bantr: connect with your fans and get paid.

Bantr is a website that provides private, secure one-on-one video chat and payment.

My Role: Lead Product Designer

Team: 2 Software Engineers, Marketing specialist

Set a price & schedule a time.

The idea for Bantr came while discussing popular platforms such as Onlyfans and Patreon and the difficulty users face to maintain their platforms.

I began brainstorming ideas with two friends of mine who are software engineers.

I asked a few people if there was a platform that provided secure video chat and payments would you use it? After they answered yes, we decided to create Bantr.

Project goal

Design a website that provides private, secure one-on-one video chat and payment. We discovered a gap that was missing which was one-on-one video calls. I spoke with a user of a popular content sharing website that explained setting up a private video call and ensuring payment was difficult.

Design solution

Design a website that provides private, secure one-on-one video chat and payment.

Research

Pay for content platforms have become wildly popular, specifically during COVID. While most users charge a set amount per month to access content, many users provide exclusive content for an added cost.

While speaking with creators who use Onlyfans, many noted they had a few “super fans” who were willing to spend more money for more access to their content.

Research findings

Video call platforms such as Facetime and Zoom were the most used by users surveyed. Neither of these platforms have features that allow scheduled and timed phone calls.

Bantr will focus on scheduled, private and secure one-on-one video chat. A large focus was to ensure secure payment and have the follower pay before a call begins. The Bantr user can set the length of the call, the time of the call and price.

Design and develop

I put together some illustrations and images for the brand identity. I wanted the design to convey bold, playful, and modern traits.

Features

Dashboard

Upcoming calls: On the dashboard, users can see their upcoming scheduled calls. These details include the length of call, price of call and a link to call. Providing a short URL is important so the Bantr user can share the link with whoever scheduled the call.

Past calls: Users can view details of their past calls. This helps users to keep track of their previous activity and payments.

Prototype & Test

During this project, I was designing and testing throughout, including the video call screen.

After I designed the call video screen, we tested the functionality and if my design worked for video. It was important to not have any icons or buttons over the video call. In addition, we needed to figure out a way to time the calls with time showing on the screen.

Join call: Before a follower joins a call, the call details page displays name, duration and price of the scheduled call. The next step to join the call is adding payment information. It is important to have payment before the call.

Purchase details: A follower will add their payment information. After adding payment information, they are taken to a receipt page and a join call button.

Outcome & impact

  • Increase sign up rate

    Streamlined process led to a significant rise in completed sign-ups.

  • Cost reduction

    Decreased dependency on sales personnel led to lower operating expenses.

  • Higher user retention

    Faster time to value improved overall user satisfaction and retention.

What I learned

Before building the product we had a conversation about whether this should be a mobile app or web app. We decided against creating a mobile app because 1. App store rules and regulations are strict and it can be difficult to get your app on the app store. 2. It’s difficult to convince people to download a mobile app and continue to use the mobile app.

Another challenge we faced, and still haven’t found a solution, is payments. We have researched many payment platforms, spoke to various payment services and learned how other platforms, such as Onlyfans, has been able to process payments for adult content.

While there are some solutions and ways around this, such as crypto currency or using multiple payment platforms in case one fails, we have yet to implement.