Newsletter Glue

What Newsletter Glue is

Newsletter Glue is a WordPress plugin that turns the site's block editor into a newsletter builder, then sends the result either through Newsletter Glue's own sending engine or through an email service provider you already use. The homepage calls it "The email builder for WordPress" and is direct about its audience: "If your team publishes multiple newsletters per week, Newsletter Glue is for you." It says it is built for publishers, newsrooms and media companies looking to level up their existing newsletter operations, and it claims to be "Trusted by 1,000+ publishers". The plugin runs inside your own WordPress install, so the newsletters, templates and archive live on your site. The About page says the business is now owned by Tyler Channell, who acquired it after working with its codebase across 100+ publishers at PaywallProject, with a lead developer and a lead customer success manager named beside him.

Building a newsletter in WordPress

The editor is the WordPress block editor your writers already use for articles. The homepage makes that the point: write "in an already familiar editor that's the same as your article editor", with no switching to a separate email tool. Newsletter Glue adds its own newsletter blocks on top: author bylines, social media icons, post embeds, a container, metadata and a subscriber form. The post embed block is the curation tool: according to the features page it pulls the featured image, post title and excerpt for you and "Works for internal and external links", so a digest of the week's stories becomes a list of formatted links rather than an afternoon of copying and pasting.

Templates are called patterns and are built in the Gutenberg block editor. You can mix and match the default header and footer templates or style from scratch, and the knowledge base covers copying and exporting patterns and templates. For publishers with ads or referral deals, the homepage says you can "Easily add custom html from your ad network or referral program", and custom CSS can be added to any template. The knowledge base also lists an Ad Inserter block and a way to insert RSS feeds.

Mergetags personalize each send with subscriber names, unsubscribe links, read-online links and more. A show/hide feature decides what email subscribers see and blog visitors do not, so one piece of content can carry newsletter-only sections. On rendering, the homepage says the email builder is heavily tested and "ready for Outlook", produces lightweight HTML so emails do not get clipped, and includes an email size checker in the preview.

Sending, automation and the archive

When a newsletter is ready, the features page says you can "Schedule or send newsletters to specific lists, segments or tags". Behind the scenes the plugin transforms the content into email-ready HTML and sends it to your subscribers. The pricing FAQ adds that all sending "occurs externally on our hosted infrastructure, never impacting your site", which answers the usual worry about a WordPress plugin slowing a site down. Automated newsletters are part of both plans, and the recorded demo covers "Faster publishing with Automated Emails". The knowledge base includes articles on scheduling, saving a draft in your email service provider, and copying or exporting the email HTML.

Each newsletter can also be published natively in WordPress, so the archive lives on your site, "making them easy to share and search engine-friendly". The read-online link points to a page on your own domain, and the homepage says the archive is ready for SEO, paywalls and ads, so the same monetization you use on articles applies to newsletters. Archive shortcodes let you place the archive on the site. For subscriber growth there is a subscriber form block that adds a signup form anywhere on a page in a couple of clicks.

Integrations

You can keep your current provider. The homepage says: "Keep your existing ESP or send with Newsletter Glue's sending engine. The choice is yours." It lists support for Mailchimp, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Constant Contact, Kit, Sendy, Omeda "and more", and promises "No ESP migration. Keep your existing ESP, automations, and lists exactly where they are." The knowledge base has guides for connecting Kit, SparkPost, BigMailer, HubSpot and Omeda, and a page on requesting a new connection. The Connect plan on the pricing page mentions 21 integrations. The knowledge base also describes creating transactional emails for Leaky Paywall with Newsletter Glue.

Plans and pricing

The pricing page lists two plans, with monthly or yearly billing and "Yearly 2 months free".

• Newsletter Glue sends through Newsletter Glue's own engine: "Build and send newsletters from WordPress. No other tools needed, we handle delivery." The price is set by monthly sends, with tiers from "Up to 25,000 sends / mo" through 50,000, 100,000, 200,000, 400,000, 800,000, 1,500,000 and 3,000,000 up to 5,000,000. The page shows $29 a month, billed monthly, at the 25,000-send tier. It includes unlimited subscribers, the newsletter and template builder, automated newsletters and priority support, for 1 site plus unlimited staging. There is a 14-day free trial.
• Newsletter Glue Connect costs $99 a month, billed monthly, and sends through your own provider, with the sending limit determined by that provider. It also includes unlimited subscribers, the builder and automated newsletters, with basic support, for 1 site plus unlimited staging.

The license key is valid for one year and is needed for automatic updates, bug fixes and support; you can cancel from your account page and keep support and updates until the key expires. Payment is by card through Stripe checkout or by PayPal, and the page says non-profit pricing is available through an application. The guarantee section offers a "14-day money back guarantee" whose wording then says to let the company know "within 30 days of your purchase" for a full refund, a "Best price guarantee" because the company does not run sales, and a "24-hour first response support guarantee": help in a day or less Monday to Friday and 48 hours on weekends.

Requirements and support

The FAQ says Newsletter Glue works on self-hosted WordPress installs and on WordPress.com with a Business plan, which allows third-party plugins. It works with the classic editor but is not built for it, the pro blocks need the Gutenberg block editor, and bugs in the classic editor are not supported. The homepage says the plugin meets the WordPress VIP Coding Standards. Support runs through the knowledge base and email, onboarding starts with a call about your newsletter set-up, and the footer lists implementation and consulting services and a partner directory.

Who it suits

Newsletter Glue fits a newsroom, magazine or content business that already publishes in WordPress and sends several newsletters a week. The WBUR testimonial on the homepage describes reaching "over 125,000 subscribers between our editorial newsletters and our events newsletter" and reporters picking the system up easily. Pricing by sends with unlimited subscribers suits publishers with large lists, and the Connect plan suits a team whose lists and automations already sit in Mailchimp, Kit or Omeda.

It is not for anyone outside WordPress, and a team that works mainly in the classic editor loses the pro blocks. A shop that needs ecommerce flows or a marketing team that wants a full automation suite will find the pages describe newsletter publishing rather than those tools.