We launched SAT HUB with SAT Media in 2023, a mobile app and site for one of Serbia's longest-running auto-moto media brands, with a membership model built around engagement from the start. This article is about how the points side of that model works today: what the reader sees, what the newsroom controls, and what the system does between a tap on a notification and an unlocked article.
The deal, in SAT Media's words
The subscription screen in the app explains it in one line: "Tap the notifications you get on your phone, play quizzes, browse articles, and collect points for a free subscription. Collect 700 points every 30 days and the subscription is yours."
Not every tap is worth the same. A new-article notification earns points, a new-video notification earns more, and a notification that the crew is going live from the scene earns the most. The same screen warns readers not to get comfortable: the subscription stays active only if they keep it up every month. For anyone who would rather skip all of it, the "Subscribe" button is always there.
Earned or paid, the subscription unlocks the same package: every article and video from SAT Media's four magazines (SAT Plus, Voltage & TopSpeed, Veliki Točkovi and Youngtimer), all live broadcasts from the field, the right to put questions to guests during those broadcasts, access to legal advice through live sessions and chat, and subscriber-only giveaways.
Live from the road
Live broadcasts are one of the most important parts of SAT HUB. The crew goes live from its patrols, road trips reported from the route while they drive it, from border crossings to the ferry deck. This year's patrols went to Karlovy Vary, the islands of Cres and Lošinj, Apulia, Montenegro, Crete and a long summer route through Greece, covering road conditions, border rules and what to expect on arrival. Between patrols, the crew goes live from car tests, from fairs like IAA in Hanover and the BG Car Show, and with discussions on everything from Chinese car brands to Formula 1. The full archive is on the livestream page.
Broadcasts draw several thousand viewers through the app. They comment, ask the crew and guests questions, and get answers on air. A reader planning the same drive to Greece gets border and route information from a crew that is on that road at that moment.
The points follow the same logic. A notification that the crew is live is worth more than one about an article or a video, and readers who follow the broadcast in the app while it is running collect more on top of that. A live broadcast happens once, so it is the format where the points system most directly rewards being there.
The rules
| Rule | How it works |
| Threshold | 700 points in 30 days. This is SAT HUB's setting in the admin, not a number fixed in the product. |
| Duration | An earned subscription lasts one month. |
| Renewal | The day after an earned month ends, the system checks the reader's points from the past 30 days. If they still reach the threshold, the next month is granted automatically. If not, access pauses until they reach it again. |
| First subscription | Until a reader earns their first month, every point they have ever collected counts. After that, only the last 30 days count. |
| One reward per notification | A reader is rewarded once for a given notification. Tapping it again earns nothing. |
| One-time or repeatable | Each action is set as one or the other. |
| Validity window | Every action has a start and end date. Outside that window it awards nothing. |
| Logged-in readers only | Points go to registered readers. Registration is free. |
| Paying stays open | A reader can buy the annual subscription at any time. Points and payment run independently. |
In the profile, a reader sees their points for the last 30 days, a history of every award with the action's name and "+N" points, and their status: no subscription, earned through points, paid, or both. Readers with no points yet get a link to the page explaining how to collect them.
A reader's month
The point values in this example are made up to show the arithmetic. Only the 700 threshold is SAT HUB's setting.
Suppose the newsroom has set an article notification at 10 points, a video at 20, a live broadcast at 40, and the weekly quiz at 30 to 60 depending on the score. Marko installs SAT HUB and registers.
In the first week he taps six article notifications and three video notifications and joins one live broadcast: 160 points. In the second week he keeps the same rhythm and gets 5 of 6 right on the quiz, reaching 380. Two live broadcasts from a road trip in week three, plus articles and videos, take him to 580. A quiz and a few more notifications in week four bring him to 710.
He crosses 700 on a Thursday evening. His account unlocks within moments and a confirmation email arrives. A month later the system looks at his last 30 days, finds he kept the habit, and renews the subscription without him doing anything. In the month he is on holiday and collects 200 points, access pauses. He can earn it back or pay 2,400 dinars for the year.
What the newsroom does in mPanel
Everything below is set up by editors in mPanel, the CMS SAT HUB runs on. None of it needs a developer.
- Define what a subscription by points is. Under user categories, the editor creates a category marked as a subscription category, with one or more tiers. Each tier has a points range and the content package it unlocks. SAT HUB uses a single tier: 700 points, full access. A publisher could set several, each unlocking a different package.
- Create actions. An action is a reusable reward rule with a name (what the reader sees in their points history), a number of points, a message shown when it is collected, valid-from and valid-to dates, and a setting for whether it can be earned once or repeatedly.
- Attach actions to content. When composing a push notification, the editor picks an action from a dropdown, and readers who tap it get the points. An article can carry an action, which then travels with the notification announcing it. Rules that send notifications automatically for certain categories or tags can carry an action too, so every notification of that kind earns points without anyone having to remember. Quizzes and polls tie actions to a score: one action for at least 3 correct answers and a bigger one for at least 5, for example. A plain poll rewards taking part.
- Watch the results. The points statistics screen lists every award with the reader, action, category, points and time. It filters by action, category, reader email and date range, shows totals per reader, and can pick a given number of readers at random from any filtered list.
A few ways the tools can be used, as examples rather than a log of what SAT Media did on a given day:
- A normal publishing day. A road test goes up at 9:00 with the "New article" action, and the automatic notification carries it. At noon the video version goes out with "New video", worth more. At 17:00 the crew goes live from a border crossing, and the editor writes a notification by hand and attaches "Live broadcast", the highest value.
- A campaign weekend. For a motor show, the editor creates a "Motor show special" action worth double, valid Friday to Sunday, and attaches it to every notification that weekend. On Monday it stops awarding on its own, because its end date has passed.
- A graded quiz. A ten-question traffic-rules quiz carries two actions: "Quiz passed" at 6 or more correct and "Quiz ace" at 9 or more.
- A prize draw. For a subscriber giveaway, the editor filters the statistics to one action over one week and asks for five random readers. The winners come from people who engaged that week.
Polls and quizzes also do work beyond points. Applications for the jury of the Srpski automobilski trofej 2026 (Serbian Car Trophy) opened on 1 October through a poll in the app. The jury chooses the winner from 24 candidates at the final on 31 October at the NAVAK centre.
What happens behind the tap
When a notification goes out to the whole audience, thousands of taps can arrive within a few seconds. Awards are queued and processed in the background, so the app keeps responding at the moment it is busiest, and a reader's balance catches up a moment later.
Renewal runs on its own schedule. The day after an earned month ends, the system recalculates the reader's last 30 days against the threshold and either grants the next month or lets access pause. Nobody on SAT Media's side has to approve it.
Email follows status changes. A reader gets one email when they earn a subscription through points, and a different one if they already pay and also reach the threshold. New accounts get a welcome email once they are verified. That second group, readers who pay and stay highly engaged, is the most valuable audience a publisher has, and the system already treats them separately.
Why it is built this way
For readers, it is a free path that asks for something they can give: reading, watching, joining a broadcast, playing a quiz. The rules fit in one sentence, the profile shows where they stand, and there is no card on file and nothing that renews against one. The worst outcome is that access pauses. Readers who find the monthly effort tedious can pay, and by then they know what they would be paying for.
For SAT Media, every point needs a logged-in reader, so registration has a concrete reason behind it, and a known, reachable audience is the base for everything else. The 30-day window rewards coming back every month over a single burst. Notifications, the lever a newsroom controls most directly, get a reason to be opened. Point values work as an editorial dial: making video worth more than text, and live worth more than video, moves the audience toward the formats the newsroom wants to grow, and the values can be changed at any time. Readers who would have left at a hard paywall stay in the product, see the premium content, keep generating views, and are the best candidates for a paid subscription later. Campaigns, seasonal actions and giveaways are handled by editors, with no development involved.
The model has a cost. It depends on the newsroom sending enough notifications worth tapping for 700 points to be reachable; the app currently promises at least one a day, sometimes more. Point values need tuning. Set the threshold too high and readers give up; set it too low and nobody has a reason to pay. And the content behind each notification has to be worth opening, or the points become the only reason anyone taps.
The same engine elsewhere
Actions and points are a general mPanel feature, and other clients use the same building blocks in different ways. Fraktura's loyalty program runs a barcode loyalty card scanned at the till, points per euro spent, and three tiers that make points worth more as a customer climbs. A basketball club app uses check-ins at the arena with a cooldown, points for fan-uploaded content, and monthly and season-long leaderboards with coupons as rewards. An education app awards points for passing a quiz with at least 80% correct.
For SAT HUB, the setting readers see is one number: 700 points in 30 days. Which actions exist, what they are worth and when they run are things the newsroom can change whenever it wants, without calling us.
SAT has been part of Serbian driving culture for more than 30 years, on television, in print and now in the app. We have worked with SAT since 2023 and are proud of what we have built together so far. More is on the way: SAT HUB users can expect a good number of new features in the coming months.
