How Kawthar is funded

Kawthar costs real money to run — servers, databases and the services that keep prayer times accurate. Our goal is for that cost to be carried by the businesses that benefit commercially from the platform, rather than by the community that uses it.

What the community pays today: nothing

Being part of Kawthar

Community members pay nothing today to join, browse, or take part — there is no membership fee. Keeping it that way is a goal we hold for as long as the platform can sustain it.

Religious content

Prayer times, masjid information, scholar and education content are free today, and our goal is to keep them that way — worship should not sit behind a payment.

Free events

Attending a free community event costs nothing through us.

Being listed

Every halal business gets a complete directory listing and can sell, for free. Paying buys visibility — never the right to exist here.

Free access for the community is a goal we work to sustain, not a permanent guarantee. Our aim is to benefit the community in a sustainable manner — funded by the businesses that gain from the platform — and if that balance ever has to change, this page will say so first.

What businesses pay for

A share of marketplace sales

When a business makes a sale through Kawthar, we take a percentage of that sale. It is deducted from the business’s payout rather than added on top of what the buyer pays — a buyer’s total is the items plus tax and shipping, nothing else. It applies to sales settled through our card processing; a business that settles through its own payment account keeps the whole sale.

An optional featured tier

Businesses will be able to pay a flat monthly amount to be featured in the directory and pin their deals. That tier is not open yet — and when it opens, the free listing stays complete either way.

Founding sponsorships

A small number of halal businesses will be able to sponsor the platform. No business sponsors Kawthar yet. When one does, the sponsorship will be clearly labelled wherever it appears, and every sponsor is approved by hand.

What we refuse to do

No ad networks. Nothing on Kawthar is sold by an automated advertising marketplace.
No advertising trackers and no behavioural ad targeting — nothing here is wired to an ad network, and we do not follow you around the internet. We do measure how the site is used, with a privacy-configured analytics tool: session recording is switched off, and signed-out visitors get no stored profile.
Selling your personal data is not one of the ways Kawthar makes money — the revenue sources listed above are the complete list. Some guide pages carry a partner’s Amazon affiliate links, labelled on those pages; that commission goes to the partner, not to Kawthar.
No donation appeals for Kawthar itself. We do not ask members for money to keep the lights on — the donation links on this site raise money for local masjids, not for us.
No pay-to-rank religious content. Sponsorship never affects prayer times, masjid data, or scholar content.

Sponsored placements are always labelled as sponsored, and every sponsor is approved by a person before appearing. If you ever see something on Kawthar that looks like it breaks one of these promises, tell us.