The editor
A bidirectional composer, not a text box with a direction flag. Caret, selection, shaping, mixed Latin and Arabic runs, and per-block direction — all handled as layout, not as a preference.
Arabic · Persian · Urdu · Hebrew · English
Issue 01 — Paid publishing, built elsewhere
Write in your language.
Get paid in your currency.
Minbarly is a paid newsletter and member community platform with an editor that sets Arabic, Persian and Urdu properly, email that arrives right-to-left intact, and payment rails chosen for the markets its writers actually live in.
Minbarly has not launched. We are assembling a founding cohort of writers now — the fastest way in is to tell us what you publish and where you need to be paid.
Specimen 01 Naskh + Didone
منبر
Minbarly
7%
of paid subscription revenue, plus payment processing. That is the whole business model.
$0
monthly platform fee, on every plan. Free newsletters stay free, with no subscriber cap.
1 click
to export your full subscriber list — emails, tiers, payment status. No penalty, no ticket.
02 — The problem
They can’t pay you, can’t charge your readers, and can’t set your language.
A writer in Amman, Lagos or Karachi who decides to charge for their work runs into three walls in the same afternoon. None of them are interesting problems. All of them are somebody’s decision not to bother.
The payout screen asks for a country, and the country isn’t on the list. The reader’s card is declined because the processor never enabled the market. And the editor — the part that is supposed to be the easy bit — puts the cursor on the wrong side of the line, breaks a word into unjoined letters, and drops the comma at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning.
So the writer does the rational thing. They publish free, on a platform they don’t own, to an audience they can’t export, and they rebuild that audience from nothing every time a recommendation algorithm is retuned. The work is good. The distribution is rented.
Both of the failures underneath this are unglamorous engineering: bidirectional text layout, and payment integrations in markets with modest average revenue per user. Neither is hard. Neither is fashionable. Nobody with an established platform has been sufficiently annoyed to do them.
“Right-to-left support” that means a checkbox in settings is not support. It is an apology.
Minbarly — design principles, note 3What actually goes wrong
- Cursor and selection drift. You type at the right margin, the caret reports itself at the left, and a backspace deletes a letter three words away.
- Letters stop joining. Paste a phrase, and a cursive script renders as isolated forms — legible in the way a ransom note is legible.
- Punctuation lands on the wrong side. The full stop, the question mark and the parentheses all end up mirrored, because the text is being laid out as if it ran the other way.
- Numbers and Latin terms escape. A product name or a figure inside a right-to-left sentence jumps position because nothing isolated the run.
- The email undoes the editor. It looks correct in the composer, then arrives left-aligned in a mail client that stripped the direction attribute.
- Then the payout fails anyway. Even a writer who tolerates all of the above discovers their country isn’t supported at the last step.
03 — The build
One place, built the other way round.
Publishing, paid subscriptions and a member discussion space, sitting on three pieces of plumbing that were designed for these writers first rather than retrofitted for them last.
The email
Every issue is rendered against the mail clients your readers actually open, then shipped with the direction and alignment baked into the markup so no client can quietly strip it out.
Rendered, not hoped for
The money
Local cards, wallets and bank transfer on the reader side. Payouts into accounts in countries the incumbents skipped. One rate, published, with the processing fee shown separately rather than hidden inside it.
7% platform share
04 — The editor
A composer that knows which way the line runs.
Direction is set per block, so a post can carry an Arabic body, an English pull quote and a code snippet without any of them fighting each other. Numerals, punctuation and Latin terms sit where a reader of that language expects them.
minbarly.com/studio/drafts/on-language-and-tools
Autosaved
مسودة · رسالة الأسبوع
عن اللغة والأدوات
في كل أسبوع أكتب رسالة قصيرة عن اللغة والتقنية. هذه الرسالة للمشتركين فقط.
نستخدم بروتوكول SMTP لإرسال الرسائل، ونختبر النتيجة في كل برنامج بريد.
الحروف تتصل كما ينبغي.
شكرًا لدعمكم
Post settings
Audience Paid
Direction RTL (auto)
Language Arabic
Discussion Open
Send to
Paid members 1,284
Free list 6,910
Est. send time 4 min
Render check
Shaping Pass
Bidi isolation Pass
Client matrix 9 / 9
Illustrative interface. The sample post and its author are invented for this page — Minbarly has no customers yet. Subscriber counts shown are placeholder figures inside a mockup, not reported results.
Mixed runs, isolated properly
A Latin product name or a figure inside an Arabic sentence is wrapped as its own isolated run, so it keeps its own internal direction without dragging the surrounding punctuation with it. The sentence above contains SMTP in the middle of a right-to-left line and the comma still lands where it should.
Unicode bidirectional algorithm, isolation by default
Member discussion — 4 replies
Paid only
للمشتركين فقط · ٤ ردود
سامي
نقطة مهمة، شكرًا لك.
ليلى النجار · الكاتبة
شكرًا على الملاحظة. سأكتب عنها الأسبوع القادم.
05 — The email
It has to survive the inbox, not just the preview.
Most right-to-left email breaks between the composer and the client. Direction attributes are stripped, alignment is inherited from a wrapper table, and a beautifully set issue arrives ragged-left with the numerals inverted. We treat the render matrix as a build step.
Inbox preview
ليلى النجار · layla@example.minbarly.com
رسالة الأسبوع: عن اللغة والأدوات
العدد ١٢ · ١٢ مارس
عن اللغة والأدوات
في كل أسبوع أكتب رسالة قصيرة عن اللغة والتقنية. هذه الرسالة للمشتركين فقط.
الحروف تتصل كما ينبغي، والأرقام في مكانها الصحيح.
أنت مشترك في رسالة ليلى. يمكنك إلغاء الاشتراك في أي وقت.
Sample issue, written for this page. The author is fictional.
What the render check covers
- Direction survives. Alignment and direction are set on the elements themselves and on the wrapper table, so a client that drops one still has the other.
- Fonts degrade sanely. If the webfont is blocked, the fallback stack is a real Naskh face on that platform — not a Latin face guessing at Arabic.
- Numerals stay chosen. Whether an issue uses Arabic-Indic or Western digits is your decision, and it is preserved end to end.
- Buttons and footers mirror. Call-to-action blocks, unsubscribe lines and address footers flip with the text rather than staying pinned to the left.
- Plain-text part matches. The text alternative carries the same content in the same order, for clients and screen readers that never see the HTML.
Clients in the target matrix
Gmail web
Gmail Android
Gmail iOS
Apple Mail
Outlook web
Outlook desktop
Yahoo Mail
Samsung Mail
Thunderbird
The matrix we build and test against, and the list we intend to publish results for at launch. Not a claim of certification by any of these vendors.
06 — The type
Two scripts, one page, both set properly.
Arabic is not Latin with the alignment reversed. It has its own optical size, its own line height, its own numerals and its own punctuation. Minbarly ships with type defaults that respect that, and lets you override every one of them.
Display · NaskhNoto Naskh Arabic 400
منبر
Display · SerifPlayfair Display 400
Minbarly
Body · Right to leftLine height 2.0
اكتب بلغتك، واحصل على أجرك بعملتك.
الحروف تتصل كما ينبغي.
Body · Left to rightLine height 1.5
Write in your language. Get paid in your currency.
The letters join as they should.
Numerals & punctuationTabular
١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠
1234567890
، ؛ ؟ ٪ «»
Arabic-Indic and Western digits are both available, per publication and per issue. The comma, semicolon, question mark and percent sign each have their own right-to-left forms.
Scripts at launchFive
- العربيةArabic · RTL
- فارسیPersian · RTL
- اردوUrdu · RTL
- עבריתHebrew · RTL
- EnglishLatin · LTR
Interface localisation follows script support, and every one of these can be mixed inside a single post without the surrounding text losing its direction.
07 — What you get
Seven things, all of them the point.
No feature grid padding. Each of these exists because a writer somewhere could not do their job without it, and every one is on every plan — including the free one.
01Bidirectional editor
Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hebrew and English, with per-block direction, correct caret behaviour and proper shaping. Mixed runs are isolated automatically.
02Email that stays right-to-left
Issues are rendered against a client matrix before they send. Alignment, numerals, buttons and footers all mirror correctly in real inboxes, not just in preview.
03Local payment on the reader side
Cards issued locally, mobile wallets, mobile money and bank transfer — so a reader in your city can subscribe with the instrument they already carry.
04Payouts where you actually bank
Payouts into accounts in countries the large platforms decline to serve, in local currency where we can, with a statement that reconciles line by line.
05Member discussion, tied to the post
A threaded space attached to each piece, open to whichever tier you choose. Moderation tools that work in right-to-left text, because obviously they should.
06Full subscriber export
Every address, tier, join date and payment status, exported whenever you want it. No lock-in, no notice period, no reduced-functionality punishment for leaving.
07Custom domain from day one
Your own domain on every plan, free included, with certificates handled for you. Your archive lives at your address, so the audience is yours to keep.
Something missing?
We are still deciding what the second year looks like. If there is a piece of this you need and cannot find anywhere, that is exactly the note we want.
08 — How it works
Four steps, and we do the tedious one with you.
1
Bring the list you already have
Import a CSV, or move an existing paid list across with its subscriptions intact. We handle the migration with you rather than mailing you a help article.
2
Set a price your readers can pay
Monthly and annual tiers, priced in a currency your readers actually hold, with local payment methods switched on for the markets you publish into.
3
Write, preview the real email, publish
Compose in your language, check the rendered issue against the client matrix, then send it and post it to your own domain in the same action.
4
Get paid where you live
A monthly payout to an account in your country, with a statement showing gross revenue, refunds, the processing fee and our 7% as separate lines.
09 — The rails
Where the money comes in, and where it goes out.
Two separate engineering problems that get treated as one. Your reader needs an instrument that works in their country; you need an account that can receive. Minbarly builds both sides market by market rather than shipping one global integration and calling it coverage.
Reader side — how a subscription gets paid
- Locally issued cardsDebit and credit cards from banks the global processors often decline.
- Mobile wallets and mobile moneyFor readers whose primary account is a phone number, not a card.
- Bank transfer and direct debitInstant transfer schemes where they exist, standing orders where they don’t.
- International cardsFor diaspora readers subscribing from a different market than yours.
7%
Platform share
No monthly fee
Writer side — how you receive it
- A bank account in your countryLocal currency where the corridor allows it, USD or EUR where it doesn’t.
- Monthly payout, fixed datePublished schedule, published hold period, published reserve rules — before you sign up.
- A statement that reconcilesGross, refunds, chargebacks, processing fee and our 7% as separate lines, exportable.
- Regions we are building firstMENA, South Asia, West and East Africa, South-East Asia, Latin America — then everywhere else.
We will tell you honestly if we can’t pay you yet
Coverage is built corridor by corridor, and no platform covers everywhere. Send us your country before you invest a weekend in migrating, and we’ll tell you where it sits on the list — including if the answer is “not this year”.
Where a subscription pound, dinar or naira ends up
Paid to you Minbarly platform share Payment processing is charged separately and varies by market and instrument; it is shown per transaction rather than folded into the 7%.
Illustrative — this is the model, not a reported result. Minbarly has not processed a subscription yet.
10 — Pricing
One number. It only moves when yours does.
There is no monthly platform fee, no per-subscriber charge and no feature held back for a higher tier. If your newsletter is free, Minbarly costs nothing at any size.
Free newsletter
$0Forever, with no subscriber cap and no feature gate.
For writers publishing free, building a list, or not ready to charge yet.
- Unlimited subscribers and unlimited sends
- The full bidirectional editor, no restrictions
- Custom domain and hosted archive
- Member discussion on any post
- One-click full subscriber export
Paid subscriptions
7%of paid subscription revenue, plus payment processing at cost. No monthly fee.
For writers charging for their work, in any currency, in any of the markets we cover.
- Everything in the free plan
- Monthly and annual paid tiers, multi-currency
- Local cards, wallets and bank transfer at checkout
- Payouts into an account in your country
- Paid-only posts, tiers and member threads
- Reconcilable payout statements, exportable
Editorial collectives
Multiple bylines on one publication, with the revenue split between authors on a schedule you set. Same 7%, no per-seat charge. This is being designed now, and we would rather design it with a collective than at one — tell us how yours is structured.
| Line | Who charges it | How it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Platform share | Minbarly — 7% | Deducted from gross paid subscription revenue only. Free subscribers cost nothing. |
| Payment processing | The payment provider | Varies by market, instrument and currency. Shown per transaction, never marked up by us. |
| Payout transfer | The receiving corridor | Where a corridor charges a fixed transfer cost, it is shown as its own line on your statement. |
| Monthly platform fee | None | There isn’t one, on either plan, at any list size. |
| Export or exit fee | None | Leaving is a button. Your list and your archive come with you. |
11 — Accountability
We have no customers yet. Here is what we’ll publish when we do.
Every platform in this category quotes a number on its homepage. Most of them are unauditable. These are the three we intend to report every quarter from our first payout run onward — including the quarters where they look bad.
Metric 01
Writers paid out
The count of authors who have received at least one payout, not the count who signed up. Today that number is zero, because we haven’t launched.
Metric 02
Countries paid into
Distinct receiving countries with at least one completed payout, listed by name rather than summarised as a total. Today: none.
Metric 03
Share reaching the author
Aggregate revenue paid to writers as a percentage of gross subscription revenue, after processing. Our target is what the model implies; we will publish the actual.
The commitments underneath them
- Export is a button, not a support ticket. Your full subscriber list, at any moment, without asking us and without a cooling-off period.
- We publish the render results. Which clients pass the right-to-left matrix and which regress, per release, in public.
- Price changes are announced, never retroactive. Whatever rate you join on is the rate on revenue you have already earned.
- No exclusivity, ever. Cross-post, syndicate, or run the same work in a newspaper. It is your writing.
- We say no before you migrate, not after. If your payout corridor isn’t live, you’ll hear it in the first reply rather than at the payout screen.
Founding cohort
Be one of the first writers on it
We are taking a small founding cohort before public launch. It is not a discount scheme and it is not a waitlist form that goes nowhere — it is direct access to the people building this, and a say in which payout corridor and which script get finished next.
If you already run a paid list somewhere else, tell us where and how large. Migration is the hard part and we would rather practise it with you than surprise you with it.
Apply to the founding cohort12 — Questions
The six we get asked first.
Is Minbarly live yet?
No. Minbarly is pre-launch. There is no product you can sign up for on this page today, no customers, and no revenue. What exists is a team building the editor and the payment integrations, and a founding cohort we are assembling now.
We would rather say that plainly than dress a landing page up as a going concern. If you want to be told the day it opens, the contact form is the whole mechanism.
Which languages does the editor really handle?
Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hebrew and English at launch, with per-block direction so a single post can mix them. “Handle” means the caret goes where you expect, letters shape and join, mixed Latin runs are isolated, punctuation and numerals sit on the correct side, and the same is true in the sent email — not just in the composer.
Other scripts follow. If yours is next on your list, say so; that is a real input into the order we build in.
Can you actually pay out in my country?
Sometimes yes, sometimes not yet, and we will tell you which before you move anything. Payout corridors are built one at a time and we are starting with MENA, South Asia, West and East Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America.
We do not publish a list of confirmed banking partners here, because pre-launch integrations change and a logo wall would imply commitments that aren’t signed. Ask about a specific country and you’ll get a specific, dated answer.
What happens to my list if I leave?
It comes with you, in one click, at any time — every address, tier, join date and payment status, as a CSV. There is no exit fee, no notice period and no degraded export for people who have announced they’re going.
Paid subscriptions themselves are portable subject to what the receiving platform and the payment provider allow; we will do the parts that are within our control and tell you honestly about the parts that aren’t.
7% of what, exactly?
Of gross paid subscription revenue — the money readers pay you for subscriptions. Not of your free list, not of one-off tips you take elsewhere, not of sponsorship you sell yourself.
Payment processing is a separate line charged by the payment provider at their rate. We don’t mark it up and we don’t bundle it into the 7%, because bundling it is how a platform quietly changes its price.
Why should a platform in this category be trusted with my audience?
It shouldn’t be, by default. That is exactly why export is a button, custom domains are on the free plan, and there is no exclusivity clause. The design goal is that leaving Minbarly costs you an afternoon rather than your readership.
A platform that has to keep you cannot afford to treat you badly. That is a structural argument, not a promise, and it is the only kind worth making before launch.
13 — Next
Take the platform.
Keep the gathering.
Your audience, your list, your terms. Tell us what you publish, in which language, and where you need the money to land.
What happens when you write to us: a person reads it, and you get a reply within two working days — including if the answer is that your payout corridor isn’t live yet.
Or email hello@minbarly.com directly.