Child panel / Setup guide

Setup guide

Everything from buying a domain to your first customer order, in the order you'll actually do it.

Before you start

• A SMMFollows account with some balance: $3 for the panel plus money for the orders your customers will place. How to add funds.
• A domain. Any registrar; if you don't have one, a .com for your brand is the safe choice. You don't need hosting.
• Your SMMFollows API key, from your account page.

1. Point the domain at us

1. Sign in to your registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, OVH, whichever).
2. Open the domain and find Nameservers (sometimes under DNS management).
3. Choose custom nameservers and enter exactly:
   • dns1.cloudns.net
   • dns2.cloudns.net
4. Save. Registrars take from a few minutes to a day to apply this; most are done within an hour.

2. Order the panel

1. In your SMMFollows account, open Child Panel in the left menu.
2. Domain name: the domain from step 1, without https or www.
3. Currency: pick USD unless you have a reason not to. USD unlocks every payment gateway; another currency limits you to the one to three gateways that support it.
4. Admin username and password: your login for the panel's admin area. Use a strong password; this account controls money settings.
5. Click Submit order. $3 is deducted from your balance.

3. Wait for activation

The panel is set up within 3 to 6 hours, once your nameservers are live. If it's been longer than six hours, check the nameservers first (a DNS lookup site will show what the domain currently points to), then open a ticket in the Child Panel category.

4. Sign in to the admin area

Open https://yourdomain.com/admin and use the admin login from step 2. Take ten minutes to click through the menus before changing anything; everything below lives under Settings.

5. Connect SMMFollows as the provider

1. Go to yourdomain.com/admin/settings/providers.
2. Select SMMFollows and paste your API key.
3. Save. The panel checks the key by reading your balance; if your balance appears, the connection works.

6. Import services and set prices

1. From the provider's service list, import the services you want to sell. Start with 20 to 40 you've tested, not the whole catalog; you can add more any day.
2. Set your price per 1,000 for each, or a percentage over our rate if you'd rather it follow our changes automatically.
3. Keep our minimum and maximum. If you set a lower minimum than ours, your customer's order will be accepted by your panel and refused by us.
4. Rewrite the service names and descriptions in your own words and language. Copying ours verbatim makes your panel look like a clone, to customers and to Google.

7. Add payment methods

1. Go to yourdomain.com/admin/settings/payments and click Add method.
2. Choose the gateways you have accounts with (cards, PayPal, local wallets, crypto) and enter their keys. Customers pay into these accounts directly.
3. Set a minimum deposit that covers the gateway's fixed fee.

More on this in Payments.

8. Brand it

• Logo, site name, colours, favicon.
• Terms of service and a refund policy page. Write them before the first customer, not after the first dispute.
• A contact method your customers can actually reach you on.

9. Test before you announce

1. Create a customer account on your own panel, as a customer would.
2. Add a small amount through each payment method you enabled.
3. Place one cheap order (views on your own post). Check that it appears in your SMMFollows account's Orders page within a minute and that the status flows back to your panel.
4. Open a ticket on your own panel to see what your customers will see.

Go-live checklist

• SMMFollows balance covers at least a week of expected orders.
• Every listed service tested at least once.
• Minimums equal to or above ours.
• Terms, refund policy and contact page published.
• Your API key is nowhere but the provider settings.

Later changes, such as moving to a new domain (allowed once) or adding a second admin with limited access, are handled by ticket in the Child Panel category.