PugPig and MobiLoud are both solutions to help digital publishers get their content to readers in custom mobile apps.
But what’s the difference between them? Which is right for you?
In this article we’re going to give you a rundown of each, look at the key features, check the pricing and see what previous customers say.
By the end you’ll have an overview of both services - and see why:
- Pugpig is an excellent solution for digital edition-based publishing
- MobiLoud is perfect for established WordPress publishers and news sites who want a premium mobile app to deliver their content to readers through a stream of articles
Let's get right into it and take a look at Pugpig.
What is Pugpig?
PugPig is a company that provides tools and platforms for digital media brands.
For our purposes, their main solution is called Pugpig Publish, which powers edition-based digital magazine apps for some very high profile publishers. They also have a product called Pugpig Bolt, which we’ll also take a look at.
Let's explore how you’d go about building a news app with Pugpig.
How it works
As we can see, the solution is made up of three main parts:
- Authoring Service
- Distribution Service
- Client Framework
Now let’s take a look at each.
1) ‘Authoring Service’ where you create your content
Pugpig has three tiers of customer - Express, Pro and Connect.
The authoring service will take a different form depending on which of the three you're using.
Pugpig Express
Express is the entry-level product. The UI of the authoring service is a custom instance of WordPress, and so will be familiar to many users. You also get an account on the multi-tenanted distribution service completely managed and supported by Pugpig.
Once up and running, publishers can use Pugpig Express Theme to create responsive content that will later be pushed to reader’s devices.
The theme is responsive HTML with a set of predefined content types such as articles, ads, content pages and covers.
There’s also a range of layouts, skins, fonts and colors to customize the feel of your work.
You have the option to add small changes to the HTML, to upload custom CSS, and to create custom post types like recipes and film reviews. No server side code can be used and it’s not possible to upload custom plugins or themes.
Pugpig Professional
Pro is a fully dedicated instance of the authoring service, that allows users to upload custom plugins, themes and modules using WordPress or Drupal as a CMS. The whole thing is completely hosted, managed and patched by Pugpig.
Pro users also get a staging CMS so they can test code changes and updates before going live. This is clearly suitable to publishers that need a highly customized and bespoke solution for their content creation.
Pugpig Connect
Connect allows you to hook up your own CMS to the Pugpig distribution service and through the app containers to digital editions. A connector is installed in your CMS, available for WordPress and Drupal - or there’s an option to write a custom connector through the Pugpig API.
This is pretty useful if you already have a tried and true workflow for your content creation, and want to make use of Pugpig just for the distribution side of things without changing things up too much.
2) ‘Distribution Service’ - where you manage your apps and fill them with content
Now the content has been created in the authoring service or your own CMS, it's time to push it to your apps with the distribution service.
The distribution service is fully hosted and managed - and automatically pulls new editions and updates from whatever authoring service you’ve hooked it up to. It also updates automatically with any new features or functionality.
Through the dashboard you can get an overview of what’s going on with your apps across the different stores, and what’s in the publishing pipeline.
Here’s where you also:
- Manage your analytics
- Send push notifications
- Manage subscriptions
- Manage advertising
- Add extra content like puzzles and quizzes
3) ‘Client Framework’ - choose a front-end for readers to buy, download, read and interact with your content
Now everything has been created and customized with the authoring service and prepped with all the necessities through the distribution dashboard, it’s time to serve the polished content to readers through the app containers in the client framework.
There are two options relevant to our discussion:
A) Publish - for magazines
This app container is appropriate for publishers with an edition-based workflow. Publish your editions on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The UI and feature set allow readers to download latest editions or back issues, and can be customized narrowly according to your requirements.
B) Bolt - for continuous content flows
This app container has a UI suitable for regularly updated content, similar in style to a social media timeline. You can use a variety of widgets to add content to reader’s feeds such as: video, articles, audio, quizzes and surveys.
This can be a good strategy for serving quick and easy content to readers and building habits tied to your brand.
Now we've gone through how Pugpig works and the various options for publishers - let's take a look at their pricing.
Pugpig Pricing
Pugpig operates on a tiered pricing structure depending on size and volume
Summary
We’ve now had a high level overview of what Pugpig offers publishers. Their solution is certainly a success, proved by their roster of high profile clients like The Sun, The Independent and The Economist.
So who are they ideally suited to?
They are great for successful digital magazine or newspaper publishers - with a budget - who want high-powered Apps to serve their editions to readers through iOS and Android.
PugPig is a service that primarily helps established publishers to modernize and get on their readers home screens, whilst keeping a similar "format" - daily, weekly, monthly editions through responsive HTML.
Through Bolt, brands can also serve a stream of continuous content to readers through various mediums. This is positioned as something that can work synergistically with a digital edition app to fill in the gaps between editions and offer a “quick fix” to readers.
Now it’s time to move on to our service, MobiLoud, and see why it’s the ideal solution for dynamic, WordPress based content and news publishers.
What is MobiLoud?
MobiLoud is for publishers and content creators who’ve already built a presence with their WordPress site, and want to build off their success to create a strong native channel.
We take your existing website and convert it into a native app for iOS and Android. The apps will sync 100% with your existing site - and will have a UX and feature set just as good as the apps from top publisher like The New York Times.
Like PugPig, MobiLoud powers the apps of top publishers. For example, we built the Foreign Policy apps - check them out.
We take care of building you top class news apps customized to your exact needs. The same apps developed natively would cost $100,000, you get them for no upfront fee. We'll prepare and test them, submit them to the App Stores, and help you to promote and market the apps to ensure a successful launch. After launch we handle all ongoing updates, customizations and maintenance - saving you thousands more every year.
This comes at a manageable monthly cost starting at $298 per month, with a one-time setup fee starting at $1,500.
Learn more about our pricing here.
We are a full service rather than a platform or set of tools - with everything done for you from start to finish without you needing to touch a line of code.
You don’t need to worry about any technicalities of the build process, and pushing content to the app couldn’t be easier - so your time and energy is freed up to focus on creating great content for your readers.
Let’s take a look at the process.
How does it work?
The first step is to have a consultation with our app experts. Together we’ll go over your vision and requirements for your app.
When everything’s clear, we’ll get to work on building it. Maybe you’ve heard stories about app development projects taking months, being stressful to manage, and bills running over budget.
Our service makes these worries non-issues - we provide a no stress, no hassle solution.
Your app will be ready to test and preview within a matter of days, and ready to publish in just a couple of weeks.
Throughout the process you’ll have plenty of chances to add any customizations you like - you can also use all your existing WordPress plugins, which will work exactly the same as they do on your site.
When it’s ready, you'll have the chance to preview the app to make sure you’re totally happy. Then we’ll publish it to the App Stores.
Apple and Google are known to have quite strict rules for publishing apps. You can rest easy through this process. We have a vast experience navigating these gateways and we’ll make sure your apps sail through. We’ll also handle any ongoing updates as needed.
The end result
You’ll have elegant and feature rich apps ready for your readers to enjoy your content through - and a powerful new channel that will drive real results for your brand.
Your life will be easier thanks to our deep integration with WordPress.
You’ll use your existing WordPress install and manage everything through a simple plugin that sits in your admin panel. All legacy content can be rapidly dropped into the app which will automatically update with anything new you publish.
Past clients love our apps and how we’ve helped them to:
- Boost traffic and engagement, growing their brand
- Make more money through increased ad revenue
- Get a top quality native app with minimal time, expense and stress
Key features
- Save time - get to market in weeks rather than months
- No Risk - anyone else (including PugPig), would want tens of thousands of dollars to build you apps like this. With MobiLoud, it costs low four figures up front, and you get a 60-day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied.
- Own your brand and keep what works - completely white labeled and styled to your exact specifications
- Increase engagement with recently published content - Use rich push notifications to notify your audience automatically when you publish new content or manually whenever you see fit
- Make money by growing your Ad revenue - We’re fully integrated with Admob, Mopub, Facebook Audience Network and more
- Manage your app easily - through our simple but powerful WP plug-in
- Peace of mind, no stress - our tried and tested solution takes all the hassle out of your end. It has worked wonderfully for hundreds of clients and it will work for you too
What do our customers say?
Building high performance apps that perfectly sync with existing WordPress operations is a key goal for our customers.
Writing on Capterra, Stephan W recalls:
“MobiLoud was all about getting content out of WordPress and into a native app specifically branded for us - this was by far the most important thing for us”
We keep our clients happy by providing this exact outcome. John M, co-founder of a digital media company and longtime MobiLoud customer, agrees:
“It just works. We can use our existing WordPress install and have our material presented in a beautiful way on both iOS and Android....... We worked for a year trying to create our own app - and then decided to go with MobiLoud and haven't looked back. We've been happy customers for over three years and our readers love our iOS and Android apps”
Others love how simply and effectively they can manage their new app. Josh G, a digital publisher, loves the:
“Simple to navigate the backend, great at sending alerts and notifications”
He goes on to talk about how he “needed a bit of help on some advanced customizations - however the team was extremely easy to work with……. EXCELLENT customer service. They made sure I was totally satisfied which I appreciate”
Our customer service is personalised, fast and never leaves your side. If you check out our reviews on capterra you’ll notice the quality of our support is a common thread.
Stephan W, a Vice President of Client Services was happy with our service standards - calling them “amazing” and adding that our team “work tirelessly to ensure you are happy with your apps. We can't recommend MobiLoud enough”
MobiLoud Pricing
MobiLoud comes at a manageable monthly subscription, together with a one-time setup fee that covers the work we do to configure, build and publish your apps.
Choose from these plans:
- Startup: $350 per month (paid monthly), $298 per month (paid annually), $1,500 setup fee.
- Growth: $650 per month (paid monthly), $553 per month (paid annually), $2,500 setup fee.
For larger publishers, custom plans are available to suit your needs.
This pricing model massively reduces the risk of building an app, by removing the huge investment you face when using a platform like PugPig, or having an app custom-built.
Speak to one of our app experts to learn more.
MobiLoud vs Pugpig
As we’ve seen, PugPig and MobiLoud serve different types of publisher.
PugPig is a platform for edition-based digital publishers, with additional options for delivering a constant feed of content to readers. You get the tools to create HTML-based digital editions through their authoring service - publish them through native app containers for your readers, and manage the app going forward. PugPig operate on a tiered pricing structure.
MobiLoud is for WordPress publishers and news sites - not magazine publishers - and only creates apps that deliver a continuous feed of content to readers. We take your pre-existing content and deliver it in mobile app format - ensuring less work for WordPress focused publishers and requiring no duplication of effort. We give you all the tools you need to manage your app and we take care of all future maintenance and updates. We operate on a revenue share model.
We hope this article has been informative and helpful. If you run a successful WordPress site and you’re ready to seriously grow your brand - book a demo call with one of our app experts and let’s build something great together.
