Hardware for social media
Your next thousand followers are in the room.
A split-flap counter for the wall and a tap-to-follow plaque for the till. They do the asking — every customer, every day — so nobody on your staff has to.
From £199 · Ships worldwide · 30 days to change your mind
Asking is the part everyone hates.
The people in your shop are the warmest audience you will ever have. They’ve already chosen you, they’re standing still, and they’re holding their phone. Almost none of them will follow you, because nobody asks and nothing in the room does it for you.
That’s the whole job of a Minoio. You buy it once. It asks every customer, every day, for the next three years.
- 01
Your staff won’t do it.
“Follow us on Instagram” is a line nobody wants to deliver on their eighth coffee of the hour. So it doesn’t get said, the customer leaves, and a visit you paid for in rent and beans ends with nothing to show for it.
- 02
A number does the asking.
People look at numbers that move. They look longer when they hear one move. A counter on the wall makes the request to every person in the room, all day, without a word and without anyone feeling asked.
- 03
A plaque closes it.
Wanting to follow you and actually doing it are separated by thirty seconds of spelling your handle over a coffee machine. Most people don’t bother. Tapping a plaque takes a second and involves your staff not at all.
Three things. They work alone, they work better together.
Counters
For the wall.
Proof on the wall. People trust a number they can watch move — and a good number of them follow you so they can watch it move again. Five, six or seven digits.
Plaques
For the till.
The shortest route from a customer to a follower: one tap at the till. No app, no spelling your handle over the coffee machine.
Boards
from £449For the whole sentence.
Everything a counter does, with words. Put your opening hours, a new five-star review or “we hit 10,000 today” on the wall and watch people stop to read it. Mini, Standard and Max.
Set up before the kettle boils.
Counters
- 01
Plug it in, join your Wi-Fi
Scan the card in the box and the set-up page walks you through it. Your phone hands the counter your network. Four minutes, once.
- 02
Point it at a number
Instagram followers, YouTube subscribers, Google Reviews — or any number that lives at a URL. Change it whenever.
- 03
Someone follows. It flips.
The counter checks in every few seconds. When the number moves, the flaps move. Everyone in the room looks up.
Plaques
- 01
Put it where people wait
The till, the table, the mirror. It’s passive NFC, so there’s no cable and no battery to think about.
- 02
They tap. Your profile opens.
iPhone and Android, no app. There’s a QR code for anyone who’d rather scan.
- 03
You see where the taps came from
A small dashboard, included, tells you which plaque is working and which one is behind the ficus.
It costs about a fortnight of boosted posts.
A counter is £199, paid once. Spend the same on ads and it’s gone in two weeks, along with the followers you rented. The counter is still on the wall in three years, still asking, and the people it brings you are yours.
We make counters, so we’re careful about the numbers we quote. These are measured on shipping units, not a lab bench.
- 0
- cost per follower, every day after the one you hang it
- 3yr
- warranty on the mechanism, because it’s the part that moves
- 4min
- to set up, from your phone, once
- 0
- subscriptions, apps to keep open, or accounts to create
What it did for people who hung one.
“People ask about it before they ask about the coffee. Then they follow us to see it move. We went from 4k to 19k in a year and I can point at the wall and tell you why.”
“The plaques paid for themselves in a weekend. We get maybe sixty taps on a Saturday at the till, and the dashboard told me the one by the door does nothing, so I moved it.”
“I stream from a garage. The counter is on the shelf behind me and chat loses its mind every time it flips. It’s the only thing in the room that isn’t a screen.”
“We point it at Google Reviews, not followers. When someone leaves one the whole barbershop hears it. The lads now ask customers if they’d like to make it flip.”
“It’s furniture first. It happened to also double our following. My partner wanted it in the living room and I’m not sure that was a joke.”
Marta runs a bakery in Hebden Bridge. In 2019 she asked us to build her a sign so she’d never have to ask a customer to follow her again.
She had tried everything else. “Follow us on Instagram” on the chalkboard, on the cups, said out loud at the till by a nineteen-year-old who would rather have been anywhere else. It made her feel like she was begging for something, and it barely worked.
The first counter was a departures board from a closed-down station, wired to a Raspberry Pi and bolted above her till. It was loud and enormous and it worked the same afternoon — not because it asked anyone for anything, but because nobody could stop watching it move. She went from 2,000 to 11,000 in a year, and she never said the line again.
What we sell now is smaller, quieter, and made of wood because wood looks better on a wall than plastic does. The clicks stayed. The plaques came later, when we worked out that a counter tells people you have a following and a plaque gives them a way to join it in one second flat.
We make a few hundred a month, by hand, in Yorkshire. If something goes wrong with yours, you’ll get a person, not a form.
Minoio Hardware
The shop.
Everything
Things people ask before they buy.
Anything else — write to us. We answer within a day.
Does it actually get you followers?
It gets you asked-for follows from people who were already in your shop, which is the cheapest audience there is. The shops in our stories went from 4,120 to 19,344 in a year, 212 to 1,004 reviews, 9,870 to 22,115. We can't promise you theirs — a counter in a quiet room counts a quiet room. What it reliably does is make the request, to everyone, all day, without anyone having to say a word.
Which platforms does the counter support?
Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads, Twitch, Kick, Facebook, Google Reviews, Shopify and Stripe out of the box. There's also a custom mode: give it a URL and it counts whatever number that page returns — orders shipped, donations, pints poured, days without an incident.
How do I choose between five, six and seven digits?
By the number you’re showing today, plus a little room. Five digits counts to 99,999 and suits most shops and studios; six goes to 999,999; seven to 9,999,999, which is also where people land when they count something other than followers. The mechanism, the woods and the warranty are the same across all three — only the width and the price change.
What’s the difference between the Counter and the Board?
The Counter shows one number. The Board spells words — three sizes of character grid, from a 3 × 12 Mini to an 8 × 32 Max — so it can write out a message, print a new review, or say what time the kitchen closes. Plenty of people have both: the number on one wall, the sentence on the other.
Is there a subscription?
No. You buy the hardware, we keep the service running. That’s the deal.
Does it need a phone app?
Only for the four minutes it takes to set up, and it’s a web page — nothing to install. After that the counter talks to the internet on its own.
How loud is the flip?
About 48 dB at a metre, roughly a page turning. In a café you’ll hear it if you’re near. In a quiet room, everyone will. It is silent when nothing is changing.
Do the plaques work with every phone?
Every iPhone since the 7 and any Android with NFC reads the tap without an app. Anything with a camera can scan the printed code.
Can I change what a plaque links to after I’ve bought it?
Yes, any time, from the dashboard. Point it at Instagram this month and Google Reviews the next. The plaque itself doesn’t change.
What if it breaks?
Counters carry a three-year warranty that covers the mechanism; plaques two years. Email us a photo, we send a replacement or a part. No RMA forms.
Where do you ship, and what currency do you charge in?
Worldwide, tracked, from £12. Prices show in your local currency — pick it in the top bar or let the checkout set it from your country — and we take payment in pounds, so your bank’s rate decides the last few pence. Duties are included at checkout for the UK, EU and US.
Put a number on the wall.
It asks every customer, every day, for three years. Thirty days to decide it belongs there, and we pay the return either way.
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