Deployment Guide

Vercel, Railway, and VPS with Nginx and SSL

Dev Only

Recommended Production Stack

Service	Provider	Why
Frontend (Next.js)	Vercel	Zero-config Next.js hosting. Auto SSL. Deploy on git push.
Backend (Node.js API)	Railway or Render	One-click Node.js deploy. Easy environment variables.
PostgreSQL	Neon or Supabase	Serverless Postgres. Generous free tier. Auto-backups.
Redis	Upstash	Serverless Redis. Pay-per-request. Free tier available.
Images	Cloudinary	Already configured in the app. No change needed.
DNS & SSL	Cloudflare	Free SSL certificates. DDoS protection. Easy DNS.

Option A — Deploy Frontend to Vercel

The easiest approach for the Next.js frontend.

Create a Vercel account

Go to vercel.com and log in (or create an account).

Import your repository

Click Add New Project and import your saas-pos-frontend repository from GitHub.

Deploy

Vercel auto-detects Next.js. Click Deploy — it builds and deploys automatically.

Set environment variables

After deployment, go to Settings › Environment Variables and add all variables from your .env.local file (including the four Cloudinary values). Set NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL to your production backend URL — keep the /api/v1 suffix, e.g. https://api.yourdomain.com/api/v1.

Redeploy

Click Redeploy to apply the environment changes. Your frontend is live at your-project.vercel.app (or your custom domain).

Option B — Deploy Backend to Railway

Create a Railway account

Go to railway.app and create an account.

Deploy from GitHub

Click New Project › Deploy from GitHub repo and select saas-pos-backend.

Configure variables

In the Variables tab, add every key from your .env file.

Set networking

In Settings › Networking, add a custom domain or use the auto-generated railway.app URL.

Set build commands

Set the build and start commands:

Option C — Deploy to a VPS

For full control — deploy to an Ubuntu VPS with Nginx and PM2.

1 — Initial Server Setup

2 — Clone, Configure, and Start

3 — Nginx Reverse Proxy

4 — Free SSL with Certbot

Production .env Checklist

Variable	Production Notes
`NODE_ENV` Required	Must be exactly: production
`DATABASE_URL` Required	Use production Neon/Supabase URL with ?sslmode=require
`REDIS_URL` Required	Use Upstash production URL — starts with rediss://
`JWT_ACCESS_SECRET` Required	Generate a fresh 64-char secret. Never reuse the dev value.
`JWT_REFRESH_SECRET` Required	Generate another fresh 64-char secret. Must differ from access secret.
`CORS_ORIGINS` Required	Your real frontend origin: https://pos.yourdomain.com (comma-separate multiple origins)
`PORT` Required	The port your platform expects the server to bind (Railway/Render inject this automatically).
`SETUP_ACCESS_CODE` Required	Strong random string — required before the first-run setup wizard can create the first business.
`MASTER_ENCRYPTION_KEY`	Set a fresh 64-char hex value in production — encrypts stored third-party credentials.
`CLOUDINARY_*`	Cloudinary credentials live in the FRONTEND environment (.env.local / Vercel project settings), not the backend.

Warning

Never reuse development JWT secrets in production. Regenerate them with the crypto command from the Backend Configuration section.