Manual

PayPerWatch is video you pay for by the second, in USDC, only while it plays. Creators upload videos and set a price per hour. Viewers put a few dollars into the PayPerWatch contract once and then watch with no popups. Creators are paid straight to their wallet.

This manual covers everything in the app: watching, paying, downloading, sharing, publishing, the dashboard, embedding PayPerWatch on another site, the paid API for AI agents, and running your own copy. This manual covers everything in the app: watching, paying, downloading, sharing, publishing, the dashboard, embedding PayPerWatch on another site, and running your own copy.

PayPerWatch runs on Arc, with real USDC. Only deposit what you plan to watch with. Anything you don't spend can be withdrawn.

The basics

Words used in this manual

The menu

The Upload button in the top right corner publishes a video. The button next to the sun and moon icon connects your wallet. Once you're connected, it shows how much you have available to watch. Click it for your address, your wallet's USDC, Sign in, Get test USDC (testnet only), View on explorer and Disconnect. The sun and moon icon next to it switches between light and dark mode.

Getting started

1. Install a wallet

Install a browser wallet such as MetaMask, Rabby or Coinbase Wallet, and create an account in it. On a phone, open PayPerWatch in your wallet app's built-in browser.

2. Connect

Click Connect wallet in the top right corner and approve the connection in your wallet. PayPerWatch adds the Arc network to your wallet automatically. Approve that too if your wallet asks.

3. Get USDC on Arc

Send USDC to your wallet address on the Arc network, from an exchange or another wallet that supports Arc. On Arc, USDC also pays the network fee, so keep a few cents extra.

4. Sign in (only when needed)

Some things need you to prove you own the wallet: uploading, the dashboard, getting a referral link, and restoring your watch progress on a new device. For those, PayPerWatch asks you to Sign in. Your wallet shows a message to sign. Signing is free and doesn't send a transaction.

Watching doesn't need signing in. Adding funds is enough.

Watching videos

Finding something to watch

Open Browse.

• Categories: All, Movies, Tutorials, Exclusive and Other.
• Search: searches titles and descriptions.
• Sort: Newest, Top rated, Lowest price or Most watched.

Each video card shows its length, its price per hour and its rating.

Adding funds

The first time you press play, PayPerWatch asks you to add funds:

1. Choose an amount ($1, $2, $5 or $10) or type another amount. The dialog shows how much USDC is in your wallet.
2. Click Add. Your wallet asks you to confirm up to two transactions:
   • Approve USDC: lets the PayPerWatch contract take that amount. This is only needed the first time, or when you add more than you approved before.
   • Deposit: moves the USDC into your PayPerWatch balance and sets up a session key for this browser.
3. Press play. For the next 24 hours, you won't see any more popups.

You can also add funds any time from the Spendings page or the Add funds button beside the player.

How billing works

• You pay only while the video plays. Paused, seeking or buffering costs nothing.
• Each second, once. You pay for a second of a video the first time you watch it. If you stop at minute 30 and come back later, billing picks up at minute 31. Parts you've already paid for replay free.
• Speed doesn't matter. At 2× speed you pay for the footage, not for the time on the clock.
• Finish it, replay free. Watch at least 97% of a video and every replay is free for 30 days from when you first started it.
• Nothing pauses for you. PayPerWatch never pauses the video on its own, not when you switch tabs and not during long sessions. Pause it yourself when you step away. The only automatic stop is when your balance runs out.
• The fee isn't added to your price. The 5% platform fee comes out of the creator's share.

The panel beside the player

Below the video, a note tells you if you've already paid for part of it, if you have a free-replay pass, or if someone shared the video with you.

When your balance runs out

The video stops, and a dialog suggests a top-up and tells you how many more minutes it buys. Add funds and press play to carry on from the same spot.

Watched it before on another device?

Your progress is stored with your wallet, not your browser. On a new device, choose Watched it before? Sign in on the player. Parts you've paid for, and any pass, carry over.

Ratings

There are no like buttons. Ratings come from how people actually watch:

• Each paying viewer scores a video from 1 to 5. Sampling it scores about 1, watching to the end scores 4, and coming back for more full watches scores 5.
• A video's rating is weighted toward 3.0 until enough people have watched it, so one fan can't make a video 5 stars.
• Only paid watch time counts.

The watch page shows the rating, how many people rated it, the share of viewers who finish it, and the share who come back.

Downloads (watch offline)

1. On a video's page, click Download.
2. The dialog shows the price: the part of the video you haven't paid for yet. You're never charged twice for the same second. If you have a pass, it's free.
3. Click Pay and download. The video is saved in this browser.
4. Open Downloads to watch it, even with no internet connection.

Things to know:

• Downloads play only inside PayPerWatch, like offline videos in other streaming apps.
• A download lasts 30 days. Downloading also gives you a 30-day pass, so replays and re-downloads are free during that time. When it ends, the download is removed and the page tells you.
• The trash icon deletes a download from this device. You can download it again for free while the pass lasts.
• The Downloads page shows how much space your downloads use.
• Downloads are saved per browser. Another device needs its own download, which is free during the pass.

Sharing and earning (referrals)

Click Share under any video to copy its link.

If the creator has turned on Share and earn for that video, the button reads Share and earn, and you can earn 5% of what the people you bring in spend on it:

1. Watch the video yourself first. Referral links only unlock after that.
2. Click Share and earn, then Get my referral link. If you aren't signed in, it asks you to sign in first.
3. Send the link to people. When someone watches through it, you get 5% of what they spend on that video.

How it works:

• The 5% comes out of the creator's share. The viewer's price doesn't change.
• If someone has followed more than one referral link for a video, the first one counts, for 30 days.
• You can't refer yourself, and creators can't earn referrals on their own videos.
• Your earnings are paid straight to your wallet whenever settlements run. You can follow them on Spendings → Referral earnings.

Your spendings page

Spendings brings together everything about your money.

Summary

The top of the page also has Add funds and, on testnet, Get test USDC.

Withdrawing unused funds

1. Under Withdraw unused funds, enter an amount, or click Max for everything you aren't owing.
2. Click Request withdrawal and confirm in your wallet.
3. Wait 24 hours. The card counts down the time left.
4. Click Withdraw. The USDC goes back to your wallet.

Why the wait: payments for what you watch are sent onchain in batches. The wait gives the last batch time to pay creators for anything you watched just before asking for your money back. You're never charged for anything you didn't watch. If what you owe has reduced your balance by the time the wait ends, you receive the rest.

You can Cancel a request at any time, and you can keep watching while it's pending.

Session keys

This lists the temporary keys in this browser, with each one's expiry and how much of its limit it has used.

• Revoke turns a key off onchain straight away. Use it if you think someone else used your browser.
• Remove clears an expired key from the list.

A new key is created every time you add funds.

Balance on an earlier contract

When PayPerWatch moves to a new version of its contract, any balance you had on the old one shows here in a highlighted card. Click Request, wait for the old contract's delay (1 hour on the previous version), click Withdraw, and then add funds again on the new contract. The card disappears once the old balance is empty.

Referral earnings

This shows what you've earned from referral links, what's still pending, how many people you've brought in, and a breakdown by video.

Spending by video and history

• Spending by video: what you've watched and spent, per video and creator.
• History: every deposit, settlement, withdrawal and session key change, straight from the contract, with links to the block explorer.

Publishing a video (creators)

Open Upload. You'll need to be signed in.

Step 1: Video

• Drag a file onto the box or click Choose file. MP4, MOV and WebM files up to 2 GB are supported.
• PayPerWatch reads the length and suggests thumbnails taken from the video. Pick one, or click Upload your own to use a JPEG, PNG or WebP image.

Step 2: Details

• Title (up to 140 characters). It's filled in from the file name to start with.
• Description (optional, up to 5,000 characters).
• Category: Movies (films and shorts), Tutorials (courses, lessons and how-tos), Exclusive (members-style gated content) or Other.

Step 3: Price per hour

Pick $0.25, $0.50, $1 or $2 an hour, or type your own price, up to $100 an hour with at most 2 decimals. The form shows:

• what viewers pay per minute,
• what a full watch of this video costs,
• roughly what 100 full watches pay you after the 5% platform fee.

Step 4: Share and earn

Turn this on to let viewers earn 5% (paid from your share) for bringing in new viewers. It's off by default, which means you keep everything. You can change it later in the dashboard.

Step 5: Publish

Click Publish. The button shows each stage:

1. Uploading. A progress bar. If a later step fails, the upload is kept, so trying again doesn't upload the file again.
2. Confirm in wallet. Your wallet asks you to confirm one transaction, which registers the video and its price on the contract.
3. Pending, then Saving. There's a link to the transaction while it confirms.
4. Your video is live. Links to the video, your dashboard and the transaction. If the video got an originality score, it's shown here too.

Your dashboard (creators)

Open Dashboard and sign in.

Earnings

• Earned (paid to your wallet): everything paid out to you, after the platform fee and any referral rewards.
• Pending (unsettled): what viewers have watched that hasn't been paid onchain yet, after the fee.
• Total watch time across all your videos.
• Daily earnings: a chart of the last 30 days.

There's no claim button and no minimum payout. Earnings go straight to your wallet whenever settlements run: as viewers reach 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of a video, and in a regular sweep of everything else.

My videos

Each row shows the thumbnail, title, views, minutes watched, and the value of that watch time. Each video has these controls:

Settlements

A table of every payout to you, with the amount, the platform fee, any referral reward, and a link to the transaction.

Fees and payouts

• The viewer always pays exactly the creator's price. Fees are never added on top.
• Fee rates are set in the contract. Any change has to be announced onchain in advance, so it can't change without notice.
• Payouts go straight from the contract to wallets. PayPerWatch never holds creators' earnings.

Putting PayPerWatch on your own site

Open Developers for ready-to-copy code and a live preview. Everything runs in a frame served by PayPerWatch, so your site never handles keys or money. Viewers connect their own wallet inside the frame.

• Find a video's ID in your dashboard. Each video's Embed button copies the full code.
• The frame grows and shrinks to fit its content.
• Earning as a platform with data-ref works only if your wallet has paid that creator before. This stops people earning from referrals with brand-new wallets.
• Signing in to upload from inside a frame needs third-party cookies over https. If a browser blocks them, the frame offers to open in a new tab.
• Downloads open in the full PayPerWatch app.

AI agents: paid transcripts

AI agents can search everything said in PayPerWatch videos and buy full transcripts, paying in USDC through Circle Gateway nanopayments (the x402 standard). The creator is paid for every purchase, just like when a person watches.

The one link to give an agent

https://ppv-studio.vercel.app/api/agent/ask?q=your+question

That's all an agent needs. It asks a question, pays a few cents in USDC from the wallet it already has, and gets the answer. There's no account, API key or sign-up. Agents that read https://ppv-studio.vercel.app/llms.txt can set themselves up from the site address alone. This is also on the Developers page, with a copy button and instructions to paste into an agent.

How it works

1. Ask. GET /api/agent/ask?q=how+does+private+credit+work+onchain (or POST {"q": "..."}).
2. Price. The first reply is 402 Payment Required with the price: what a person pays to watch the whole matching video, usually a few cents.
3. Pay. Any x402 client with a Circle Gateway USDC balance pays and retries automatically. It can pay on any chain the 402 lists, such as Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum or Arc, so agents don't need to move money to Arc first. A Circle agent wallet works too (circle services pay).
4. Answer. The full timestamped transcript of the best video, the moments that answer the question, a link to watch it, and other relevant videos.
5. Nothing relevant? You get 404 and pay nothing.

The free search (GET /api/agent/search?q=...) and single-transcript purchase (GET /api/agent/videos/{id}/transcript) still work for agents that want to choose for themselves.

Example (TypeScript)

import { GatewayClient } from "@circle-fin/x402-batching/client";

// Any chain where the agent already holds a Circle Gateway balance.
const agent = new GatewayClient({ chain: "base", privateKey: AGENT_KEY });

const { data } = await agent.pay("https://ppv-studio.vercel.app/api/agent/ask?q=" + encodeURIComponent(question));
console.log(data.answer.moments, data.answer.video.watchUrl);

To try it from this repository:

1. Run npx tsx scripts/agent-demo.ts new and put the key it prints into .env.local as TEST_AGENT_PRIVATE_KEY.
2. Send that wallet a little USDC (test USDC from the faucet on testnet, or real USDC on Arc with --mainnet).
3. Run npx tsx scripts/agent-demo.ts deposit 1 to fund its Gateway balance.
4. Run npx tsx scripts/agent-demo.ts ask "how does private credit work onchain". Add --mainnet to use the live site with real USDC, and --chain=base to pay from a Gateway balance on another chain.

Running your own PayPerWatch

This section is for whoever operates the site. Viewers and creators can skip it.

What runs where

Setup steps and environment variables are in README.md.

The review worker

• Needs: Python 3.10+, numpy, cryptography, and an ffmpeg build with Whisper and Chromaprint. Install the Python packages with pip install numpy cryptography.
• Start it: python worker/review_worker.py. It reads REVIEW_WORKER_SECRET and the site address from .env.local.
• Configuration: WHISPER_MODEL (default worker/models/ggml-base.bin) and WHISPER_PROCS (parallel transcription, default 4).
• When it's off: uploads wait at "Checking originality", and new videos stream without encryption until it's back. Keep it running.
• Switching it off: set CONTENT_REVIEW=off and redeploy. Uploads then publish without the originality check, no transcripts are made, and videos stream as plain files. It's off by default on mainnet; set CONTENT_REVIEW=on once a worker runs around the clock.

Settlement (paying creators)

• Payments settle as viewers reach 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of a video, whenever a download is bought, and in a scheduled sweep of everything else.
• On Vercel's free plan, the built-in schedule runs once a day (vercel.json). For an hourly sweep, create a free job at cron-job.org that calls GET /api/cron/settle every hour with the header Authorization: Bearer <CRON_SECRET>. A self-hosted server runs it hourly on its own.
• The settler wallet (SETTLER_PRIVATE_KEY) pays the network fees in USDC, so keep a little USDC in it.
• A payment the contract refuses three times in a row is retried once a day instead of every run, and each settlement run that skips one is recorded as an error.
• Platform fees build up in the contract and are sent to the fee wallet automatically once they reach $1.

Owner tasks

Troubleshooting