Vida is a free tool that lets anyone connect with you via paid text messages, calls, and livestreams.

Whether you’re a creator, a consultant, a gamer, or anyone with a full calendar, you can take control of your time and monetize your attention on Vida.

To get started, set up an account with your phone number and your email address.

Once you’ve set up your account, there are a few different ways you can stack sats:

• Paid messages
• Paid calls
• Paid live streams
• Referring new users to Vida

Let’s explore each option below.

Paid Messages

Paid messages are Vida’s most popular product. By enabling your fans, followers, and customers to send you paid messages, there is no limit to how many sats you can stack. You get to set your price for each message, and anyone can reach you by paying your rate.

Since Vida payments occur right when a message is sent, your money arrives in real-time along with each message in your inbox.

Vida messages are all sent through Vida’s platform, but their team has a clever tool for anyone who wants to integrate payments into their Twitter messages too.

Vida’s Twitter bot can automatically send custom messages to anyone who tries to send you a DM on Twitter. Anyone who clicks the link will be automatically be directed to your Vida page.

As an example, this is what you’ll see if you try to send Vida’s founder Lyle Pratt a message on Twitter:

Paid Calls

Paid calls on Vida work like paid messages, with a few key differences.

Instead of setting the rate you’d like to be paid for each message, you get paid for every minute of your phone calls.

As of today, you’ll only receive calls if you’re logged into Vida’s web app or if you’ve installed their mobile app. If you don’t want to receive any calls, you can turn on “Do Not Disturb” mode by clicking your username in the Vida app.

Paid Streams

Vida offers two ways for streamers to earn money:

• Paid livestreams
• Video overlays

Livestreams

Anyone can offer paid livestreams to their fans. Gamers, streamers, and well-known social media influencers might find this feature particularly useful.

Your livestream rate works just like your phone call rate, where each viewer pays by the minute to see your content. You can stream directly from the Vida app or using RTMP to connect your preferred streaming software.

Video Overlays

Vida also offers streamers the ability to overlay paid messages on their video streams. An on-screen QR code allows viewers to send paid messages to creators, which then appear in real-time for all other viewers to see.

Creators can add this overlay on all of their video streams, whether they’re using Twitch, YouTube, or any other platform.

Referring New Users to Vida

Another way to stack sats on Vida is by referring new users. Vida offers a partner program for all creators on the platform with Bitcoin commissions paid out in real-time as new users join.

To earn, send someone a sign up link via your profile page or be the first member someone messages in the Vida app. Once a new user that you’ve referred spends money (by making or receiving a payment), you earn a percentage of the sats paid in the transaction.

You can learn more about the rates Vida pays partners here.

Getting Paid on Vida

Your fans can choose to pay you via Cash App, Apple Pay, Google Pay, credit card, or through any Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet. When you receive a Bitcoin payment, it’s immediately available for you to withdraw. If you’ve enabled fiat payments, those are available to withdraw once the fiat transaction has been settled.

If you’re a Strike user, you can link your Strike account so that Vida payments are auto-converted into USD and deposited in your Strike wallet.

Vida takes a 20% cut of payments made on the platform, but users who link their Lightning wallets via Strike or LNBits are only charged a 10% fee on payments they receive.

Vida plans to release LNURL and OpenNode support in the future so that users with an LNURL-enabled wallet or OpenNode account can also get their fees reduced to 10%.

Where Does The Money Come From?

When a Vida user earns via a paid message, call, or livestream, the money is coming directly from the Vida user that requested their attention. Vida partner program rewards are paid out from the platform fee that Vida takes on all payments.

Final Thoughts

Not only can you stack sats on Vida, but you can do it without adding much friction to your life or the lives of your fans, followers, or customers.

Creators and influencers who already DM their fans can integrate Vida’s Twitter bot in seconds to get Vida to filter their DMs for them, and anyone who livestreams for their fans can quickly add a video overlay to their existing streams.

Since anyone can pay via Bitcoin or credit cards, any audience of people can participate on Vida.

In this way, Vida helps unlock the economic potential of a creator’s audience without adding much friction.

Tips and Tricks

• If you’re hosting a virtual event, you can unlock a new monetization model using Vida. Rather than charging a fixed price, you can now charge attendees by the minute. This granularity could help unlock new buyers who only want to see a specific segment of your event.

• Using your Vida page as your link-in-bio on social media is a great way to highlight your paid message and paid call rates alongside your personal website, social media accounts, and other important links. As an example, this is what my Vida page looks like.