How VocalHub works

1. 1

   Create an account

   Tap Sign up in the top-right corner of the landing page. Email + password, no SMS code, no credit card.

2. 2

   Set your handle and bio

   Go to Settings in the sidebar. Pick a username (it's how friends find you, like @yourname), add a one-line bio, choose your voice type or instrument tags. These show on your profile.

3. 3

   Install the app

   On your phone browser, tap Add to Home Screen (iPhone Safari) or use the Install menu (Android Chrome). VocalHub now lives like any other app — opens full-screen, gets a lock-screen icon, no browser chrome. Detail in the Installing section below.

VocalHub is a Progressive Web App (PWA). You don't download it from Play Store or App Store — you install it directly from the site. Saves storage, no review delays, updates are instant.

From Settings you can set your display name, username, bio, voice type (soprano / tenor / etc.), and a list of instruments you play. Avatar uploads are auto-compressed before they reach our servers, so a 4 MB phone selfie shrinks to ~300 KB without you doing anything.

Your profile (/dashboard/u/<username>) shows your posts, your harambee jars, your subscription tier if you've published one, and a Subscribe button when fans visit your page.

The Feed is your home base. Each post fills the screen one at a time, autoplays, pauses when you scroll past. Tap to play / pause, tap the speaker icon to unmute, swipe up for the next post.

At the bottom-center, the round + button opens the create menu: Go live, Photo, Video, Audio.

1. 1

   Choose a kind

   From the feed's + button, pick Photo (up to 10 MB) or Video (up to 50 MB / 60 seconds). Audio uses a separate flow — see Recording audio.

2. 2

   Drop or pick a file

   Tap the upload box and choose the file. Photos auto-compress before upload to save your data. Videos longer than 8 MB run through an in-browser compressor that brings most phone clips down to about a fifth their size — same quality on a phone screen.

3. 3

   Add a title and caption

   Both optional. The title shows under the video; the caption appears below the author block. Captions support line breaks, up to 500 characters.

4. 4

   (Optional) Make it subscriber-only

   Flip the Subscribers only toggle near the bottom of the form. Only fans who pay your monthly tier will see the media — everyone else sees a paywall card asking them to subscribe.

5. 5

   Hit Post

   Compression happens, upload runs with a progress bar, you land on the post detail page once it's live.

The dedicated audio recorder lives at /dashboard/record (or pick Record audio from the create menu). Tap Start recording, do your thing, tap Stop. Caps at 15 minutes.

Before posting you'll see a playback preview. If it sounds off,Re-record wipes and restarts. Save uploads to Cloudinary and creates the post.

Tap Live in the sidebar to see who's broadcasting right now. Tap into any active room to listen. To host your own:

1. 1

   Host a room

   On the Live page, tap Host a room. Give it a title, optional topic. If you want to charge for entry, flip the Charge ticket toggle and set a price (KES 50 minimum). See Ticketed rooms.

2. 2

   Take the stage

   The room opens in the lobby. Tap Take the stage — you go live automatically and audience members can drop in.

3. 3

   Music mode (optional)

   Toggle Music mode on the bottom bar before you sing. It disables noise suppression and goes stereo so vocals and instruments don't get destroyed by aggressive noise filters.

4. 4

   End the room

   Tap the red End room in the top-right when you're done.

While the room is live the audience can react with emojis (the bottom bar's emoji strip), tip the host directly, request specific songs (see Song requests), and contribute to your harambee jars.

When you set a ticket price on a room, audience members hit a paywall in the lobby. Tap Buy ticket · KSh 200 (or whatever you priced) → Paystack hosted checkout → M-Pesa or card → ticket recorded → they can join the room.

The host always gets in free. Broadcasters you've explicitly promoted also bypass the paywall. Everyone else needs a paid ticket. We keep 10% as a platform fee, the rest settles to your connected bank within 1–2 working days.

During a live, fans can tap the Request button next to the tip button. They type the song title, pick an amount, and pay via Paystack. The request appears in your queue at the top of the stage.

You can Accept, Decline, or Mark as played. Decline does not auto-refund — you listened to the request, that's worth something. The fan sees the status update in real time.

From Settings → Harambee jars you can publish jars like "Studio time", "New mic", "Bus fare to the gig". Each has a goal in KES and a public progress bar.

Fans contribute toward specific jars from your profile and from inside your live performance rooms. Once a goal is hit the jar auto-closes with a "hit" badge and you get a prompt to record a thank-you note attributed to the contributors.

Fewer abstract tips, more concrete moments — the cultural fit for "harambee" energy.

Set a monthly tier from Settings → Fan subscriptions: name (e.g. "Inner circle"), monthly price in KES, optional description. Once published, your profile shows a Subscribe button next to Follow.

When a fan subscribes, they pay through Paystack each month (auto-renewing card) and get access to all your subscriber-only posts. They can cancel any time; access stays until the end of the current period.

Your dashboard shows active subscribers, MRR (monthly recurring revenue), and recent subscription charges in the earnings page alongside tips and ticket sales.

The Friends page in the sidebar has three tabs: your accepted friends, pending requests (incoming + outgoing), and a search-and-add panel. Add anyone by username; they get a friend request to accept.

Direct messages live under Conversations in the sidebar (or open one from any profile via the Message button). DMs support emojis, file attachments, threaded replies, and:

From any DM, tap the phone or camera icon at the top to call. The recipient gets a ring on every device they have logged in, plus a phone-style heads-up notification with Answer and Decline buttons (Android Chrome / installed PWAs).

The big red Leave button at the bottom-center is the universal exit — it's always visible and always works.

Go to Settings → Notify anywhere and tap Turn on. Allow the browser permission prompt. That registers your device with our notification service.

From then on you'll get pushes for: incoming calls, new direct messages from your friends, and tips received on your posts. On Android the notification appears as a heads-up banner with tappable buttons. On iPhone (only when VocalHub is installed as a PWA) it appears on the lock screen.

If you change your mind: Turn off on this device from the same settings card. Notifications are per-device, so you can enable on your phone and not your laptop, or vice versa.

First step: go to Settings → Earn money and connect a bank account (or M-Pesa via your bank). Pick your bank, enter the account number, we resolve it with Paystack and confirm the holder name. After that you're set up to receive any of:

We keep 10% as a platform fee, Paystack takes their ~1.5% transaction fee, the rest is yours. Settlement to the bank is 1–2 working days from Paystack's cutoff (Kenya cutoff ~14:00 EAT). Watch Paystack → Settlements for the live status.

Activity in the sidebar takes you to your dashboard. Four tabs: