Welcome to Pancho

Pancho is a place where one phone number, one PIN, and one card give you the freedom to run a whole business — or several. Think of it as your operating system for the boring-but-important stuff: customers, billing, staff, payments, domains. You bring the work; we handle the plumbing.

This first lesson is the 30-second tour. Once you finish it you'll know exactly what you have, where to find it, and what to try next.

What you get the moment you sign up

Your account opens with the platform shell already wired up:

• Phone-and-PIN authentication. No passwords, no email confirmations, no recovery links. You log in the same way every time — your country code, your phone, your 4-digit PIN.
• A wallet. Top it up once, and your subscription, add-ons, and SMS credits all draw from the same balance. You can also let it sit empty and pay each charge with a card — your choice.
• A referral link. Every time someone you refer pays their plan, you earn a commission. It's tracked from day one, even before you've decided whether to share it.
• The App Marketplace. A growing library of single-purpose apps you can install with one click. Each one ships with a 4-hour free demo so you can try before you pay.

You don't need to configure any of that. It's already on.

The three places you'll spend most of your time

Tip: Bookmark the home page (mypancho.com) once you're signed in — it always shows your installed apps and a shortcut back to whichever one you used last.

Here's the mental map:

1. Home — your installed apps as big tiles. Click one to open it.
2. Apps marketplace — install or uninstall things. Browse by category, preview them in demo mode, then start your Premium Plan when you're ready.
3. Account — your profile, billing, domains, wallet, and support all live here. One settings page for everything that's about you rather than inside an app.

That's it. Three buttons in the sidebar handle 95% of what you'll do.

Free vs Premium — the honest version

Every app shows a clear price. Some are free forever (Free instead of $0/mo). Most are paid and run on a single Premium Plan — one monthly charge unlocks everything in your account, no per-app billing.

Your card isn't charged until you explicitly upgrade. Demo expires? You just lose access to that app until you upgrade or uninstall — nothing else breaks.

What to do right after this lesson

The fastest way to get value is:

1. Watch the next lesson (signing up & verifying your phone) so the auth screens feel familiar.
2. Open the marketplace and start one demo. Pick something close to what you actually do — if you run a dry-cleaning shop, install DryCleanPro; if you sell, install CRMDesk.
3. Spend ten minutes inside it. If it feels right, upgrade. If not, uninstall it — your wallet and any other apps stay untouched.

That's the loop. Install, try, decide. Repeat for anything else that catches your eye.

Ready to actually create your account? Move on to Signing up & verifying your phone in the lesson list.

Signing up takes under a minute and only asks for two things: your phone number and a 4-digit PIN you'll remember. No email confirmations, no password rules, no security questions. This lesson walks through each screen so the flow is familiar when you do it for real.

Before you start

Have your phone in hand — the verification SMS goes to it during the last step. Use the same country code your phone is registered under; Pancho uses that to decide which currency your account runs in, and currency is permanent. Pick the wrong country and you'll have to start over with a fresh account.

Why currency is locked: so we never have to retroactively re-rate every old invoice in your billing history if you switch later. It's simpler to be strict at signup.

The flow, one screen at a time

1. Pick your country

The list opens to your phone's region by default. If that's wrong, search by country name or dial code. The flag and dial-code chip on the next field updates as you pick.

2. Enter your phone number

Type the rest of your number without the country code — we already have that from the previous step. The field rejects letters and gives you the canonical E.164 format (+14042288580) as you type, so you can see exactly what the SMS will be sent to.

3. Set your PIN

Four digits, no obvious patterns (1234, 0000, four-of-a-kind get refused). You can change it later from Account → Profile if you forget — there's a phone-based reset flow.

4. Enter the OTP

We text you a 6-digit code. It expires in 10 minutes. If it doesn't arrive in 30 seconds, hit Resend — the button cools down for a minute between sends to prevent loops.

Once verified, you're in. The home page loads with the marketplace prominent, since your account has zero apps installed at that exact moment.

Common snags

• "OTP didn't arrive." Check that you typed the country code correctly. The most common cause is picking the wrong country in step 1 — the SMS went somewhere else.
• "My phone number is taken." That means someone (probably you, on another browser session) already has an account on that number. Use Login instead of Signup. If you forgot the PIN, use Reset PIN — it'll text the same number.
• "I want to use a different phone later." You can swap the phone number on your existing account from Account → Profile → Change phone. You don't need to make a new account.

What happens immediately after signup

Three things spin up behind the scenes:

1. A platform user record with your UUID (this is how every app and invoice in your account links back to you).
2. An empty wallet — zero balance, ready to accept a top-up.
3. A unique referral link, instantly active. Find it under Account → Earn.

You're ready to install your first app. The next lesson takes you to the marketplace.

Your home dashboard is the first screen you land on after logging in. It's designed to be a single place to see what you've installed, what's new, and where to go next. This lesson walks through what each part of it shows and how to use it.

What's on the home screen

The dashboard is split into a few simple zones:

• Installed apps. Big tiles for every app you've added to your account. Tap one to open it. The newest install lands first; everything else follows in install order.
• Recent activity. A summary of what's happened across your apps lately — new orders, completed jobs, payments received. Click any item to jump to it.
• Shortcuts. Quick links to the things people use most: marketplace, billing, support.
• Your profile chip. Bottom-left in the sidebar. Click it to switch theme, log out, or jump to Account → Profile.

How to make it useful

A few small habits make the dashboard much more useful day to day:

• Pin the apps you use most by simply using them — apps you opened recently float to the top.
• Check recent activity once a day. It surfaces things you might have missed (e.g. a new ticket, a customer payment) without you having to dig into each app.
• Use the shortcuts. Most navigation patterns inside Pancho have a 1-click path from the home screen; you rarely need to hunt through menus.

When something looks wrong on the home screen

Tip: The home screen is read-only — nothing you click there changes data. So if a tile shows wrong info, the real fix is inside the app the tile points to.

• If a tile won't load at all, refresh the page first. Persistent issues usually mean the app itself is having trouble; opening the app directly will show you any error.
• Anything else, Support is in the sidebar and we usually reply within a few hours.

The App Marketplace is where you find and install every app Pancho ships. Whether you're looking for something specific or just browsing to see what's available, this lesson covers how to move around it without missing anything.

How the marketplace is organized

Apps are grouped into a few high-level categories — Business, Real Estate, Marketplace, Web, and so on. The category chips at the top of the page filter the grid, and the search bar matches name, tagline, or category.

Each app card shows:

• Name + icon. What it's called.
• Tagline. One line about what it does.
• Price. Either "Free" (forever free), or a monthly figure that gets bundled into your Premium Plan.
• Setup fee. A one-off charge for some apps, separate from the monthly. Most apps have none.

Trying before you commit

Every paid app ships with a free 4-hour demo. Click any app card, then "Try free" — Pancho spins up a sandbox so you can see exactly what you'd get, with fake data already seeded. No card required.

When the 4 hours run out, the demo locks. You can either upgrade to Premium right then (and keep all the data you've added) or walk away — nothing gets charged.

Installing for real

Once you've decided to keep using an app, click Install on its card. If you don't already have a Premium Plan, Pancho prompts you to upgrade first. If you do, the install happens immediately and the new app appears on your home dashboard.

Tip: Free apps skip the billing prompt entirely — the install button just says "Get App" and you're in within a second.

When the marketplace doesn't behave the way you expect

• If an app you're looking for isn't there, it might not exist yet. Support can tell you whether it's on the roadmap.
• If install fails, the most common cause is a stalled payment method — fix it under Account → Billing, then try again.

Installing an app on Pancho is a single-click action that does a lot of work behind the scenes. This lesson walks through what actually happens during install, what gets created on your account, and what happens if you ever decide to uninstall.

The install moment

When you click Install on a paid app, Pancho does three things in order:

1. Confirms your billing. If you don't already have a Premium Plan, it shows you the upgrade prompt first. No surprise charges — you'll see the exact monthly figure and any setup fee before confirming.
2. Spins up your private copy. Each app you install is isolated. Your data lives in a database that's separate from every other user's, separate from every other app on your account, and separate from the platform itself.
3. Seeds defaults. The app comes pre-configured with sensible labels, statuses, and starting categories so it's usable immediately. You can change all of that later in Settings.

For free apps, step 1 is skipped — there's nothing to charge.

What you get on day one

The fresh install includes:

• An empty list ready for your first record.
• A demo entry or two so the screens aren't completely bare (if the app's seeds/fresh.sql includes them).
• The default permission setup, with you as the owner. You can invite staff later from Settings → Staff.

When you cancel later

Uninstalling an app is just as clean as installing it:

• Your data is kept for 30 days in case you change your mind. Re-installing within that window brings everything back exactly as you left it.
• After 30 days, the data is permanently deleted to comply with privacy rules. You'll get an email a week before the deletion as a final chance to restore.
• Your Premium Plan stays active for any other apps you haven't uninstalled — there's no need to pause or cancel just because one app is gone.

Tip: If you only want a break from an app but not lose its data, just stop using it. Uninstalling is the only thing that triggers the 30-day clock.

When the install doesn't behave the way you expect

• If install hangs partway, refresh the page and check the home dashboard — installs are atomic, so you'll either see the app or you won't.
• For anything that looks half-done, Support can clean it up — we usually reply within a few hours.

Pancho's pricing model is deliberately simple — one Premium Plan covers everything you've installed, charged monthly to one payment method. This lesson covers how it works, when you get charged, and where to find every payment we've ever taken from you.

How the Premium Plan works

A few key facts:

• One subscription, many apps. You pay one monthly figure that bundles the price of every paid app you've installed. Add an app, the bundle gets bigger. Remove one, the bundle shrinks at the next renewal.
• No per-seat charges. Invite as many staff to your apps as you want — the price is the same.
• Free apps don't add to the bill. Apps with Free pricing are bundled at zero, forever.
• Setup fees are one-off. If an app has a setup fee, it's charged once at install time and doesn't repeat.

When you get charged

Your billing date is set the first time you upgrade to Premium. From then on, you're charged on the same day of the month every month. If your bill day is the 31st and the month doesn't have one (like February), it shifts to the last day of that month.

You'll get an email a few days before each charge with the exact figure. If something's about to change (e.g. you just added an app), the email shows the new amount.

Where to find your billing history

Go to Account → Billing in the platform sidebar. You'll see:

• Your current plan and renewal date.
• Every payment we've ever taken, with date, amount, and a downloadable receipt.
• Any refunds or credits applied to your wallet.
• Your saved payment method, with the option to swap or remove it.

Tip: Receipts include your business info if you've filled it in under Account → Profile. Add it once and every future receipt is invoice-ready.

When something on the bill doesn't look right

• If a charge is for an app you don't recognize, check your installed apps list — it might have been added by a staff member with admin access.
• For anything you can't reconcile, Support can pull the exact reason for any charge — we usually reply within a few hours.

Life happens. Maybe your business is seasonal, maybe you're stepping back for a month, maybe you've decided Pancho isn't for you. This lesson walks through all the off-ramps — pause, resume, and full cancellation — so you can pick the one that fits.

Pausing your plan

A pause is the lightest touch. From Account → Billing, click Pause plan and pick how long (up to 60 days). What happens:

• You stop being charged immediately. Any time already paid for shifts forward when you resume.
• Your apps go into read-only mode. You can still see all your data; you just can't add or edit anything new.
• Your customers' public links keep working — they don't notice you're paused.

When the pause window ends, billing resumes automatically and everything goes back to full editing. You can also resume early at any time from the same screen.

Cancelling

Cancel from Account → Billing → Cancel plan. Two important things to know:

• You keep access until your current period ends. If you cancel three days into a monthly cycle, you have ~27 more days of full access before anything changes.
• No surprise charges. Cancellation stops the next renewal — your card never gets billed again for the plan.

After your paid period ends, your apps go into a read-only state similar to pause. Your data stays put for 30 days. If you change your mind in that window, upgrading again restores everything.

After the 30-day grace period

Heads up: 30 days after your plan ends, all data from paid apps gets permanently deleted to comply with privacy rules. You'll get an email a week before this happens. Free apps stay intact regardless.

You can prevent this by:

• Resubscribing to Premium at any point before the 30 days run out.
• Exporting your data — most apps have an export option under Settings → Data.

When you change your mind

• If you cancelled by accident, just upgrade again from Account → Billing. Anything not yet deleted comes back instantly.
• For partial questions ("can I pause just one app?"), Support can confirm what's possible — we usually reply within a few hours.

Add-ons are extras you can buy on top of your Premium Plan when you need more of something specific — storage, SMS credits, a one-on-one consultation. This lesson covers what's available, how to buy them, and how they appear on your bill.

What kinds of add-ons there are

There are three families:

• Capacity add-ons. Extra file storage, extra bandwidth, more outgoing emails per month. Recurring monthly until you cancel.
• Credit packs. Top up your SMS balance, your transactional email allowance, or anything else that's metered. One-time purchase that drains as you use it.
• Services. Book a consultation, request a custom app tweak, or pay for white-glove onboarding. One-time charges for human work on your behalf.

Some add-ons are platform-wide (visible inside any app). Others are scoped to a specific app and only show up when you're inside that app.

How to buy one

From any add-on listing screen (either Account → Add-ons for the global ones, or inside an app's settings for the app-specific ones):

1. Click the add-on you want.
2. Confirm the price and what you get.
3. Hit Purchase — Pancho charges your wallet first if it has a balance, then your card if not.

Recurring add-ons get billed on the same day every month, separate from your main plan renewal but on the same card.

Tip: Want to stop a recurring add-on? Open Account → Add-ons → Active, click the one you want to end, and pick "Cancel". You keep it until the end of the current billing period.

Where add-ons show up on your bill

Each add-on charge shows as its own line in Account → Billing → History. You'll see:

• The add-on name.
• The date charged.
• Whether it was charged to wallet or card.
• A downloadable receipt.

This is so you can match every charge back to a specific thing you bought, even months later.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If you bought an add-on but don't see its benefit (e.g. SMS credits not adding up), refresh the app and check the credits balance in its settings. Crediting is usually instant.
• For anything that still looks off, Support can trace the charge — we usually reply within a few hours.

Every Pancho account comes with a unique referral link the moment you sign up. Share it, and every person who signs up through it and becomes a paying customer earns you a commission — for as long as they keep paying. This lesson covers how it works and how to track your earnings.

How the program works

The basics:

• One link per account. Find it under Account → Earn. The link looks like mypancho.com/r/your-handle and works on any device.
• First-touch attribution. Whoever clicks your link gets cookied for 30 days. If they sign up in that window, they're tied to you forever.
• Recurring commission. You earn a percentage of every payment your referrals make — not just their first one. As long as they stay on Pancho, you keep earning.
• Paid into your wallet. Commissions land in your Pancho wallet automatically. From there you can use them to offset your own plan or withdraw to a bank account.

Where to share your link

The most effective places:

• Word of mouth. Friends and peers who run businesses similar to yours convert best — they trust your recommendation.
• Social media. A short post with your link and one sentence on what Pancho helped you do tends to outperform long sales pitches.
• Your own customers' world. If you use a Pancho app for your business, the people who see it work might want it too.

Avoid spamming. Pancho moderates the program and accounts that bulk-message strangers will get their referrals reversed.

Tracking your earnings

Open Account → Earn for the full dashboard:

• Referred users. Everyone who signed up through your link, with their plan status.
• Commission earned. Total to date, broken down by month.
• Pending vs paid. Commissions are pending until the underlying payment clears (~7 days), then they flip to paid.
• Wallet balance. Where your paid commissions live until you spend or withdraw them.

Tip: The biggest factor in earnings is choosing the right people to share with. Five well-targeted shares beat fifty random ones.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If a referral didn't get attributed to you, the 30-day cookie may have expired or the person clicked another referrer's link more recently. There's no way to backdate attribution.
• For specific questions about commissions or payouts, Support can pull the full history — we usually reply within a few hours.

The wallet is a balance attached to your Pancho account that you can use to prepay your plan, buy add-ons without a card, or hold referral earnings. This lesson covers how to top it up, how Pancho draws from it automatically, and when you might prefer it over a card.

What the wallet is

Think of it as a Pancho-only debit balance. You put money in (via card or bank transfer), and Pancho draws from it whenever you have a charge due.

A few things to know:

• Wallet always pays first. If your wallet has any balance, Pancho uses it before falling back to your card. You don't have to pick each time.
• Top-ups are instant. Card top-ups credit immediately. Bank transfers credit when the transfer clears (typically a few minutes to a few hours).
• No expiry. Once in the wallet, balance stays there until you spend it. There are no inactivity fees.

When to use the wallet

The wallet is most useful when:

• You want to avoid card declines. Pre-pay a few months of plan into the wallet and Pancho can never fail a charge — it just draws from the balance.
• You're earning commission. Referral payouts land in the wallet automatically. You can re-spend them on Pancho or withdraw to your bank.
• You want to pre-budget Pancho costs. Drop a fixed amount in monthly and never think about it again.

Topping up

From Account → Wallet:

1. Click Top up wallet.
2. Enter the amount in your account currency.
3. Choose card (instant) or transfer (a few minutes).
4. Confirm — the balance updates as soon as the payment clears.

Withdrawing from the wallet

You can withdraw your wallet balance to a bank account, subject to a minimum (usually equivalent to a few dollars). From Account → Wallet → Withdraw, add bank details once, then withdraw any time.

Tip: Referral commissions are withdrawable; topped-up balance is not. This is to prevent Pancho being used as a money-transfer rail.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If a top-up didn't credit, give it a couple of minutes (especially for bank transfers) before raising a ticket. Most resolve themselves.
• For anything that still looks off after that, Support can trace the transaction — we usually reply within a few hours.

By default, customer-facing pages from your Pancho apps live under mypancho.com/p/.... If you'd rather they live under your own domain (tracking.yourbusiness.com, say), connecting a custom domain takes about five minutes. This lesson covers what's involved.

What a custom domain changes

Once a domain is connected and verified:

• Your public links (customer portals, tracking pages, share URLs) automatically use your domain instead of mypancho.com.
• SSL is issued and renewed for you — no manual certificate work.
• Login and admin URLs stay on mypancho.com (this is for security; auth cookies need to be scoped to the platform domain).

You can point a single domain at a single app, or use subdomains for different apps (store.yourbiz.com for one app, portal.yourbiz.com for another).

The connection process

From Account → Domains:

1. Add the domain. Type the domain (or subdomain) you own. Pancho creates the record and shows you the DNS info you need to set.
2. Update your DNS. Log into your domain registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.) and add the records Pancho gave you. Usually one CNAME or one A-record plus one TXT for verification.
3. Wait for verification. Pancho checks every minute. As soon as DNS propagates, the domain flips to Verified and SSL is issued automatically.
4. Point it at an app. Once verified, choose which app the domain serves. If the app supports multiple addressable entities (e.g. multiple sites in SiteBuilder), you can also pick the specific one.

The whole flow takes about 5 minutes of your time, plus 5–30 minutes for DNS to propagate (often much faster on Cloudflare).

Removing or changing a domain

You can disconnect a domain at any time from Account → Domains. The domain reverts to whatever it was pointing at before (or shows as parked), and your Pancho links go back to using mypancho.com automatically. No data is lost.

Tip: If you change which app a domain serves, customers using the old URL will see the new app. Communicate clearly before flipping if people rely on the link.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If verification is stuck, the most common cause is a typo in the DNS records — double-check them against what Pancho showed.
• For anything else, Support can verify the DNS state from our side — we usually reply within a few hours.

Pancho's support is built into the platform — no separate help desk to log into, no email back-and-forth. This lesson covers the channels available, what to include for the fastest reply, and how to track responses without leaving your account.

The channels available

From Support in the sidebar you'll see four ways to get in touch:

• Live Chat / Messages. Start a conversation, send a message, attach screenshots. The team replies inside the same thread, and you get a notification when there's a response.
• Email. Prefer email? Reach us at the email address shown on the support page.
• Phone. A direct number for urgent issues, available during business hours.
• Online Meeting. Hop on a live video call for screen-share, walkthroughs, or anything you'd rather show than describe.

Tips for a fast response

The right info upfront cuts our reply time in half:

• Include your account details. Your phone number or user ID is in Account → Profile. Including it means we can pull your account immediately instead of asking.
• Describe what you expected vs what happened. "I clicked X expecting Y but got Z" is much faster to debug than "it's broken".
• Mention any error messages you see on screen. Even a partial quote helps us match it to known issues.
• Attach a screenshot if there's a visual issue. The attach button is in every conversation.

Tip: For urgent issues outside business hours, leave a message in chat — we get to it first thing the next business day, before any backlog.

Tracking your conversations

Every conversation lives at Support → Messages for as long as you have an account. You can:

• Scroll back through old conversations to remind yourself of an answer.
• Reopen a closed thread if a related issue comes back.
• Search across conversations by keyword.

You'll get a browser notification (and an email if you've enabled it under Account → Profile) whenever there's a reply.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If your message doesn't seem to send, refresh and try again. The conversation is saved as a draft locally until it's submitted.
• For the rare case where the support form itself is broken, fall back to the email or phone option listed on the support page.

Your profile is where you keep your display name, phone number, PIN, and a few preferences that affect every app on your account. This lesson walks through what's in there and which fields you might actually want to change.

What's on the profile screen

Open Account → Profile to find:

• Display name. What other people see when they interact with you on Pancho — staff invites, ticket replies, etc.
• Phone number. The one you use to log in. Changing it is a careful flow that requires verifying the new number first.
• PIN. Your 4-digit login code. Change it any time; the change takes effect immediately.
• Email (optional). Used for notifications and receipts. Adding it isn't required but is recommended.
• Theme. Light, dark, or auto (follows your system).
• Business info. Name, address, tax ID. Shows up on receipts and customer-facing pages.

Changing your phone number

The phone field has a multi-step change flow:

1. Click Change phone.
2. Enter the new number with country code.
3. Verify it with the OTP we send.
4. Confirm the swap with your current PIN.

After confirmation, the old number stops working for login. Make sure you can receive SMS on the new number before starting the flow.

Heads up: Currency is set at signup based on your country code and cannot be changed here. If you signed up with the wrong country, you'd need to start over with a fresh account. Talk to Support before doing this if you have data you care about.

Resetting your PIN

If you've forgotten your PIN, you can reset it from the login screen — we text a one-time code to your registered phone, and you set a new PIN with it. If you're already logged in, change it directly from Profile (much simpler).

Switching theme

Light / dark / auto is per-device — the choice you make on your laptop doesn't follow you to your phone. This is so you can keep one device in dark mode for the evening and another in light mode at the desk.

When something doesn't behave the way you expect

• If a save isn't taking, look for a small error message next to the field — usually it's a validation issue (e.g. PIN too obvious).
• For anything else, Support is one click away in the sidebar.