OnlyAlphas — A creator platform with real paying fans.

At a glance

What it is: Subscription platform
Built for: Creator economy
Status: Live · onlyalphas.vip
Built with: Laravel · MySQL · Redis · Cloudflare Stream · Encrypted HLS · Railway
The brief: OnlyAlphas is the original build of our creator-subscription engine. It had to handle everything from an encrypted video pipeline to card billing and chargebacks, in two languages, with an admin that lets a small team run the whole site. It has since been cloned to launch BaddieVids, which shows what the architecture was built for.

What it does

Encrypted video pipeline. Uploads are transcoded and streamed as encrypted HLS with per-viewer keys on every device, including iPhone.
Live streaming. Public streams for subscribers and private paid 1-on-1 shows, with tips during the stream.
Paid chat. Locked media in direct messages, tips in-chat and broadcast messages to every subscriber.
Billing and wallet. Card subscriptions, one-off unlocks, tips and a top-up wallet, with failed payments recorded for the admin.
Creator tools. A content vault, auto-posting, a shop page, referral links and a starter guide for new creators.
Admin and compliance. ID verification, content review, payouts, broadcasts and page editing from one panel.

How it works

Creator signs upIdentity verified automatically. A starter guide and welcome message get them posting.
Content goes in the vaultUpload once, post to the wall, lock it in chat or sell as a one-off.
Fans subscribeJoin free, browse Alpha Vids, subscribe or unlock by card or wallet.
Live and chatPublic streams, private 1-on-1 shows and paid messages, with tips throughout.
Team runs it from the adminPayments, failures, content review, broadcasts and payouts.

Screens

Video

The creator reel: the wall, locked posts, chat and tips in one sequence.

The blog — SEO guides for creators and fans.

Alpha List — gifts fans send to creators.

The hard parts

What was difficult, and what we did about it.

Encrypted video on every device

Desktop and Android play encrypted HLS in the browser; iPhone Safari needs native HLS, so a playlist proxy injects the key auth that Safari drops.

Who can see what

Feed rules and video-key rules are kept in lockstep, so a free post plays for a guest and a paid post never leaks a key — even when vault media is reposted to the wall.

Staying fast under load

Sessions and cache on Redis, encoding on Cloudflare Stream, and a weekly automated media check that catches broken uploads before fans do.