Joomag Review ▷ What is it all about?
It took us several weeks to struggle through the multitudinous digital publishing sites out there in order to get an idea of which one to use best. So here is a Joomag Review about our experience. Now that we tested most of them, we are going to tell you about two of our best finds – Joomag and our odds-on favorite magazine publishing platform YUMPU Publishing.
Table of contents:
What is Joomag?
Joomag, one of the sites like Issuu, is an online service that allows you to create and publish digital content such as e-books, online magazines, catalogs, brochures, help/support guides, corporate material and other digital content.
Joomag is similar to other online publishing solutions such as the Joomag competitors YUMPU Publishing, Issuu, Flipsnack or MagCloud in the sense that it also allows you to upload a PDF file or more and convert them into digital magazines.
During writing our Joomag review we noticed a difference between Joomag and most Joomag competitors.
This difference is that online publishing service Joomag adds interactivity to the digital magazines, like its competitor YUMPU Publishing does.
Both provide a rich set of new, free online features for designing, editing and publishing.
You can add links to share your magazine, include audio, and even video to your publications to enhance the user reading experience. This benefits your business and your customer.
Joomag Pricing
Joomag offers several price plans including Free, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
They also offer a 30-day money back guarantee on all their plans.
You can start off with the free to use version, to get familiar with the software and the services it provides, and evaluate it yourself without having to pay anything.
Free Version
Silver Plan
Gold Plan
Platinum Plan
$0/month
$15.95/month
$39.95 /month
$95.95/month
Free VersionSilver PlanGold PlanPlatinum Plan$0/month$15.95/month$39.95 /month$95.95/month
In the free version, you can upload PDF files, create links, and insert images, sound, and even video inside your digital magazine.
The Silver Plan costs $15.95/month and includes No Ads, Branding, and selling subscriptions.
The Gold Plan costs $39.95 /month and offers additional features including Native iOS and Android Support, Native iPad support, Multi-User Accounts, and HTML5 for Mobile with which readers can access your magazines directly on mobiles without any app.
The Platinum Plan is the most expensive and comprehensive plan, it costs $95.95/month and adds CRM, Mass Mailing, and Multi-Branding features.
Pros
After using and having experienced Joomag and conducting a Joomag review ourselves, we believe that Joomag offers the following benefits to you and your business:
set of templates & layouts
allows to create interactive content for your website
interactive features (video, audio,…)
create as many catalogues/books/magazines as you want
no restriction on number of pages
First and foremost, Joomag provides a comprehensive set of templates and layout for your digital magazine.
Arguably the best feature of Joomag is that it allows you to create interactive content for your website.
You can engage your reader with interactive features such as video, audio, chats, picture galleries, and even subscription and feedback forms to share.
Joomag allows you to create as many catalogues, books, and magazines as you possibly want.
Also, there is no restriction on the number of pages you can add to each book or magazine to share with your readers.
Cons
monthly fees if want to make content available on Ipad only
publications only available as in-app purchase
searching for publications within the app = challenging
A major drawback is that in order to make your content available on iPad only, you will need to pay additional monthly fees and get the Gold or Platinum plan.
Another disadvantage is that your publications are only available as an in-app purchase from inside the Joomag newsstand app available on the Apple app store, rather than directly as an app in the store.
This is somewhat limiting, as magazines/books available as apps for direct purchase from Apple store get more exposure and are more easily purchased as compared to the in-app purchase option provided by Joomag.
You will notice that searching for publications within the iPad app is quite challenging.
Conclusion
Considering the many online publishing platforms available out there, Joomag is a contender worth trying.
“However, in comparison with the Joomag alternative YUMPU Publishing, Joomag performs slightly worse.”
With YUMPU Publishing you have the possibility to embed your online publication anywhere (website, blog, web shop, social media like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ & Co., etc.).
Additionally, the content is optimized for all the mobile devices and submitted to search engines automatically.
As already mentioned, audio and video files as well as links can be integrated into your magazine to ensure interactivity.
Thanks for reading this new Joomag review. Be sure to check out some of our other articles: Joomag vs Issuu, Flipsnack review, Flipsnack alternatives, WordPress Issuu plugin and how does Issuu work.
About me
Hi,
I’m glad you found my blog! My name is Anna, and I am the author of Fine Art Doc. I work for a big advertising agency, and I am a graphic artist. I also run my own travel- and event based website about family activities, vacation locations, food-related events and much more. I love coffee and all things design!
thanks for the clear comparison. saves my time heaps browsing through the many others offers.
I’ll give YUMPU Publishing a shot. sounds like a great tool. Thanks for the tipp.
Our own corporate design is really important to us. Which provider would you recommend – YUMPU Publishing or joomag?
Hi Barry! I made better experiences with YUMPU Publishing. It’s the cheaper option (you only need to book the adfree plan for $19,95 per month (billed annually)) and you can adjust background colour, logo, favicon, domain, etc. PLUS you won’t have any third party advertising on your product.
So many publishing tools…! What is the most important factor you are looking for?
Hey hey Shella, of course you need to look at the big picture at the end. Sometimes you just don’t have the time and the nerves to check everything. Most important factor for me is: Where am I able to publish my magazines? As more possibilities as better (website, blog, web shop, social media, etc.). Then if the content is optimized for mobiles – and last but not least: Interactivity.
Anyone here who tried to embed a youtube video?
Yes I am working with YUMPU Publishing right now. I am really satisfied with this publishing tool. Everything is clear and understandable. For every feature you wanna add they have how-to videos. Really nothing can go wrong here.
Nice – you can insert videos and music on your online magazines! Need to try that out. Question is just which one should I take? Joomag or YUMPU Publishing…Anyone of you guys already worked with YUMPU Publishing or Joomag?
I agree. I am positively surpries about the simplicity the YUMPU Publishing tools offers. I made my online brochure in no time – 30 minutes max.!
On first glance, Joomag may look like a contender for publishing services. The reality is very different. As someone that utilized this platform for over 3 years, I can share that Joomag is not a publishing option that I would recommend to anyone long-term. Joomag has cost us time (and MONEY) due to inexperienced customer service reps and malfunctioning software. Both their subscription fees and hard copies are at a premium price — but they will REALLY get you with storage fees. And don’t expect to publish your magazine on your own time frame. If there are hiccups with publishing after their business hours, you are out of luck. If you do have a complaint about the premium-priced print-on-demand hard copies (and we’ve had many), Joomag will make you jump through hoops to have them provide a reprint. Yet, with each print-quality complaint, it was the same response, “We know there is a problem and are working on our hard copies and will improve our quality.” There was a time that Joomag would call me when they screwed up, but after a series of debacles that stalled our operations they decided that “phone calls weren’t their policy”. I would not recommend this platform to anyone that seeks dependability in their publishing platform — or desires attentive and responsive customer service. When I recently canceled my premium subscription (after 3+ years) due to numerous mistakes on their part, they slapped me with storage fees. Their “solution” was for me to pay up or delete past issues of the magazine…which is a scary proposition for any publication. Why would anyone want to publish with a company that cannot keep their software functioning properly? However, it gets worse — after we canceled our paid subscription with Joomag, they began to display ads for Joomag alongside all of our previous magazines – magazines that we paid to have NO ads in them. This breached our agreement with them, as our contract with them included NO ads for Joomag. Joomag is just not a long-term option for any serious magazine publisher. We ended up purchasing our own software rather than be a slave to this racket. It’s disheartening to know how Joomag treats their “valued customers”. After 3 and a half years, our business was of no value to Joomag. Joomag has damaged us and our reputation with our readers.
Hey Kiki, thanks for letting us know your experience with Joomag – I am sure this will help other readers to decide whether it’s worth to try this platform or not! I also do think that there are better publishing solutions out there than Joomag. May I ask which publishing tool you are using now? I switched to YUMPU, after trying out many different software like Joomag, Issuu,… as this one, so far offers everything I need.
The Silver Plan is enough for me right now and while YUMPU Publishing is nice and free, I still like Joomag better. Thanks for writing this Joomag review.
Joomag is pretty great; I just happen to prefer YUMPU Publishing.
The free and silver plan is nothing to write home about (especially when comparing them to the free YUMPU Publishing) but things get interesting when you get the Gold plan and beyond. Those plans are worth it if you ask me.
Depending on your requirements the Golden plan of Joomag can be pretty good compared to other publishing platform plans.
I would rather pay $15 monthly or more to get rid of those annoying ads that populate most free flipbook creators. I can’t stand having to see the ads.
The ads are sometimes bothersome and you can easily get rid of them in YUMPU Publishing and in other flipbook creators by paying a small amount.
It’s a real shame that their searching for publications within the app is so challenging. I’ve seen a lot better and I don’t understand why they aren’t investing more time and money into improving this.
Gabriel, yes, that is a real shame. It’s sometimes very difficult to find what you want.
Joomag is pretty nice but it can never compare to YUMPU Publishing in my opinion. I’ve tested both of them and the clear winner is YUMPU Publishing: easier to use, much more features and the end results are better looking.
Lily I agree with all your remarks. YUMPU is great yet some people like Joomag or other similar products better. I guess it’s a matter of personal taste.
No restriction on the numbers of pages – this feature here is very important. I have long flipbooks and was tired to get all sorts of restrictions from other companies.
There’s nothing as annoying as reaching a page limit, is there?
When I started reading your review, Joomag looked pretty cool but when I saw the cons it has, I immediately wanted to go back to my good first choice YUMPU Publishing. I like YUMPU Publishing but that doesn’t mean others can’t be good too so I’m also looking around to see what other things I find.
While Joomag does indeed have cons, it has a lot of pros as well that make up for it. Choosing between this and YUMPU Publishing is a matter of choosing the features you need now.
You have to pay a monthly fee to make content available on iPad only!? What!? Why would they do that? It makes no sense to me!
I also dislike that they’ve done this. This should be free.
Joomag is a good Issuu alternative but I don’t think it’s better than YUMPU Publishing. YUMPU Publishing is probably the best out there, paid or free!
YUMPU Publishing is appropriate for most people. It offers a huge range of features, so there is something for everyone and every need.