How We Built Qixr — A Creator Marketplace Case Study | SolveEase Technologies
A creator was running their business across five different apps. We built one platform that replaced all of them — with booking, real-time chat, exclusive content, a coin economy, and direct bank payouts. Here is exactly how we did it.
The Problem Nobody Was Solving
Content creators today have a strange problem. They have followers. They have skills people are willing to pay for. But the tools to actually run a creator business are scattered everywhere.
Booking happens on Calendly. Payments go through Stripe or PayPal. Content lives on Patreon. Messaging is on Instagram DMs. Video calls are on Zoom. The creator juggles five different apps just to serve one fan.
The client came to us with a clear ask:
"I want one platform where my fans can find me, book me, pay me, watch my exclusive content, and chat with me — and I want to know exactly what I'm earning."
That platform is Qixr.
What We Were Hired to Build
Before writing a single line of code, we mapped out every feature the business actually needed. Not a wish list — a working product.
Here is what we committed to delivering:
- A public creator discovery page with search and categories
- Creator profiles with service listings and availability calendars
- A booking and 1-on-1 video session system
- Real-time chat between fans and creators
- An in-app coin (diamond) economy — fans buy coins and spend them on content and sessions
- Exclusive (paywalled) posts that fans unlock with coins
- A creator wallet with bank account verification and payout processing
- Instagram account connection with auto-DM capability
- Google Calendar integration for session scheduling
- A full creator dashboard with earnings, sessions, and post analytics
- A production-ready backend with proper security, rate limiting, and session management
A marketplace, a monetisation engine, a booking system, and a creator tool suite — all in one codebase.
The Tech We Chose and Why
We did not pick tools to look impressive. We picked tools that would work reliably, keep costs low after launch, and be maintainable by the client's future team.
| What it does | Tool we used | Why it made sense |
|---|---|---|
| Frontend | Next.js 14 (App Router) | Built-in SSR and SEO, fast page loads, React ecosystem |
| Backend | Node.js + Express + TypeScript | Fast to build, easy to extend, great ecosystem |
| Database | PostgreSQL via Prisma ORM | Relational data, type-safe queries, easy migrations |
| Auth | Google OAuth + HTTP-only JWT cookies | Secure, no token leakage to JavaScript |
| Real-time chat | Socket.io | Reliable, battle-tested, works behind proxies |
| Payments | Razorpay | India-specific, supports payouts to bank accounts directly |
| Video calls | VideoSDK | Easy to integrate, usage-based pricing |
| File storage | Supabase Storage | Cheap, CDN-backed, integrates with Postgres |
| Session store | Redis | Fast, required for production session reliability |
| Deployment | Nginx + VPS | Full control, no vendor lock-in |
How the Platform Actually Works
Fan Side
A fan lands on Qixr, browses creators by category (fitness, music, business, education, etc.), and opens a creator profile. They see the creator's services, upcoming availability, exclusive posts, and reviews from other fans.
They buy coins inside the app. These coins are the only currency on the platform — this keeps payments clean, reduces fraud surface, and gives creators a predictable earning unit.
With coins, a fan can:
- → Book a 1-on-1 video session with a creator
- → Unlock an exclusive post behind a paywall
- → Send direct messages
Creator Side
The creator logs in to their dashboard and sees a clean summary: earnings today, upcoming sessions, how their recent posts are performing, and their coin balance ready to withdraw.
They can post free public content or set a coin price on exclusive content. They manage their availability on a calendar. When a session is booked, they get a notification and the session appears in their dashboard.
When they want to withdraw earnings, they add their bank account (verified through Razorpay's fund account system), set the withdrawal amount, and the money hits their account within 24–48 hours.
The Parts That Were Hard to Build
Every platform project has parts that look simple on paper and turn out to be genuinely difficult. Here are three that stood out on Qixr.
The Dual-Currency Payout Flow
Coins are not money. When a fan buys 1,000 coins, those coins live in the app. When a creator earns coins from a session, those coins also live in the app. Converting them to real money requires a full transaction pipeline.
We built a double-entry ledger system. Every coin movement — buy, spend, earn, refund — writes a record. Nothing disappears without a trace.
When a creator requests a payout, the system:
- 1.Validates their bank account is verified
- 2.Checks their wallet has enough coins to cover the requested amount
- 3.Creates a pending transaction record
- 4.Deducts the coins immediately so they cannot be double-spent
- 5.Calls Razorpay to initiate the bank transfer
- 6.A webhook from Razorpay later confirms the transfer completed
This prevents race conditions, orphaned balances, and the kind of bugs that make finance products fail audits.
Real-Time Chat Without Breaking Everything Else
Chat feels simple until you deploy it. Our backend uses Socket.io for real-time messages, but in production the backend runs behind an Nginx reverse proxy. WebSocket connections need specific proxy configuration, or they silently fail.
We also had to handle:
- —Message delivery status (sent, delivered, read)
- —Reply-to-message threading
- —Media file messages (images, video, audio, documents) via signed Supabase URLs
- —Booking-linked conversation threads
The result is a chat system that feels instant and stores everything reliably, without polling or hacks.
Production Security Was Not an Afterthought
Midway through the project, a security audit revealed a common but serious mistake: JWT tokens were being stored in localStorage. Any cross-site scripting attack could steal a user's token in milliseconds.
We fixed this completely. Tokens now live only in HTTP-only cookies, inaccessible to JavaScript entirely. We also:
- ✓Added AES-256 encryption for sensitive fields stored in the database
- ✓Moved all session state to Redis (not memory, which is lost on server restart)
- ✓Added rate limiting on auth endpoints — 10 requests per 15 minutes
- ✓Validated every environment variable on startup — server refuses to boot if a secret is too short or missing
- ✓Sanitised all log output so tokens and emails never appear in log files
These are not nice-to-have additions. They are the difference between a platform that survives its first real user and one that becomes a breach statistic.
The Instagram Integration
Creators spend hours replying to the same DM question over and over: "How do I book you?" We added Instagram account connection to Qixr, with an auto-DM feature. When a creator enables it on a post, anyone who comments on that post gets an automatic direct message with a custom reply — for example, a link to their Qixr booking page.
This turns Instagram engagement into booked sessions on autopilot.
What the Creator Dashboard Gives You
We paid particular attention to the creator-side experience because that is where retention lives. If a creator does not see the value of logging in every day, they leave.
Earnings at a glance
Today, this week, this month — in coins and INR equivalent
Upcoming sessions
Attendee info, date and time, and a one-click join link
Post performance
Views, likes, comments, and unlocks on each post
Content management
Draft, publish, and schedule posts with media uploads
Wallet and withdrawals
Live coin balance and a one-click withdrawal flow
Notification feed
Every booking, message, and payout update in one place
It is designed to answer the question every creator has at the start of every working day: "What do I need to do right now?"
What We Delivered, by the Numbers
16
Backend API modules — auth, booking, payments, video, chat, and more
22+
Database models — users, wallets, posts, transactions, bookings, and more
15+
Frontend page routes — discovery, profiles, booking, video call, wallet, admin
What We Learned
A coin economy is a product decision, not a tech decision.
The coin-to-INR conversion rate shapes how creators feel about the platform and how much fans are willing to spend. Get this wrong and no amount of good engineering fixes it. We pushed the client to decide this clearly before building the payout system.
Security gets skipped when you're moving fast.
It is not intentional — it is pressure. The right answer is to build security checks into the process so they happen automatically: environment variable validation on startup, cookie config tied to NODE_ENV, and a log sanitiser that runs on every log line.
The creator experience is the product.
Fans come because of creators. Creators stay because of their dashboard. If the dashboard does not show them clearly that the platform is making them money, they leave. We treated the creator dashboard as a first-class product, not an admin panel.
Who Is This Built For?
If you are sitting on an audience — or you know creators who are — and you have been thinking about building a platform like this, the core is already proven. We built and deployed Qixr from scratch: the booking system, the coin economy, the video sessions, the chat, the Instagram automation, the payouts. Every piece works together.
The creator economy is not going away. Fans are willing to pay for direct access to the people they follow. The platforms that make that transaction simple and safe are the ones that win.
Ready to Build?
Want to Build Something Like This?
We are a product development team. We take ideas from whiteboard to working product. If you have a platform in mind — for creators, coaches, consultants, or communities — we will scope it, build it, and deploy it.
Start a conversation →Published on February 27, 2026
Last updated on February 27, 2026
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