Setup guide

Vixie setup guide: from sign-up to your first photo magnet sale.

No tech skills required. This setup guide walks new Vixie vendors from creating an account to selling photo magnets at their first market — usually in about 30 minutes. If you can take a photo on your phone, you can run a Vixie booth.

Last updated April 2026 · Questions? Email support@vixie.app

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Before you start

What you'll need

  • A laptop or tablet for setup — about 30 minutes of focus, but you don't have to do it all at once
  • A way to get paid online — a Stripe, PayPal, or Square account (all free to create)
  • A photo or logo for your brand (optional, you can add it later)

Selling in person? You don't need a card reader. Vixie generates a QR code customers scan with their own phone — they pay you, you print.

The 6 steps

From empty dashboard to live booth.

Vixie vendor dashboard showing live event banner, revenue and order metrics, and the order pipeline
Your dashboard once an event is running — live revenue, order pipeline, and quick actions.
  1. 1

    Step 1 — Create your account

    2 minutes

    Sign up with your email at app.vixie.app and pick a password you'll remember. Vixie creates your storefront URL automatically — something like yourname.vixie.app. You can rename it in the next step.

    You'll land on your dashboard with a setup checklist on the right.

  2. 2

    Step 2 — Make it yours

    5 minutes

    Open Your Account in the setup checklist. Set your business name and currency, and tweak your storefront URL if you want something shorter (6–40 characters, lowercase). Upload a logo if you have one — if not, skip it and add it any time.

    Your store URL now shows your business name at the top of the dashboard.

  3. 3

    Step 3 — Connect a way to get paid

    5 minutes

    Open Payment Connection in the checklist. Pick Stripe (recommended), PayPal, or Square and click Connect. They'll send you to their site to log in or sign up. Don't have a Stripe account yet? Creating one is free and takes about 5 minutes — have your bank details and a photo of your ID handy.

    A green "Connected" badge appears, and the "can't accept online payments" warning disappears from your dashboard.

  4. 4

    Step 4 — Set up your first product

    5 minutes

    Open Products in the checklist. We've already created a default photo magnet to get you started — click it to edit, or hit New product to add another. Choose a magnet type (Custom Photo, Photo Puzzle, or Tic-Tac-Toe), pick the sizes you'll print, and set your pack prices. For example: 1 magnet for $8.99, or an 8-pack for $49.99. Save and toggle the product to Active.

    The product appears under "Active products" on your dashboard.

  5. 5

    Step 5 — Add your branding

    3 minutes — optional

    Open Branding. Add the small text that prints along the seams of every magnet — usually your business name on the bottom and a hashtag or website on top. This shows up on every magnet you sell, so customers remember where they got it.

    The preview on the right updates as you type.

  6. 6

    Step 6 — Launch your first event

    5 minutes

    From the dashboard, click New event. Name it (e.g. "Saturday Farmers Market — May 4"), pick which products you're selling, and choose how customers pay: at the booth only, self-pay online, or both. Hit Start event. Vixie generates a QR code and a short URL like vixie.app/e/X5K7Z9 — print the QR, tape it to your booth, or display it on a tablet. Customers scan, upload their photos, pay, and you print.

    Orders appear live on your dashboard as customers check out.

Printing your magnets

Get your prints lining up perfectly.

This is the step most new vendors get stuck on. Different machines cut at slightly different measurements — a "2.5-inch" machine might cut at 2.503" or 2.612". So the first few sheets usually need a small nudge in Edit Measurements to match what your machine actually cuts at. Once you dial it in, Vixie saves the settings — you won't touch them again. Want the deep dive on every field? Read the full size measurements guide.

Vixie Print Studio with the Edit Measurements panel open, showing Photo Size, Edge Width, Text Offset, and Cut Offset fields next to a sheet of arranged photo magnets
Print Studio with Edit Measurements open — the four values you'll tweak per magnet size.

Dial it in in 5 small steps

Print one test sheet, compare it to your press or cutter, then nudge the four values until everything lines up. Most vendors get there in 2–3 test sheets.

  1. 1

    Open Print Studio and pick your magnet size

    Open Print Studio and select the size you're dialling in (e.g. 2.5" × 2.5"). Dial in one size at a time — settings save per size.
  2. 2

    Click "Edit Measurements" and print one test sheet

    Don't change anything yet. Print a single sheet at actual size with a few photos loaded so you have something to measure against.
  3. 3

    Hold the sheet up to your press or cutter

    Now you can see what's off. Match what you see to the right value:
    • Photo too big or too small? Adjust Photo Size. Move in 0.05" steps — increase to enlarge, decrease to shrink.
    • Border around the photo too thick or too thin? Adjust Edge Width. Same 0.05" steps.
    • Seam text not sitting where it should? Adjust Text Offset. Negative values nudge inward, positive values nudge outward.
    • Photo wrap doesn't fold cleanly around the magnet edges? Adjust Cut Offset. This is the one most vendors actually tweak. It controls the diagonal corner cuts that let the photo wrap flush around the edges, instead of bunching or leaving a gap.
    • Puzzle pieces don't sit flush when assembled? Adjust Puzzle Bleed on a puzzle product. + tightens the gap between magnets, − opens it up. Save when the seams look right.
  4. 4

    Save, print another sheet, repeat

    Most vendors are dialed in after two or three sheets. Make small changes — large jumps overshoot and you'll be chasing the values back.
  5. 5

    You're done

    Vixie remembers these values for every future print at this size, on every event, on every order. Repeat the process for any other magnet sizes you sell.

Tip: Dial in each magnet size separately. A 2"×2" that prints perfectly doesn't guarantee your 2.5"×3.5" will.

Full size measurements guide — every field, every symptom, every fix

After your first sale

Once orders start coming in.

Live Vixie event page with a customer QR code, an order queue showing customer photos and statuses (Picked Up, Ready, Printing, Confirmed, Pressing), and revenue and queue counters
A live event page — the QR customers scan, every paid order with photos, and the status pipeline.

When a customer pays, two things happen automatically: the order shows up on your dashboard with their photos, and the magnets land in your Print Queue ready to be printed in a batch.

Track every order

Each order moves through Pending → Confirmed → Printing → Pressing → Ready → Picked Up. Tap the status to update it.

See the customer's photos

Open any order to see what they uploaded and how they laid it out — no guesswork on which photo goes where.

End the event

Sales close, the QR stops accepting new orders, and you get a summary of total revenue for the day.

Printing the orders that come in (the Print Queue)

The Print Queue is its own page in Vixie. You don't print orders one at a time — open the queue, hit Print, and Vixie generates a print-ready sheet from every paid order waiting.

  1. 1

    Customers pay → orders land in your Print Queue

    Every paid magnet shows up in the queue automatically — no exporting, no re-uploading. The badge in your top navigation shows the count of magnets waiting to print.

  2. 2

    Open the Print Queue

    Filter to a specific event or leave it global to print across events. Reorder, remove, or push an order to the top if a customer is waiting at the booth.

  3. 3

    Hit Print

    Vixie generates a print-ready sheet from the queued orders — photos cropped, sized, and packed onto your paper. Send it straight to your printer. The magnets flip from "queued" to "printed" and the orders advance to Pressing automatically.

  4. 4

    Open in Print Studio if you want to edit first (optional)

    For most batches you don't need Studio at all — the queue's Print button is the fastest path. Open Studio only when you want to tweak a crop, swap a photo, or adjust the layout before printing.

If a sheet jams or prints wrong: open the Prints page, find the batch, and re-print it. Vixie re-renders the same magnets onto a fresh sheet — you don't have to chase the orders back through the queue.

Tips from the field

Small habits that save Saturday mornings.

Test the flow on your own phone first

Scan your QR, place a $1 test order, refund it. You'll catch any setup gaps before customers do.

Print two QR codes

One taped to the booth, one on a small standing sign. People miss the first one.

Charge for the pack, not the magnet

"8 magnets for $40" sells better than "$5 each." Same price, very different conversion.

Have a backup hotspot

Markets have flaky Wi-Fi. A phone hotspot keeps you taking orders when the venue's connection drops.

Questions

Getting Started FAQ

Do I need a card reader?+
No. Customers pay through the QR code on their own phone, so all you need is internet for your printer and laptop.
What printer do I need?+
Any inkjet or sublimation printer that can handle the paper size you've picked. Most vendors use a standard 4×6 or 8.5×11 sublimation setup. Canon, Epson, and DNP are common choices in the Vixie community.
My prints come out the wrong size — what's wrong?+
Usually one of two things: your printer is set to "fit to page" instead of 100% scale, or borderless printing is off. Fix those first. If they're correct, dial in Edit Measurements in Print Studio — different machines cut at slightly different measurements, and Edit Measurements tells Vixie yours. The full magnet size measurements guide walks through every field with annotated screenshots.
When does an order show up in the Print Queue?+
As soon as the customer pays. For POS-only events where you collect payment at the booth, the order appears in the queue once you mark it paid in the dashboard.
Can I print orders from multiple events on the same sheet?+
Yes. In the Print Queue, switch the scope from a specific event to "Global queue" — Vixie will pack magnets from every event into the same sheet. Useful when you want to print end-of-day across multiple markets.
Can I sell at multiple markets?+
Yes. Each event gets its own QR code, so you can run a Saturday market and a Sunday wedding without mixing up orders.
What if I mess up the setup?+
Nothing is permanent. Products, prices, branding, and event details can all be edited any time — even mid-event.
How do I get paid?+
Stripe, PayPal, or Square pays you directly on their normal schedule (usually 2–3 business days). Vixie never holds your money.
Can my staff use this without their own account?+
Yes. They use the same dashboard on a shared device at the booth. Vendor accounts can have multiple devices logged in at once.
Where can I get help?+
Email support@vixie.app or open the chat from your dashboard. We typically reply within a few hours during the day.

Keep going

Related reads.

Size measurements · 10 min

Magnet size measurements

Annotated walkthrough of every Edit Measurements field, plus a diagnostic table for the test sheet.

Read more →Event-day · 7 steps

Running a Vixie event

From Start event to last pickup — the order pipeline, batch printing, and walk-ups.

Read more →Free tool

Free Print Studio

Drag-and-drop sheet layout for mixed-size and puzzle magnets — free in your browser.

Read more →

Ready to set up your booth?

About 30 minutes start to finish. You don't need to finish in one sitting — your progress is saved.

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