Your messages inbox is the single best place to keep fans coming back. The inbox supports four kinds of messages — free text, paid (PPV) messages with media, voice notes, and broadcasts to your whole fan list — plus a Customer info ⓘ panel that shows you who you’re talking to. This page covers how to use each one well, the etiquette that keeps fans subscribed, and the inbox controls that let you scale up without burning out.
This guide is for creators using the messages inbox effectively. For the technical “how do I send a paid message” walkthrough, see Sending paid messages — PPV media, broadcasts, voice notes, and per-thread pricing. For where notifications go, see Email notification settings (creator).
1. Where to find your inbox
Two URLs, same content:
- /store-manager/messages/ — the inbox view inside your storefront dashboard. Best when you’re already in your storefront managing clips, stream, etc.
- /store-manager/chat/ — the same inbox under your account. Useful when you’re switching between fan-side things (purchases, subscriptions) and replying to messages.
Both URLs render the same threads, the same controls, the same notifications. Bookmark whichever one you use most.
2. The four kinds of messages you can send
Free text — your default
Type, press Enter or tap Send. Free messages are read on receipt and don’t cost the fan anything. Use them for: thank-yous after a tip, follow-ups on a private show, casual chat, scheduling a custom video, answering questions.
Paid messages (PPV)
To send a paid message: tick the Paid message checkbox on the composer, fill in the price field (placeholder reads “Enter amount in EUR”), then attach the media (clip, photo set, voice note) and press Send. The fan sees a locked preview with the price; they can unlock it from their wallet balance with one click.
What works well as a paid message:
- Exclusive clips that aren’t on your storefront — short ones (10–60s) priced at the impulse-buy point.
- Photo sets tied to a real moment (just-finished show, today’s outfit, a request from a fan).
- Personalised voice notes — record a short message addressed to the fan by name, charge a small fee.
- Custom-video previews — send a short watermarked clip as a paid message; full clip delivered after the order.
What does NOT work well:
- Locking content the fan has already seen on your storefront.
- Pricing too high relative to your subscription — if a paid message costs more than a month of subs, fans will subscribe instead.
- Sending paid messages with no preview text — fans need a reason to unlock.
Voice notes
The composer has a Record voice message button. Tap it, allow microphone access (the prompt reads “Microphone access was blocked. Please allow microphone access and try again.” if you don’t), record up to a few minutes, then press Stop recording. You get options to Re-record or Discard voice message before sending.
Voice notes work well because they feel personal in a way text can’t match. Try them for:
- A welcome message to new subscribers (record once, send to each new sub).
- “Thank you” after a substantial tip or a private show.
- Personalised paid messages — your voice saying the fan’s name commands a higher price than a generic clip.
Broadcasts
Broadcasts go to your whole fan list (or a filtered slice — subscribers, recent buyers, etc.) at once. Open the Broadcast workspace from your inbox, write the message (free or paid), pick the audience filter, and choose to send now or schedule.
If you schedule, the date/time fields let you set when it fires. After scheduling, the broadcast lands at your scheduled moment. You’ll see a confirmation banner when it sends.
Notice codes you may see in the broadcast UI:
- broadcast_draft_saved — your draft is saved; nothing has been sent yet.
- broadcast_scheduled — the broadcast is queued for the date/time you picked.
- broadcast_sent — the broadcast has been delivered to all recipients.
- broadcast_partial — some recipients didn’t receive it (usually because they unsubscribed/blocked you between the scheduling and the send).
Broadcast etiquette: send one a week at most for free broadcasts; one paid broadcast a month is plenty if it’s a real exclusive. Spamming kills the inbox tab.
3. The Customer info ⓘ panel — know who you’re talking to
Each thread header has an ⓘ button next to the cog. Tap it and a panel slides in showing what you actually need to know about the fan, without making you open another tab:
- Subscriber — yes/no, and how long they’ve been subscribed (e.g. “for 4 weeks” / “for 1 month”).
- Renewal status — auto-renew on, manual renewal, or cancelling — with the next renewal date.
- Total spent — lifetime €-amount they’ve spent on your storefront.
- Clips purchased — how many clips, and the date of their last clip purchase.
- Tips — count + total amount tipped to you across all surfaces.
This panel is the single biggest difference between sending a generic message and sending one that converts. Examples:
- Subscriber for 6 months who’s never bought a clip: they like the subscriber feed; try a paid message with a 60-second exclusive priced at the impulse point.
- Bought 12 clips, never tipped: they’re a content buyer, not a tipper. Don’t waste a tip-pitch on them — pitch a custom video.
- Tipped €40 in the last week, no subscription: high-engagement non-sub. Mention the subscriber-only feed in your reply.
- Cancelling subscription: their renewal date tells you when their access ends. A “we’ll miss you” message with a small win-back offer can pull them back before that date.
4. Mute, block, and the cog menu
Each thread header has a cog (⚙) menu with these controls:
- Mute this chat — toggle. When muted, the chat stops generating unread badges and bell pings for you. Messages still arrive in the thread; you just don’t get nudged. Useful for low-priority ongoing chats. (The label shows Muted when on, Mute when off.)
- Block in this chat — opens a confirmation modal: “Block this chat? They will not be able to send you new messages until you unblock.” Click Block to confirm. The fan can still see past messages but cannot send new ones. Use sparingly — blocking is for genuinely abusive behaviour, not for “this fan is annoying me right now.” Mute first, escalate to block only if you have to.
Both controls are per-thread, not platform-wide. Unblocking restores normal messaging.
5. Reading system-event bubbles in your inbox
You may see bubbles in your threads that aren’t from the fan or from you — they’re system events, posted by the platform. The most common ones:
- Live-stream notifications — when a fan you’ve messaged turns on go-live notifications and you start a stream, the platform drops a system note in their thread with a “Open livestream” button. You’ll see this from your side as a regular bubble in the thread, marked as a system event.
- Feed-post broadcasts — when you publish a new feed post, a system bubble lands in the threads of fans who have follow-notifications on. The bubble shows the post’s thumbnail + title + a “View post” button.
- Support-team notes (gold) — if Lewdden support sends an in-app note to a fan in one of your shared threads (rare), the sender label is gold and reads Support. These are informational only — the support team doesn’t read your private messages.
System bubbles don’t have the kebab/Report menu — they’re transactional, not conversational.
6. Response-time tactics — you do not need to be 24/7
Fans don’t expect instant replies. They DO expect that you reply at all. Two patterns that work:
- Batch replies twice a day. Once mid-morning, once evening. 30 minutes total. Every message gets answered within ~12 hours.
- Pin “studio time” on your storefront. Mention in your bio when you typically reply (“I check messages around 11 and 19 CET”). Fans calibrate to that and stop refreshing every 10 minutes.
What kills retention is silence — a fan who tipped and got no acknowledgment within 24 hours is a fan who’s already drifted. A 30-second free reply (“Hey, thanks for the tip — that was a generous one. Anything you want to see in tomorrow’s show?”) is enough.
7. Using paid messages without burning the relationship
The most successful paid-message creators follow two rules:
- Paid messages are extras, not the main course. Free chat → free voice note → an occasional paid clip. If every reply is paywalled, fans stop opening the thread.
- The paid message has to feel exclusive. Same content as the storefront = no unlocks. Filmed-just-now, addressed-to-them, or a perspective the storefront doesn’t have = good unlock rate.
Pricing for paid messages: experiment. Start at the lowest tier (a euro or two for a short clip / voice note), see what converts, raise from there. The Customer info panel tells you who can afford a higher price (lifetime spend, subscription length).
8. Broadcasts — tone and frequency
Three broadcast patterns that work:
- “Going live in 30 minutes” reminder. Sent ~30 minutes before a scheduled show. Free, short, with the room link. Use the broadcast scheduler to fire it automatically.
- Sunday recap. Once a week, a summary of new clips + upcoming shows. Free, scannable. Goes to your whole fan list.
- Limited drop. Once a month, a paid broadcast with a real exclusive (a clip not on the storefront, available for 48h). Filter the broadcast to subscribers + recent buyers — the people most likely to unlock.
What flops: daily broadcasts, generic “tip me!” broadcasts, paid broadcasts that re-package storefront content. Fans treat those as spam and stop opening anything you send.
9. Compose-area features you might miss
- Attachments: the paperclip lets you attach clips, photo sets, or voice notes. The same media types work for both free and paid messages — adding the price is what makes it PPV.
- Per-thread pricing: you can set a default price for paid messages in this thread so you don’t have to retype it each send. Useful for big spenders.
- Voice-note states: Record voice message → Stop recording → Re-record / Discard voice message → Send. You can preview your own voice note before sending.
- Keyboard shortcut: Enter sends the message. Shift+Enter inserts a line break.
10. Troubleshooting
- Microphone access was blocked. The voice-note button shows “Microphone access was blocked. Please allow microphone access and try again.” Fix the permission in your browser settings (camera/mic icon in the address bar, or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone), then refresh.
- A paid message I sent isn’t unlocking for the fan. Their wallet balance is below the price. They’ll see a top-up prompt next to the lock; once they top up, the message unlocks automatically.
- I sent a broadcast but only some fans received it. The notice will read broadcast_partial. The most common cause is that some fans unsubscribed or blocked you between the scheduling and the send.
- The Customer info panel shows €0 spent for a long-time subscriber. Subscription itself counts as spend; if it shows €0, refresh the panel and check that you’re looking at the right fan (the panel always reflects the currently-open thread).
- I muted a chat but I’m still getting notification emails. Mute affects unread badges and the bell, not email. To stop the emails, turn off New direct message in Email preferences (account-wide), or set up a filter in your email client to drop messages from that fan into a folder.
11. FAQ
Q: Can I see when a fan reads my message?
No — there’s no read-receipt. The fan sees nothing about whether you read theirs either. Both sides have privacy on read state.
Q: Can I undo / unsend a message I just sent?
You can delete a message from the thread, which removes it from your view AND the fan’s view. This works on both free and paid messages, but for paid messages that have already been unlocked, the fan keeps any media they’ve already viewed/downloaded.
Q: Are voice notes downloadable by the fan?
Free voice notes play in the thread but aren’t a separate downloadable file. Paid voice-note attachments behave like other paid media — playable in-thread, no direct download link by default.
Q: Can I see all messages I’ve sent across my entire inbox?
The inbox shows threads, not a flat message log. To find a specific message, open the thread you remember sending it from. There’s no global search across all your messages today.
Q: A fan asked me to send them my personal contact / phone number / Telegram. Should I?
No. Off-platform contact takes the relationship out of the platform’s safety + payment flow. Stay on Lewdden — you keep payment protection, blocking, and a record of the conversation. If it’s a custom-video coordination thing, do it via paid messages and the Custom Orders flow.
Q: I’m getting a lot of “tip me” messages from the same fan. Is there anything I can do?
Set a polite boundary in one reply (“I do tip-show requests during my Friday streams — see you there”). If they keep pushing after that, mute the thread. If it crosses into harassment, block.
See also: Sending paid messages · Messaging a creator (fan-side context) · Email notification settings (creator) · Auto-templates for new-clip broadcasts · Adding creator friends (for the creator-to-creator friend list and what it unlocks).
