by region and change over time. We check the current policies during scoping and design the purchase flow to pass review.
Yes. Every platform with user content gets reporting, a review queue, takedown and account suspension in the admin panel. AI can pre-screen uploads and flag likely problems, but a person makes the final decision. We also build the notice and takedown form that copyright law expects platforms to provide.