WPMU DEV makes a lot of great WordPress products. They continuously update and improve. This review is of the first version of their e-Newsletter plugin, which–I’m afraid–is clearly underpowered compared with the competition. You’ll even find here free newsletter plugins that can do more than e-Newsletter. But there is one area at which this plugin excels: beautiful HTML templates for newsletters.
Read on to find out more!
Ease of Use and Installation
If you’re a premium member of WPMU DEV then you can easily download the e-Newsletter plugin. Once downloaded, you can upload and activate the plugin the usual way. However, all of WPMU DEV’s products require a helper plugin called WPMU DEV Notifications, which enables updates and whatnot. You’ll have to have that installed as well.
As for ease of use, this plugin is pretty great. At first time run, you will only be able to access the general settings page when you click on the plugin’s icon. After saving the initial configurations, you’ll be able to go ahead and use the various features of the plugin.
Even though e-Newsletter uses some user interface design techniques that aren’t native to WordPress, it’s easy to understand what each field option stand for and what you’re supposed to do on each screen. The usage flow of the plugin is intuitive.
Technical Support and Documentation
Like with other WPMU DEV products, support for e-Newsletter is provided through the forums. The forum is publicly open so you can visit it and see how active and helpful it is for yourself.
Also like other WPMU DEV products, there is no documentation for the plugin. Some people have complained about this lack of documentation.
Managing Subscribers and Mailing Lists
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.
Opt-in Form Features
e-Newsletter doesn’t provide many options when it comes to subscription form creation. There’s only one type of form that you can use: sidebar widget. And it feels very unpolished. For example, when a new subscriber submits their email a message appears that says “The new member was added”!!
Unsurprisingly, there are no opt-in form templates or anything like that. And you cannot use 3rd party opt-in form plugins either.
HTML Emails, Themes, and Attachments
When it comes to HTML emails and templates e-Newsletter does pretty well. It ships with 6 different beautiful templates. There’s also a nice “Preview” feature that allows you to see how the final newsletter will look like.
However, e-Newsletter doesn’t support plain text emails or attachments.
Bounce Email Management
In the settings page of e-Newsletter, there’s a dedicated tab to “Bounce Settings”. There, you can configure the email address that will handle bounces. However, I can’t find where you’d set the maximum number of bounces before a subscriber is deactivated.
Money Matters
To download e-Newsletter and use it on unlimited websites, you can purchase it for $39 (includes 1 month upgrades and support), $79 (3 months upgrades and support), or $209 (12 months upgrades and support).
Alternatively, you can become a WPMU DEV subscriber to get access to e-Newsletter and many other useful plugins and great support. The prices for WPMU DEV subscriptions are detailed here.
There are no refunds with WPMU DEV. But everything is GPL licensed, which means you are free to do whatever you want with the software. You can install it on as many websites as you want, and you can even resell it!
