Berta Review - A Canadian Publication's Dynamic Platform

At Callibist, we pride ourselves on crafting agile, efficient, and innovative software solutions that align with our clients’ strategic visions. When Berta Review — a bold Canadian political magazine and think tank — approached us with the challenge of building a seamless, mobile-friendly platform for their growing audience, we knew it would require more than just an off-the-shelf solution.

The goal?
Create a responsive, intuitive app and web experience that could handle subscription content, user profiles, article archives, engagement features (like polls), and provide the editorial team with powerful customization tools. The catch? It had to be done fast, without compromising security, design, or flexibility.

We chose Adalo for the mobile app interface and Wix for the public web presence — and engineered a complex integration between the two platforms. Here's how we did it.

🧠 Step 1: Defining the Vision with Berta Review

The project began with a series of strategy sessions with the Berta Review editorial and analytics teams. The vision was clear:

A mobile-first reading experience for subscribers and casual visitors
Integration of exclusive subscriber-only content
Support for market research tools (like surveys and data visualization)
Smooth editorial publishing workflow
Secure payment and authentication flow
Scalability for merchandise, polling, and possible forums

This meant we had to stitch together a custom hybrid platform that used the best parts of no-code tools like Adalo and Wix, while overcoming their individual limitations through API integrations, custom actions, and middleware scripting.

📱 Step 2: Building the App with Adalo

We chose Adalo as the primary platform for the mobile app due to its:

Speed of deployment
Native component-based design
Robust database structuring
External collection and API integration capacity

Key features built in Adalo:

User Authentication & Roles: We created distinct user roles for admins, subscribers, and free users. Using Adalo's built-in user collections and conditional visibility, we customized content access.
Dynamic Content Pages: Berta Review’s content — articles, opinion columns, policy briefs — was integrated dynamically via Adalo’s external collections, pulling real-time data from a structured CMS hosted on Wix.
Subscription Flow: We integrated Stripe via custom actions and third-party services like Zapier and Make.com (formerly Integromat) to manage paid memberships and recurring billing.
Reader Dashboard: Personalized dashboards were created to show recent reads, survey participation, and recommended content based on tags and reading history.
Polls & Research Integration: Readers could engage with interactive polls and mini-surveys — ideal for Berta Review’s goal of conducting public opinion research.

💡 Step 3: Leveraging Wix as the Public-Facing CMS

While Adalo handled the app experience, Wix served as Berta Review’s public editorial platform, handling:

Full-length articles
Author bios and contributor portals
SEO-optimized landing pages
Merchandise store (via Wix eCommerce)
Newsletter subscriptions and mailing list capture

Using Wix Velo (Wix’s developer platform), we custom-scripted APIs to expose structured data (like articles, user profile data, and survey results) to Adalo. This required:

Setting up dynamic datasets in Wix CMS
Creating custom RESTful endpoints using Velo backend code
Securing API endpoints with authentication headers and API keys
Designing a middleware layer using Make.com to transform and route data between Wix and Adalo in real time

🌐 Step 4: Integration Layer: Connecting Adalo and Wix

This was the heart of the challenge.

Adalo and Wix don’t natively speak to each other, so we used Make.com as our integration engine. Here’s how the system works:

Data Flow:

Articles are written in Wix CMS and tagged by topic, category, and author.
A scheduled Make.com scenario pulls published articles, reformats them into JSON, and POSTs to Adalo’s external collection API.
When a user logs in to the app, their preferences (stored in Adalo) are matched against available content using keyword filtering, delivered in real-time.
Poll and survey data submitted via Adalo is pushed to Google Sheets and sent back to Wix dashboards via Make, where the BERTA analytics team can view responses and generate insights.

Authentication Sync:

Stripe’s webhook sends payment confirmation to Make.com, which in turn updates both Wix’s and Adalo’s user records to reflect subscription status.
A token-based user system was developed so that logging in via Adalo (the app) automatically grants access to gated content on Wix (the web), and vice versa.

✉️ Step 5: Integrating Substack into the Flow

Berta Review uses Substack for its popular newsletter and editorial commentary. Rather than disrupt that workflow, we wove it into the platform.

Substack Integration Features:

Newsletter feed displayed in-app by parsing Substack’s RSS/Atom feed
Embedded “Subscribe to Newsletter” modals within both Adalo and Wix
Automatic syncing of Substack signups with Adalo user collections using Make.com
Pulling content summaries from Substack posts into the mobile app to drive cross-platform engagement

We even created a “Newsletter Digest” view inside the app — a native interface styled like a modern reading experience that loads Substack excerpts and links back to full issues, maintaining Berta’s publishing integrity and reach.

🔗 The Glue: Make.com and API Scripting

Because Adalo, Wix, and Substack operate in separate silos, the magic came from our use of Make.com and custom API scripting.

The Integration Stack:

Make.com Scenarios synced content across platforms in near-real-time:
- New articles in Wix triggered POST calls to update Adalo external collections
- New Substack posts parsed and summarized for display in-app
- Subscription updates in Stripe automatically updated both Wix user permissions and Adalo user records
Custom REST APIs exposed data from Wix’s CMS for app use
Substack webhooks routed data to Google Sheets and then to the app for analytics

We designed this integration layer to be modular and scalable, so if Berta Review wanted to add a new newsletter provider or a second publication arm, the infrastructure would flex to accommodate.

🔒 Authentication and Subscriber Sync

Security and data sync were critical. Here's how we handled it:

Centralized User Database: User records in Adalo were mirrored to Wix via Make, and tied to Substack tags.
Token-Based Auth: All API calls used secure tokens to validate access to protected content.
Stripe + Webhooks: When a user subscribed, Stripe sent a webhook to Make.com which updated permissions across all platforms.

This tri-sync ensured that a user subscribing on Substack would be given access to the mobile app and gated Wix content within seconds.

Step 6: Finalizing the UX and Testing

Once the technical backbone was built, we focused on designing a clean, intuitive UX across both platforms. Our UI/UX team ensured the Berta Review brand identity — bold, grounded in tradition, but forward-thinking — was reflected throughout.

Testing involved:

Security validation (API key protection, token expiry)
Cross-platform behavior on iOS, Android, and desktop
Load testing for traffic surges during article drops or poll launches
User feedback sessions with both editorial staff and early subscribers

🎨 Branding & UX

From a design perspective, we ensured brand consistency across platforms:

The Adalo app UI was custom-themed to reflect Berta Review’s identity: assertive, modern, rooted in tradition
Fonts, colors, and layout conventions were mirrored between the Wix site and the app
The newsletter digest in-app maintained Substack’s look but was framed in Berta’s voice
All content pathways (read, subscribe, shop, respond) were streamlined into 2 taps or less

✅ Testing & Deployment

We conducted testing across three tiers:

Cross-platform QA (iOS, Android, desktop, mobile web)
Load & Stress Tests for traffic spikes during newsletter drops and article launches
User Testing with editorial staff and early adopters, whose feedback directly informed refinements

The Result

The finished platform is a multi-channel publishing and polling ecosystem that merges mobile flexibility with editorial robustness. Berta Review now has:

A native mobile app live on both Android and iOS
A sleek public-facing website with gated and free content
Seamless user experience across devices
The infrastructure to launch merchandise, research tools, and live events

And it was all done without traditional custom coding, showing the power of creative development using no-code tools and strategic API stitching.

Looking Ahead

This build exemplifies what we at Callibist do best: bridging powerful technologies to meet practical goals. With Adalo, Wix, Make.com, and Stripe working in harmony, BERTA Review is positioned to grow its audience, expand its polling capabilities, and reinforce its role as a cultural and political voice in Canada.

If you're a publication, non-profit, or enterprise with a bold vision — and you need a digital platform that works smarter, not harder — we’d love to hear from you.

Let’s build something remarkable.