file 01/06 · brief
home / projects / maktoob-membership
// case study · web portal

Readers pay, read,
and belong.

A membership portal for Maktoob Media: subscriptions, exclusive reading and a members' community, in one branded system.

client · maktoob mediarole · design + full-stacksince · apr 2025
live in production ↗
Maktoob Membership portal · live screenshot
the story
// 01 · the challenge

A paywall that doesn't
feel like a wall.

An independent newsroom wanted readers to subscribe, access exclusive writing, and take part in a community, through a portal that carried their editorial identity, not a generic template's.

And underneath the polish: recurring payments that never miss, accounts that manage themselves, and gating that knows exactly who's a member.

// 02 · what we built

Four moving parts,
one system.

Reading-first design
The UI starts from the article, not the dashboard. Members land in the writing, with the machinery kept out of sight.
Subscriptions that run themselves
Monthly plans, renewals, upgrades and receipts: recurring billing wired for reliability, not just the happy path.
Gated content, done honestly
Exclusive pieces stay exclusive: session-aware gating that knows a member from a visitor without slowing either down.
A room for members
The community space behind the paywall: the part that turns subscribers into regulars.
// 03 · the stack

Boring where it should be.

Proven parts, assembled carefully. Novelty goes into the product, not the plumbing.

frontend
Next.js
backend
Node + Express
data
PostgreSQL
hosting
Render
ui/ux designfrontend + backend buildcloud infrastructure
// 04 · in production

Live, and quietly busy.

2 wksfrom brief to a shipped portal · the date was in writing, and it held.
1 loginsubscription, exclusive reading and community · a single member account carries all of it.
0 dramapayments and account management run without hand-holding · the newsroom writes, the portal collects.

Despite a brief initial scope, the final product exceeded all expectations.

aslah k · founder, maktoob media