Buy Me a Bagel 🥯

A non-custodial, open-source alternative to Buy Me a Coffee.

Supporters pay in fiat-denominated amounts. Payments settle as USDT stablecoin directly to your wallet — no platform holds your money, ever.

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Why This Exists

Platforms like Buy Me a Coffee, Patreon, and Ko-fi all work the same way: your supporters' money goes to the platform first, and then the platform pays you — minus fees, on their schedule, after hitting their minimum payout threshold.

Buy Me a Bagel flips this model:

	Buy Me a Coffee	Buy Me a Bagel
Who holds the funds?	The platform	Your wallet directly
Payout delay	Days to weeks	Instant (on-chain confirmation)
Platform fees	5%	None from this app (only network gas fees)
Minimum payout	Yes ($5-$10+)	No minimum
Account freezing risk	Yes — platform can freeze/ban your account	No — funds go straight to your wallet
KYC to receive funds	Required	Not required by this app
Currency	Fiat (USD)	USDT stablecoin (pegged 1:1 to USD)

What "Non-Custodial" Means

Custodial = someone else holds your money for you (a bank, PayPal, Buy Me a Coffee). They control when and whether you can access it.

Non-custodial = money goes directly to a wallet you control. No intermediary can freeze, delay, or take a cut of your funds after they're sent.

With Buy Me a Bagel, when someone buys you a bagel, the USDT lands in your crypto wallet. Not Allscale's wallet, not this app's wallet — yours. The Allscale checkout page simply facilitates the payment and routes it to you.

Why Stablecoin?

USDT is a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. $1 = 1 USDT. Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, stablecoin value doesn't fluctuate. Your supporters think in dollars, you receive dollars — just on a blockchain instead of a bank.

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Deploy Your Own (Step by Step)

Total time: ~10 minutes. No crypto knowledge required to set up.

Prerequisites

• A GitHub account
• A Vercel account (free tier works)
• An Allscale account (to get API credentials and set your receiving wallet)

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Step 1: Get Your Allscale API Credentials

1. Go to allscale.io and create an account
2. In your Allscale dashboard, set up your receiving wallet address — this is the crypto wallet where payments will be sent
3. Generate an API Key and API Secret — you'll need these in Step 4

Important: Your API Secret is like a password. Never share it or commit it to GitHub.

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Step 2: Fork This Repo

1. Click the Fork button at the top-right of this repo
2. This creates your own copy under your GitHub account

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Step 3: Customize Your Page

Edit config.js in your forked repo (you can do this directly on GitHub by clicking the file, then the pencil icon):

const CONFIG = {
  // Your display name — shown at the top of the page
  name: "Jane Doe",

  // Short bio — one line under your name
  bio: "I make videos about cooking and open-source software.",

  // Avatar URL — paste a link to your profile picture
  // Leave empty "" to use the default bagel icon
  avatar: "https://example.com/your-photo.jpg",

  // What currency your supporters see (display only)
  currency: "USD",
  currencySymbol: "$",

  // Preset amounts — the quick-select buttons on your page
  presets: [1, 3, 5, 10],

  // Let supporters type their own amount
  allowCustomAmount: true,

  // Social links — leave empty to hide
  socials: {
    twitter: "janedoe",        // just the handle, no @
    github: "janedoe",         // just the username
    website: "https://jane.dev",
  },

  // "light" or "dark"
  theme: "light",
};

Commit the changes.

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Step 4: Deploy to Vercel

1. Go to vercel.com/new
2. Click "Import Git Repository" and select your forked buy_me_a_bagel repo
3. Before clicking Deploy, expand "Environment Variables" and add these four variables:

Variable	Value
ALLSCALE_API_KEY	Your API key from Step 1
ALLSCALE_API_SECRET	Your API secret from Step 1
ALLSCALE_BASE_URL	https://openapi-sandbox.allscale.io (for testing) or https://openapi.allscale.io (for real payments)
ALLSCALE_CURRENCY	USD (or EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, JPY, CNY, SGD, HKD)

4. Click Deploy
5. Done. Vercel gives you a URL like your-project.vercel.app — that's your Buy Me a Bagel page.

Tip: Start with the sandbox URL to test everything. Switch to the production URL when you're ready to receive real payments.

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Step 5 (Optional): Custom Domain

In your Vercel project dashboard, go to Settings → Domains to add a custom domain like bagel.yourdomain.com.

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Add the Badge to Your GitHub Profile or Repo

Paste this in any README.md, replacing the URL with your deployed page:

[![Buy Me a Bagel](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YOUR_USERNAME/buy_me_a_bagel/main/badge/badge.svg)](https://your-bagel-page.vercel.app)

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How It Works (Technical)

Supporter's Browser          Your Vercel Server              Allscale API
       |                            |                            |
       |-- picks $5, clicks btn --> |                            |
       |                            |-- HMAC-signed request ---> |
       |                            |<-- { checkout_url } -----  |
       |<-- opens checkout tab -----|                            |
       |                                                         |
       |-- pays on Allscale checkout page ---------------------->|
       |                                                         |
       |                            |-- polls payment status --> |
       |<-- "Thank you!" ---------- |<-- confirmed ------------ |
       |                                                         |
       |   Funds arrive in YOUR wallet. Done.                    |

Key points:

• Your API secret never leaves the server — HMAC signing happens in the serverless function, not in the browser
• No database needed — the app is stateless. Allscale handles payment state.
• No dependencies — the frontend is plain HTML/CSS/JS. The backend uses only Node.js built-in crypto.
• Rate limited — the checkout endpoint allows max 5 requests per minute per IP to prevent abuse

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Project Structure

├── index.html          # The donation page (static HTML)
├── config.js           # Your name, bio, presets, theme (edit this)
├── app.js              # Frontend logic (amount selection, checkout flow, status polling)
├── assets/style.css    # Styling (light + dark theme)
├── api/
│   ├── checkout.js     # Serverless function: creates Allscale checkout intent
│   └── status.js       # Serverless function: polls payment status
├── badge/badge.svg     # Embeddable badge for your GitHub
├── .env.example        # Template for environment variables
├── vercel.json         # Vercel routing config
└── package.json        # Project metadata (no runtime dependencies)

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Configuration Reference

config.js (public, safe to commit)

Option	Type	Description
name	string	Your display name
bio	string	Short tagline shown under your name
avatar	string	URL to your avatar image (empty = bagel icon)
currency	string	Display currency label, e.g. "USD"
currencySymbol	string	Display symbol, e.g. "$"
presets	number[]	Quick-select dollar amounts
allowCustomAmount	boolean	Show the custom amount input field
theme	string	"light" or "dark"
socials	object	{ twitter, github, website } — leave empty to hide

.env (secret, never commit)

Variable	Description
ALLSCALE_API_KEY	Your Allscale API key
ALLSCALE_API_SECRET	Your Allscale API secret
ALLSCALE_BASE_URL	https://openapi-sandbox.allscale.io (test) or https://openapi.allscale.io (prod)
ALLSCALE_CURRENCY	Fiat currency code: USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, JPY, CNY, SGD, HKD

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Deploying Without Vercel

The api/checkout.js and api/status.js are standard Vercel serverless functions. To run on other platforms:

• Netlify Functions — move the files to netlify/functions/, adjust the export format
• Cloudflare Workers — port the handler to the Workers fetch event format
• Self-hosted Node.js — wrap the handlers in an Express/Fastify server

The core logic is the HMAC-SHA256 signing in api/checkout.js — everything else is standard HTTP.

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FAQ

Do my supporters need a crypto wallet? Yes, supporters currently pay with crypto through Allscale's checkout page. More payment methods are coming soon.

What if I don't have a crypto wallet? You don't need one. Just create an account on Allscale and you'll have a wallet ready to receive payments. Get started at app.allscale.io.

Is this really free? This app charges nothing. Allscale charges a 0.5% transaction fee — negligible compared to the 5%+ that traditional platforms take.

Can someone take down my page or freeze my funds? Your page runs on your own Vercel deployment — you control it. Once funds are sent to your wallet on-chain, no one can reverse or freeze them. You also stay anonymous — no personal information is required to receive payments.

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License

MIT — fork it, customize it, make it yours.