The best Arabic newsletter platforms in 2026: an honest comparison

The short version

• Want a newsletter, a website and a blog in one place? Kitabah is the closest to that, and it bills in Saudi riyals.
• Want the simplest way to launch an Arabic newsletter today on a small budget? Hudhud is the oldest player in the Arabic market with the largest number of published newsletters.
• Want an editor that actually handles Arabic (fonts, diacritics, direction), automation, and a public page search engines can find? That is what Mujaz was built for, and the free plan covers your first 500 subscribers.
• Bilingual audience, or selling paid subscriptions right now? Substack or beehiiv work today, but you pay for it in broken fonts and English templates.

What to compare in the first place

Most comparisons count features. We prefer six questions that expose the real difference between a tool designed for Arabic and one that merely allows it:

1. Does the editor start from the right? Not just text alignment: the interface, menus, buttons and preview.
2. How does the email look in Gmail and Outlook? Connected letters, diacritics and the Arabic typeface are the first things to break in foreign tools.
3. Does your email reach the inbox? Look for SPF, DKIM, DMARC, a custom sending domain, and a spam check before sending.
4. Does your newsletter have a public page that search engines index? That is how new readers find you from Google, not just from your inbox.
5. What do you pay at 1,000 and 5,000 subscribers? The price at zero does not matter; the price as you grow does.
6. Can you leave with your data? Exporting subscribers to CSV at any time is non-negotiable.

The three Arabic platforms

Mujaz (mujaz.io)

Mujaz was built from the first letter to solve one problem: every global tool treats Arabic as an afterthought. The editor starts from the right, pairs an Arabic and a Latin typeface with per-heading control, and keeps diacritics and connected letters intact in Apple Mail, Gmail and Outlook. Every newsletter gets a public page at mujaz.io/@yourname with an indexable archive, and articles can be published to the web and emailed at the same time.

• Free plan: 500 subscribers and 1,000 emails a month, with the RTL editor, the spam checker and an Arabic AI assistant (10 uses).
• Paid: Lite $19 (1,000 subscribers) · Starter $39 (2,000) · Growth $69 (5,000, custom sender email) · Pro $99 (10,000, custom sending domain, 5 team seats) · Business $199 (25,000) · Scale $399 (50,000). Annual billing is 20% cheaper.
• What stands out: the Arabic font engine, welcome emails and automated sequences, send-time analysis for the region's audience, a pre-send spam score, a verification badge for real accounts, and a public directory of Arabic newsletters.
• What it honestly lacks: paid subscriptions with local payment methods are still in development, the platform is younger than its rivals, and its base of published newsletters is smaller. Prices are in US dollars.

Hudhud (gohodhod.com)

Hudhud is the oldest Arabic newsletter platform (launched in 2021) and calls itself "the region's email publishing platform". According to its site it has passed 7,500 publishers, and the largest independent Arabic newsletters live there. It has a simple editor, a directory for discovering Arabic newsletters, and a clear focus on deliverability.

• Free plan: up to 500 subscribers.
• Paid: from about $10 a month, rising with subscriber count (we could not read the full pricing page when writing this, so check their site for current numbers).
• What stands out: seniority and scale; if your audience already knows Hudhud, subscribing feels familiar. Arabic support in the region's time zone.
• What it lacks: the editor is too simple for fine control over fonts and layout, and public newsletter pages are less rich than web articles.

Kitabah (kitabh.com)

Kitabah is a Saudi independent-publishing platform that bundles a personal website, a blog and a newsletter in one account, with modern Arabic typefaces, an Arabic proofreader, and text-to-speech in Arabic voices. If your goal is a complete Arabic presence rather than a newsletter alone, that is its strongest offer.

• Free plan: up to 500 subscribers, one newsletter, 4 sends a month, with a mandatory Kitabah logo on your site and newsletter.
• Paid: Writer plan SAR 99.99 a month (2,000 subscribers, unlimited sends, no logo) · Organisations plan SAR 499 a month (5,000 subscribers, 3 seats, multiple newsletters and sites). Annual billing is 20% cheaper.
• What stands out: site, blog and newsletter together, billing in riyals, and Arabic language tools (proofreading and voice).
• What it lacks: the free plan's send limit rules out weekly publishing, a custom domain and paid subscriptions were "coming soon" at the time of writing, and the price at 2,000 subscribers is higher than the other two.

Comparison table

The global tools: when they work and when they let you down

Substack, beehiiv, Mailchimp and MailerLite are excellent for readers of English. With Arabic they share the same problems: an English interface and templates, Arabic text aligned right inside a layout that stays mirrored, fonts that break in some email clients, and no local payment methods for your readers. You will manage to send an Arabic newsletter through them, but you will spend time fixing what needs no fixing on an Arabic platform.

• Substack: entirely free and takes 10% of paid subscriptions. Best if reader revenue starts today and your audience is bilingual.
• beehiiv: the strongest growth and referral tools, free up to 2,500 subscribers. The interface is entirely in English.
• Mailchimp: a general marketing tool more than a newsletter platform. Free up to 500 contacts, and templates need manual work to run right-to-left.
• MailerLite: the cheapest as you grow, with right-to-left support in the editor, but the experience remains built for English.

How to choose in five minutes

1. Write one test issue on each platform you are considering and send it to yourself on Gmail, Outlook and your phone. Whatever breaks there will break for your readers.
2. Work out your bill at 1,000 and 5,000 subscribers, not at zero.
3. Open a published newsletter page on each platform and search for it on Google. If you cannot find it, neither will your new readers.
4. Try exporting subscribers before you have any.
5. Email support with a real question and note when the reply arrives and in which language.