Get paid for your writing, one block at a time

What's a “block”? It's just a chunk of your text, roughly a section or a few paragraphs. You write normally; we do the splitting. Readers pay per block, so they only pay for what they actually read.

What you can sell

There are four kinds of content. They're read a little differently, but they're priced and paid for the same way: a free preview, then unlock the rest block by block.

• article

  Essays, reporting, blog posts, short fiction, anything prose. Readers get a clean reading view, unlocking block by block.

• book

  Serialized, long-form fiction or non-fiction. Add chapters and pages from the Chapter Builder; readers turn pages in an immersive full-screen reader, paying per page as they go.

• picture

  A Skimflow: an ordered sequence of images. The first is a free preview; each image after it unlocks on its own. Great for photo essays, comics, or step-by-steps.

• agent-skills

  A reusable skill, system prompt, or knowledge file written for AI agents to buy and use. Served as Markdown at a machine-friendly endpoint.

Pricing & blocks

You set one number: price per block, in US dollars (settled as USDC). That's it.

• The first block is always free. It's the preview that convinces someone to pay for the rest. A paywall with no preview just gets skipped.
• Price per block can be tiny, e.g. 0.002 ($0.002, a fifth of a cent). Pick whatever fits; you can change it any time.
• Re-pricing is instant. Every unlock is quoted fresh, so a price change takes effect on the next reader.
• Buy the whole piece. Readers can unlock everything in one tap for a small bulk discount (5% off the per-block total). Handy for a long article or a whole book.
• One-tap reading. After a quick one-time setup, unlocks happen silently in the background, no wallet popup per block. A readers'-side “reading fuel” balance shows how much is left.

Publishing

The easy way: open the Creator Dashboard, sign in with Google or GitHub, add a payout wallet, and hit New content for an article, Skimflow, or agent skill. Paste your text or image links, set a price, publish. Done in under a minute. Writing long-form? Use New book to open the Chapter Builder: add chapters, split pages with a --- line, and publish the whole book at once.

Prefer the API? Once you're signed in, your browser session can post to the same endpoint the dashboard uses:

http
POST /api/creator/content      (requires you to be signed in)

json
{
  "title": "Resilient web-scraper skill",
  "contentType": "agent-skills",       // or "article"
  "summary": "A battle-tested extraction routine with retries + backoff.",
  "tags": "scraping,agents,python",
  "pricePerBlock": 0.002,              // US dollars per block
  "status": "published",               // or "draft"
  "body": "# Web Scraper Skill\nYou are a careful extraction agent...\n..."
}

Your text is split into blocks automatically. For articles the first block is the free preview; for agent-skills a free intro block is generated for you and your blocks start at block 1.

How people read

Every piece has a public page at /read/<slug>. A reader sees the title, summary, and the free first block. To read more they bring a little USDC on Arc testnet, either with their own wallet, or a free in-app wallet they can create in a couple of taps (no download). The first unlock runs a quick one-time setup; after that, tapping Read on unlocks the next block silently, with no popup. Unlocked blocks stay unlocked on that device. No account or subscription required.

Books open in an immersive full-screen reader: turn pages by tapping the edges, swiping, or the arrow keys, and each new page is paid for invisibly as you reach it. Skimflows reveal one image at a time. Any reader can also unlock the whole piece at once for the bulk discount.

Reading & unlocking

A quick guide to what a reader actually does on the page.

How reading works

• You start on the free first block. Just scroll down to read it.
• Unlocked blocks read top to bottom like a normal article. Locked blocks appear blurred, with a Read on button where the text would continue.
• Everything you unlock stays unlocked on that device, so you can scroll back any time.

How unlocking works

• One block at a time. Tap Read on at a blurred block to reveal it. The first tap runs a quick one-time setup; after that each block unlocks silently with no popup.
• The whole piece at once. Prefer not to tap block by block? Use Unlock the whole piece to reveal everything in a single payment, with a 5% bulk discount off the per-block total.
• Reading fuel. A small gauge shows how much you have left to spend. When it runs low, add funds to keep reading without interruptions.
• Books and Skimflows work the same way: turn the page (or reveal the next image) and it unlocks as you reach it.

How AI agents buy (the interesting part)

Your agent-skills are also for sale to software. An autonomous agent can find your skill, see the price, pay, and use it, with no human involved. It works over plain HTTP using the x402 “pay-to-unlock” pattern:

1. The agent fetches your skill and reads the free block 0 to decide if it's relevant.
2. It requests a paid block and gets back HTTP 402 Payment Required with a price quote.
3. It pays the quoted USDC, then retries with a payment token and receives the block.

typescript
const base = "https://your-deployment";
const slug = "resilient-web-scraper-abc12";

// 1. Read the free intro block — no payment.
const intro = await fetch(`${base}/read/${slug}/agent-skills.md`).then(r => r.text());

// 2. Ask for a paid block → the server answers 402 with a price quote.
let res = await fetch(`${base}/read/${slug}/agent-skills.md?block=1`);
if (res.status === 402) {
  const quote = await res.json();
  // { cost_per_block, currency: "USDC", payment_gateway, instructions }

  // 3. Pay via Circle Gateway, then retry with the payment token.
  const token = await payViaCircleGateway(quote);   // your wallet, or the bundled SDK
  res = await fetch(`${base}/read/${slug}/agent-skills.md?block=1`, {
    headers: { "X-Payment-Token": token },
  });
}
const block = await res.text();   // the unlocked block — ready to use

Don't want to write any of that? This repo ships a ready-made buyer agent. Point it at any skill and it discovers, evaluates, pays, and returns a cited answer:

bash
npm run agent -- --url <deployment> --slug <slug> --simulate

--simulate uses fake payments so you can try it with zero setup. Drop the flag (and add a funded wallet) for real testnet payments.

Agent discovery

Introducing an agent to Skimflow? Hand it these two well-known URLs. The first says how to pay (the x402 + Circle Gateway protocol, gateway address, currency); the second is the live catalog of whatis for sale, so the agent can shop without any custom integration or scraping:

http
GET /.well-known/agent-payment.json      # how to pay (protocol + gateway)
GET /.well-known/agent-skills.json       # what's for sale (catalog of skills)

Each catalog entry is a self-describing x402 service — a free preview block, the paid-block resource URL, the price, and the payout address:

json
{
  "payment_protocol": "x402",
  "settlement": "circle-gateway-eip3009",
  "network": "eip155:5042002",
  "currency": "USDC",
  "services": [
    {
      "name": "Resilient web-scraper skill",
      "slug": "resilient-web-scraper-abc12",
      "price_per_block": "0.05",
      "preview_url": "https://<deployment>/read/resilient-web-scraper-abc12/agent-skills.md",
      "resource_url_pattern": "https://<deployment>/read/resilient-web-scraper-abc12/agent-skills.md?block={n}",
      "pay_to": "0x…",
      "payment_header": "X-Payment"
    }
  ]
}

The flow: read the catalog → fetch a skill's free preview_url to judge relevance → request a paid block and get a 402 quote → sign a USDC payment and retry with the X-Payment header (the same Circle Gateway rail humans use). The bundled buyer agent above does all of this for you.

Connecting tools? Sync posts from Ghost, expose a one-payment full-content API for AI clients, and make your work auto-discoverable in RSS readers like Folo. See the Integrations tab.

Your earnings

Every unlock splits automatically: 80% to you, 12% to the platform, 5% to a referrer if someone sent the reader your way, and 3% to a small reserve. When there's no referrer, that 5% folds into the reserve, so a no-referrer unlock is 80% you / 12% platform / 8% reserve. Payments land in the wallet you set on your dashboard, and your running total updates in real time.

Going live (real payments)

Out of the box, Skimflow runs in simulate mode: everything works end to end, but no real money moves, so it's perfect for trying things out. To settle real USDC on Arc testnet, set PAYMENTS_MODE=live plus your Circle credentials. The bundled Circle Gateway tooling (npm run circle -- deposit / pay / balances) handles the gas-free, batched on-chain settlement for you.