When to use this guide
Use this guide if you are:- New to Pocketsflow and want a high-level overview.
- Planning how to structure your products and offers.
- Debugging an issue and trying to understand where a specific setting lives.
- Building an integration and need to know which object a webhook or API field maps to.
Payments in Pocketsflow are processed by our payment infrastructure, which also
acts as merchant of record. It handles the card form, currency conversion,
fraud checks, and the underlying subscription billing engine. Everything you
read below — products, orders, subscriptions, payouts — is Pocketsflow’s model
sitting on top of that payment rail. You never touch the payment provider directly; Pocketsflow
orchestrates it for you.
The core objects
At a high level, Pocketsflow is built around a few core objects. Each one has a home in the dashboard and a matching representation in webhooks and the API.Products
The one-time things you sell — courses, templates, downloads, licenses.
Subscriptions
Recurring offers that bill on a weekly, monthly, or yearly schedule.
Customers
The people who buy from you, deduplicated by email.
Orders (Sales)
A record of every completed payment — one-time or a subscription charge.
Checkout
The embeddable payment surface where a visitor becomes a customer.
Payouts
How Pocketsflow settles collected revenue to your bank account.
Products
Products are the one-time things you sell. Examples:- A single course.
- A Notion template pack.
- A downloadable asset (icons, wallpapers, 3D assets, UI components).
- A license key or access code delivered by a callback URL.
- Type – one-time purchase (subscriptions are a separate object; see below).
- Price & currency – a fixed amount, “pay what you want” with a minimum, or multiple variants each with their own price.
- Content – the file(s) buyers download, or a URL / callback they’re sent to after paying.
- Page & checkout design – one of nine public page layouts and a checkout skin (see Page templates and Checkout page).
- Visibility – published or draft, and whether a public product page shows before checkout at all.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions represent ongoing access that renews on a schedule — weekly, monthly, or yearly. They are a distinct object from products because they carry billing-specific settings a one-time product doesn’t have:- A frequency (weekly / monthly / yearly).
- An optional free trial measured in days.
- A customer portal where subscribers manage or cancel their plan.
- A set of subscriber records, each with a live status (active, past due, canceled, and so on).
Customers
Customers are the people who purchase from you. A customer record is created (or matched by email) the first time someone buys, so repeat buyers don’t create duplicates. Each customer record can include:- Identity information (email, first and last name, country).
- Which products they’ve purchased.
- Which subscriptions they hold, and each one’s status.
- Their order and payment history.
Orders (Sales)
An order — called a Sale internally and in the API — represents a single completed payment. Orders tie together:- The customer who paid.
- The product or subscription they bought.
- The amount, tax, currency, and net amount after fees.
- Any discount / coupon, upsell, affiliate, or partner attribution.
initial or renewal, so recurring revenue shows up on your
orders page exactly like one-time sales.
You’ll mainly use orders when:
- Looking up a specific transaction.
- Issuing refunds or handling disputes.
- Answering “did this payment go through?” support questions.
- Reconciling payouts.
Checkout
Checkout is where a prospect becomes a customer. Pocketsflow’s checkout is a single, embeddable surface used by both products and subscriptions. It handles:- Collecting the buyer’s email (and optionally first / last name).
- Localized payment methods and currencies, via our payment infrastructure.
- Applying coupons, order bumps, and pay-what-you-want pricing.
- Redirecting to a thank-you page, or — when embedded — posting a message back to the parent window so your own site can react.
Payouts
Pocketsflow collects payment from your customers through our payment infrastructure and sends payouts to you. Key ideas:- Payout account – your connected bank details, set up through our payment infrastructure’s onboarding.
- Business approval – the first real (non-test) sale flags your account for a one-time business verification (KYC/KYB) before payouts continue. This is normal; complete it once and you’re set.
- Fees – Pocketsflow’s platform fee plus the payment processor’s fees are deducted before payout; the net amount is stored on each order.
Link in bio
Link in bio is your public storefront and link-in-bio hub on Pocketsflow. It’s a single URL (for example,https://yourname.pocketsflow.com) that brings
together:
- Your profile – name, bio, profile picture, and cover image.
- Your products – selected products displayed for visitors to browse and buy.
- Social links – buttons linking to your social profiles.
- Regular links – any additional links you want to share.
- Newsletter signup – an optional subscriber form to grow your email list.
- Image gallery – showcase your work.
- Templates – 40 pre-designed layouts across six families.
- Theme customization – colors, fonts, backgrounds, and button styles.
- Custom domain – connect your own domain (for example,
https://yourdomain.com). - Analytics – first-party page views, clicks, and top products, plus optional Google Analytics.
How the objects relate
- A product or subscription is what a visitor buys through checkout.
- A completed checkout creates an order and a customer (or matches an existing one by email).
- A subscription additionally creates a subscriber record that tracks its status over time and generates a new order every renewal.
- Orders roll up into payouts.
Lifecycle of a one-time purchase
1
Discovery
A visitor lands on a product page (one of nine layouts) or discovers your
product via your Link in bio.
2
Checkout
They click your call-to-action and open the checkout, either as its own
page or embedded on your site.
3
Payment
The buyer enters their email and card details; our payment infrastructure processes the payment.
4
Fulfillment
On success, Pocketsflow creates the customer and order, emails the
buyer their access (file, link, or callback URL) plus a receipt, and notifies
you of the sale.
5
Settlement
The order is included in your next payout, net of fees.
Lifecycle of a subscription
Subscriptions add a recurring, stateful layer on top of that flow:1
Subscribe
The buyer completes checkout for a subscription. If you offered a free
trial, billing is deferred until the trial ends.
2
Activation
Pocketsflow creates a subscriber record with status
active (or
trialing), grants access, and emails both buyer and you.3
Renewals
Each billing period, our payment infrastructure charges the saved card. A successful charge records
a new order tagged
renewal; a failed charge moves the subscriber to
past_due and retries.4
Self-service
Subscribers manage or cancel their plan from the customer portal you link
them to.
5
End of life
When a subscription is canceled or lapses, the subscriber becomes
canceled
and access is revoked at the appropriate time.Subscription statuses
Every subscriber carries a status that reflects where they are in the billing lifecycle:
The complete subscription walkthrough, including how these transitions map to
webhooks, is in Subscriptions.
Test mode
Products, subscriptions, orders, and customers can be created in test mode. Test transactions use test cards, never move real money, are clearly flagged with a test-mode overlay on public pages, and fire test-mode webhooks. Use test mode to rehearse the full buyer journey before you send real traffic, then switch to live for launch.How this maps to the dashboard
While the exact navigation may evolve, you can expect to see:- A Products section where you create and manage one-time offerings.
- A Subscriptions section for recurring products and their subscribers.
- A Link in bio section where you build your public storefront.
- An Orders / Sales section that lists completed checkouts.
- A Customers section for buyer records and support.
- A Payouts / Balance view for pending and completed payouts.
- Posts and Subscribers for the built-in newsletter.
- Settings for account, payout, and branding configuration.
Glossary
Product
Product
A one-time offer. Paid once, accessed forever. Distinct from a subscription.
Subscription
Subscription
A recurring offer billed weekly, monthly, or yearly, with an optional free
trial and a self-service customer portal.
Subscriber (SubscriptionCustomer)
Subscriber (SubscriptionCustomer)
A single customer’s enrollment in one subscription, with a live status and a
portal link. One person subscribing to two of your plans produces two
subscriber records.
Order (Sale)
Order (Sale)
A completed payment. One-time purchases produce one; subscriptions produce one
per successful billing period.
Customer
Customer
A person who has bought from you, deduplicated by email within your account.
Payment infrastructure
Payment infrastructure
The payment infrastructure that processes cards, runs the recurring billing engine,
and acts as merchant of record. Pocketsflow orchestrates it; you don’t manage
it directly.
Customer portal
Customer portal
The self-service page where a subscriber updates payment details, and cancels
or manages their plan.
What’s next
- To launch quickly, continue to Creator quickstart.
- To set up your public storefront, see Link in bio.
- To design your sales flows, see Product types & use cases.
- To build recurring revenue, see Subscriptions.
- To understand how you get paid, see Payments & payouts.