What's New in v3.5
Everything added in version 3.5
Version 3.5 focuses on two things: more ways to get paid, and the product around the study app so you can launch a complete business without writing new features yourself.
Two New Payment Gateways
Notebook Studio now ships with six gateways instead of four:
| Gateway | Type | Recurring setup |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe | Card / wallets | Checkout price created dynamically |
| PayPal | Wallet | Billing plan created per subscription |
| Razorpay | Cards / UPI / netbanking | Subscription plan created per subscription |
| Flutterwave | Cards / mobile money | Payment plan created per subscription |
| Dodo Payments | Merchant of record | Recurring product and price created through the API |
| Paddle | Merchant of record | Subscription price created through the API |
Dodo and Paddle are merchant-of-record providers, which means they handle sales tax and VAT for you. Neither one needs catalog IDs pasted into the admin panel: the recurring product or price is created through the gateway API the first time a student checks out.
Each gateway is enabled automatically once its keys are present. If a key is missing, the upgrade dialog hides that gateway (or shows a friendly "not set up" message) instead of failing.
Local keys
Test every gateway with sandbox credentials
Production keys
Live keys and webhook endpoints
Custom server
Live credentials on your own VPS
Built-in Blog
A complete blog, managed from the admin panel:
- Block editor - headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, dividers, and inline images.
- Drafts and publish - drafts stay hidden until you publish them.
- Cover images, tags, excerpts, and read time - all editable per post.
- Public pages -
/bloglists published posts and/blog/<slug>renders each article with the site header and footer. - Homepage section - the "Latest from the blog" block on the landing page.
- RSS feed - available at
/feed.xmlfor readers and newsletters. - Sample posts - click Import sample posts on the admin Blog page to seed six ready-to-edit articles.
See Blog and Announcements for the workflow.
Onboarding Wizard
New students see a short, five-step setup wizard after signing up:
- What they want out of Notebook Studio (pass subjects, exam prep, self-study, teaching)
- What they are mainly studying
- Their study level
- How they learn best (visual, recall, reading, listening, hands-on)
- How often they will study
The dashboard stays gated until onboarding is completed or explicitly skipped, so you capture intent from every new account without blocking anyone who wants to explore first.
Admin Dashboard Upgrade
The admin panel is now a full operations console:
- Dashboard and Analytics - charts for activity, the AI generation mix (audio overviews, tables, mind maps, reports, flashcards, quizzes), users by plan, and library content.
- Users - search the list, change a user's plan directly, and delete accounts.
- Manage Emails - edit the subject and body of transactional emails such as verification and password reset, with a live preview.
- Blog - create, edit, publish, and delete posts.
- Announcements - publish a dismissible banner across your students' dashboard, with an optional schedule window.
- Payments and Ledger - revenue summary plus an audit log of payments, cancellations, resumes, and admin plan changes.
- Billing Config - plan names, prices, feature tiers, and gateway availability.
See Admin Dashboard.
Workspace and UI Polish
- Themed, animated tabs across the admin panel (Emails, Payments and Ledger).
- Smoother page and panel animations, plus a fully responsive admin experience.
- The marketing header now links to the blog, and the footer lists it too.
Upgrading an Existing Install
Push the new backend
npx convex deployThis adds the blogPosts, onboardingProfiles, and billingLedger tables
plus the new functions.
Add the new environment variables
Add the Dodo and Paddle keys to your host and to the Convex dashboard. See Environment Variables for production values and the custom server guide if you self-host.
Rebuild and deploy
pnpm buildNEXT_PUBLIC_* values are inlined at build time, so a rebuild is required
after changing them.
Seed your content
Open the admin panel and click Import sample posts on the Blog page to start from six written articles, then publish an announcement to greet your users.
Nothing was removed in version 3.5. Existing plans, users, notebooks, and sources keep working after the upgrade.