Not all WordPress newsletter plugins handle subscribers and mailing lists similarly. Some plugins provide more robust functionality than others.
The things you might wanna know about subscriber management could be, does the plugin allow you to capture custom fields, such as a hobby or subscriber gender? Does the plugin allow you to import and export subscribers? Can your already registered WordPress users be your newsletter recipients? Does the plugin allow you to group your subscribers in mailing lists? Here you will find out about all of that.
You can click on the name of the product below to view its full review.
Tribulant Newsletter
The nice thing about Tribulant Newsletter is that it mimics WordPress functionality very well. The subscribers management screen is a fully featured user interface in which you see a paginated list of your subscribers. You can search them, perform bulk actions on them, sort them, and more.
Tribulant Newsletter also provides the ability to export and import subscribers. This is done through either uploading a CSV file of import data or downloading the CSV file of export data.
Capturing custom fields for subscribers is possible by first adding a custom field from the "Save a Custom Field" screen and then using the custom field in your subscription forms.
It is also possible to segment your subscribers by mailing lists. Mailing lists can be free to join or paid. You can even create private mailing lists that are not displayed on your site publicly. These can be used for internal communications or for managing mailing lists for clients.
- Screenshot: Tribulant Newsletter "Import/Export Subscribers"
- Screenshot: Tribulant Newsletter "Save a Custom Field"
- Screenshot: Tribulant Newsletter "Manage Subscribers"
WP Autoresponder
WP Autoresponder can import or export subscribers, it can display all subscribers belonging to a specific mailing list, you can bulk edit subscribers, and manually edit the profile of an individual subscriber.
WP Autoresponder calls mailing lists "newsletters". You can segment your subscribers by newsletters. You can create an unlimited number of newsletters with each one having an unlimited number of subscribers.
You can capture unlimited number of fields about your subscribers--just create the fields in the "Custom Fields" menu and then add the fields to your subscription form. Each newsletter (or mailing list) can have its own custom fields.
WP Autoresponders handles subscribers and mailing lists very well. I just wish it also integrated with WordPress built-in user management or at least allowed you to import WordPress users as subscribers.
Satollo's Newsletter
Satollo's Newsletter handling of subscribers doesn't seem as robust as WordPress built-in user management capabilities. For example, you cannot select multiple subscribers and edit them in bulk. And the only way to see a list of all of your subscribers is by exporting them onto a CSV file.
You can export all of your subscribers out of Satollo's Newsletter. You can also import subscribers into the plugin by pasting a text of comma separated values into the designated textbox in the plugin.
The profiles for individual subscribers look a bit crude. Labels for the 19 different custom profile fields and the lists to which you can assign subscribers are displayed only after they have been configured on the "Subscription Form" page. Before setting the labels, all you're going to see is a numbered list of custom profile fields and email lists.
- Screenshot: Satollo's Newsletter "Subscribers Management"
- Screenshot: Satollo's Newsletter "Subscribers Edit"
EasyMail Newsletter
Unfortunately EasyMail doesn't utilize WordPress API in managing subscribers. It does things its own way. I would have liked it if it used WordPress users capabilities to manage subscribers. But it is still functional and does the job.
It is possible with EasyMail to put subscribers into different mailing lists and you can even group subscribers by language! Before you can add a subscriber to a specific list, you'll have to create the list in the options page of the plugin.
Unfortunately, it's not possible to capture custom fields about your subscribers with EasyMail--only the name and email are possible to capture.
The plugin fully supports the import and export of subscribers. You can add a single subscriber manually, you can import all of your WordPress registered users, you can import from a CSV file.
As for export, it is simple. You just click the "Export" button and EasyMail will display all of your subscribers and all of their data on the next page. You copy that and paste it into a normal txt file to which you can then give a CSV extension. This is a very practical and convenient way for the intended audience of this plugin, who don't have a massive list of subscribers.
MailPress
MailPress handles management of subscribers and mailing lists pretty well. There's an add-on called "sync_wordpress_user". It adds any new WordPress site registered user to your subscribers list! I think that's a cool feature. But MailPress still maintains its own database tables for users and usermeta.
It is possible to add custom fields to subscribers, but an admin has to do it manually for every subscriber. You cannot capture custom fields, such as hobbies, age, or gender from subscribers at the time of sign-up, which defeats the purpose.
Luckily, MailPress allows you to segment your subscribers by mailing lists. Before can to use mailing lists, you'll have to activate the add-on.
While you can import and synchronize WordPress users with MailPress using some of the provided add-ons, there is no way to export users outside of MailPress, which is a major drawback.
[GWA] Autoresponder Professional
[GWA] Autoresponder calls subscribers "leads". You can search and filter subscribers in the "Leads" menu and you can export or import subscribers.
The plugin allows you to capture custom fields, but it is limited to 5 only. Each mailing list that you create with the plugin can have its own set of custom fields.
WPMU DEV e-Newsletter
e-Newsletter provides very limited means of managing subscribers. You can see a list of your subscribers and on that list you can assign them to different groups, i.e. mailing lists. But the only two things you can do with subscribers are: delete and change mailing list--nothing else. You cannot change their email, name, or anything.
There is no way to import or export subscribers and there is no way to capture custom fields.
MeeNews
MeeNews seems to offer decent functionality for managing subscribers and mailing lists. You can perform bulk actions on subscribers, import and export, as well as segment your subscribers by mailing lists. However, you cannot capture custom fields.
Check out this video to see how subscriber management is done within MeeNews.
![Screenshot: [GWA] Autoresponder "List Details"](http://winkpress.zippykidcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/gwa-autoresponder/gwa-autoresponder-list-details.png){kind=link}
