One-time Stripe, not subscriptions
Products run through Stripe Checkout in payment mode, not recurring billing. Each price lives in app/products.php; buyers pay once and own it. No plans, no renewals, no dunning to babysit.
Digital product starter
Sell files, themes & digital templates.
One-time Stripe payments, downloads gated by purchase ownership, and a buyer library in a left-sidebar member app — passwordless auth and a dedicated admin app already wired, on plain PHP and SQLite.
1 payment per sale
∞ re-downloads
0 public file URLs
Buy once · own forever
Pay one time.
Pay one time.
Download for life.
No subscription, no seats, no expiry. One Stripe charge unlocks the file on the account — and it stays unlocked, through every future update.
- Lifetime re-downloads
- Free version updates
- Files served from outside the web root
PAID FILES, PROTECTED
Take the money. Hand over the file. Nothing leaks.
One-time Stripe payments for ZIPs, themes, templates, datasets — paid files served from outside the web root, never a public URL, every download logged.
Files served from outside public/
Paid files sit in PROTECTED_DOWNLOADS_DIR, never under the web root, so there is no guessable link to scrape. PHP streams the bytes only after checking the buyer has a paid purchases row.
Guest checkout, no signup wall
Stripe collects the email at checkout. The webhook creates the purchase and emails a sign-in link — buyers pay first and land in their library, no account up front.
Signed-in downloads, no leaky links
Paid files live outside the web root and are streamed by PHP only to the signed-in buyer who owns the purchase. No public URLs, no shareable bearer links — every fetch is checked and logged.
Lifetime re-download library
Purchases stay pinned to the account, so buyers re-download the version they bought any time from the /downloads page in their member sidebar app — access gated by who owns the purchase. The webhook backfills the row if the Stripe redirect is missed.
Email every buyer when you ship an update
Manage product files in the Products section of the admin app — its own left-sidebar console, DB-backed, swap the ZIP without a deploy. Shipped a new version? One button emails everyone who bought that product that it is ready. Two-click armed confirm so you don't blast the list by accident.
Proof, not promises
Every byte accounted for. Zero public URLs.
Paid files never sit under the web root, every fetch is checked against a paid purchase, and every fetch lands in an audit row you can quote back at a chargeback.
0Public URLs to your paid files — served from PROTECTED_DOWNLOADS_DIR, streamed by PHP, nothing to hotlink or guess
1:1Every download = one download_events row — who, what, when, logged before a single byte leaves
100%Of fetches gated on a paid purchases row owned by the signed-in buyer — no entitlement, no file
| Where files live | Outside public/ — never the web root |
|---|---|
| Delivery | PHP byte-stream, correct filename, no shareable link |
| Access gate | The signed-in buyer who owns the purchase |
| Audit trail | One download_events row per fetch |
Paid files, by the numbers
Take the money, hand over the file, leak nothing
One-time Stripe Checkout in, a protected byte-stream out — and a row you can quote at a chargeback in between.
1
one-time Stripe payment per sale — no plans, renewals or dunning to babysit
0
signup walls before the card — guest checkout takes the email, then sends a magic sign-in link
∞
re-downloads — every purchase stays pinned to the account in the sidebar member app at /downloads, gated by ownership
1-click
shipped an update? one button in the admin app emails every buyer of that product, behind an armed confirm
Try before you buy — no card, nothing saved
Click through all seven live demos — including a whole client site built in the CMS.
You're in one now. Hop straight to any other site type — same tab, still a demo: no card needed, no payment is real, and nothing you do is saved.
Each site-type demo is one of the seven ready-to-run profiles in the download — copy the folder, add your keys, ship.
AI Image Studio
Sell credit-metered AI image generation with a gallery and storage you own
images.getsimplestack.com
No-code CMS
Hand clients a site they edit themselves in a visual page builder
cms.getsimplestack.com
Mobile App Backend
Includes native iOS + Android apps, already wired to a backend with verified sign-in and a JSON API — no Firebase bill
app.getsimplestack.com
Subscriptions
Launch a recurring-revenue SaaS with Stripe tiers and tier-gated access already wired
saas.getsimplestack.com
Digital Downloads you're here
Take one-time payments for files that stay protected and never leak a public URL
downloads.getsimplestack.com
Credits & Usage
Charge per action with a usage ledger that always balances to the row
credits.getsimplestack.com
API Product
Ship a metered, rate-limited /v1 REST API with self-serve bearer keys
api.getsimplestack.com
Most SaaS dies of complexity, not competition.
Indie builders like Pieter Levels (@levelsio) run profitable products on exactly this shape — PHP · SQLite · jQuery · a cheap VPS per project.
50,000+
SQLite reads / sec
| daily_hits | 100,000+ |
| cost / 10k logins | $1 |
| whole_stack / month | < $10 |
| reads_block_writes | never · WAL mode |
From download to charging cards
Live on a real VPS in an afternoon.
01
Unzip & copy
copy a template folder
02
Install & connect
composer install · Stripe + SES
03
Ask your agent
rebrand · plans · run doctor
04
Deploy & charge
NGINX + PHP-FPM · take cards
unzip → live on a VPS — one afternoon.
One price, yours forever
Get the whole stack — £49, pay once.
Launch offer
Simple Stack
£49 Limited-time launch price- Seven ready-to-run site types: subscriptions & memberships, an AI image studio, digital downloads, credit/usage metering, API product, mobile app backend, full showcase
- Native iOS (SwiftUI) + Android (Compose) apps included — sign-in, dashboard and RevenueCat billing already wired to the backend
- A built-in no-code CMS / page builder — spin up whole client sites, then hand text/layout/image edits to the client
- Complete PHP + SQLite codebase — no framework, no build step
- Restyle from .env: 20 palettes × 6 type pairings × 5 hero layouts, light + dark
- Passwordless + Apple/Google sign-in, Stripe checkout, webhooks, credits, API keys, superadmin
- Setup, Stripe, email, deploy and security guides
- Written for AI agents to extend it for you (AGENTS.md + handoff docs)
- Lifetime access to the version you buy
Try all 7 live demos first — no card, nothing saved.
Questions
The honest FAQ.
Checkout is handled by Stripe with no account needed up front. The moment payment clears, a sign-in link is emailed to the buyer and the download is waiting in their dashboard.
Yes — purchases stay in their account for lifetime re-download, and files are served from outside the web root behind a paid-access check.
Yes — the admin Products tab emails everyone who bought a product that a new version is available.
Yes — parameterised SQL throughout, signed Stripe webhooks, CSRF, rate limiting and session hardening, all security-reviewed. Real plumbing, not a toy.
One small VPS runs the whole stack for a few dollars a month, and passwordless login emails on Amazon SES are about $1 per 10,000 sign-ins. Prefer Apple or Google sign-in? Both are built in with no per-login cost — Google's is free, and Apple's only needs an Apple Developer account ($99/yr) you likely already have to ship an app — so you can skip login emails entirely. No per-seat platform bills.
Get started
You’re already inside.
This is a live, fully interactive demo — explore every screen. Nothing you do is saved and no payments are real.