Building Fanvue's App Store & Developer Platform
The developer platform and App Store that gave Fanvue's third-party ecosystem a proper foundation. Sole designer across builder and creator surfaces.
Fanvue is a creator economy platform headquartered in London: paid exclusive content, AI-powered creator tools, and a rapidly growing compliance surface. By early 2026 the company had announced a $22M Series A and $100M+ ARR.
Goals & Outcomes
Role & Ownership.
- End-to-end builder flow: developer profile, app creation, OAuth, pricing, publish
- Creator-facing App Store design: browse, install, subscription management
- Design sign-off across all screens before launch
Why did we build this?
Over 1,000 unofficial third-party apps were already in active use across the creator base, built on raw API keys with no scoping, no revocation, no trust model. The platform had the ingredients of a marketplace. It just didn't have the system.
No legitimate distribution channel, no in-platform monetisation, no feedback loop.
No curated, trusted place to find tools. Just word of mouth.
No defensibility. Any competitor could replicate the core product. An ecosystem is much harder to replicate.
Screenshots from Fanvue's own Discord, anonymised. The unofficial ecosystem was visible, active, and operating without any of the systems we'd later build.
Two sides, one platform.
- The API + Builder side
- The App Store side
The two sides only work together. Builders need a viable path to creators. Creators need trusted, curated apps. Neither works without the other.
The infrastructure that lets developers build on Fanvue. OAuth2 for secure authorisation. A builder flow handling the full app lifecycle: profile, creation, configuration, pricing, and submission.
The creator-facing storefront where Fanvue users discover, evaluate, and install third-party apps, with a review and approval process ensuring quality and trust.
From profile to published.
Developer profile → app creation → OAuth setup → events/webhooks → pricing → publish.
Designed for developers, navigable by non-engineers.
OAuth status flips to "Configured" the moment a redirect URL is saved, so builders read state in plain language instead of verifying it by hand. Authentication docs link directly from the surfaces that need them, so learning happens in context instead of through a separate docs site.
Developer Profile
Builders register as individuals or companies. Verification (KYC) gates access to the full flow.
OAuth Configuration
Client ID, masked client secret with regeneration warning, redirect URLs. Status updates to "Configured" once a URL is saved. Authentication docs linked directly.
Events & Webhooks
Individual webhook rows per event type, each with its own endpoint URL, test delivery, and delivery history. Signing secret visible and copyable. OAuth scope requirements surfaced contextually.
Pricing
Free/Paid toggle. Monthly subscriptions only (V1). Up to 5 plans per app. Price range: $3.99–$500/month. 80/20 revenue split (80% builder / 20% Fanvue) clearly communicated. Per-creator billing model called out explicitly. No agency ambiguity.
Publish & Submit
3-step progress indicator. App logo, name, tagline, description, preview images, test credentials for reviewers. "Submit for review" disabled with inline explanation until all requirements are met. 10 business day SLA communicated. App Store preview before submission.
How creators find and install apps.
Browse by category, read descriptions and permissions, install in one step. Billing terms upfront: monthly, per-creator, no partial-month refunds. Subscription management shows plan, cost, next billing date, and status in one view.
Only verified creators can install. Only approved apps are listed.
The review queue is managed by the Fanvue Team with an In Review → Approved/Rejected workflow.
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Billing that works for builders.
V1: flat monthly subscriptions, 80/20 revenue split, per-creator billing.
- Pricing plan creation UI: free/paid toggle, plan limits, price validation
- Subscription install and management flows for creators
- App withdrawal request flow, handled via Fanvue team
Four choices that shaped it.
Separate surfaces, not a role-toggled single app
The early assumption was one app with builder/creator modes. We pushed back. Builders configuring webhooks and creators browsing apps share no mental model. One app designed for both would have been poorly designed for each.
Live ecosystem in three months, not feature parity
The default expectation was a feature-complete platform before launch. V1 was scoped to one question: would builders actually submit? Everything not required to answer that got cut. The 50+ submissions before public launch answered it; the deeper features are now backlog prioritised against real usage instead of guesses.
Monthly-only in V1, not a full billing interval picker
The spec called for monthly, annual, and custom intervals. Cutting to monthly-only reduced scope without reducing value. Builders get a clear, predictable model to launch from. Interval flexibility can come once there is usage data to justify the complexity.
Copy audit before design, not after
The first thing I did was audit every label and CTA in the existing flows. Half the trust gaps were copy problems, not layout problems. Designing clean UI on top of confusing labels would have fixed the wrong thing.
Early signal, and what V2 owes.
Three weeks into soft launch: 68 builder submissions in, 17 apps approved and live, 32 rejected at review, 19 still in the queue. The 65% rejection rate of reviewed apps is the review system doing real work, not rubber-stamping.
V2 is shaped by what V1 deliberately cut. Annual and custom billing intervals. Builder-side analytics for installs, churn, and revenue. App versioning and changelogs. None of these were V1 must-haves; all of them surface within the first weeks of real use.
The unofficial ecosystem we documented in Problem Space hasn't fully moved over. The official channel is open; the migration isn't automatic. Building the surface isn't the same as moving a community, and that's a separate piece of work V2 has to plan for.
Learnings.
“Billing is trust. Every callout is a signal.”
“Design for the builder who isn't an engineer.”