Elementor Review

In this Elementor review we look at four key factors to the buyer’s decision making process. This includes “Ease of use, Features, Pricing and Support”. So if you just want the quick overview of how Elementor performs here it is for you.

Elementor ranks highly across all four key metrics with a combination of ease of use, well designed templates, excellent marketer focused features like popup builder and advanced theme builder being just a few standout features.

Customer support is the only area we have marked Elementor down (as of October 2020) from its previous high of 95% as we have noticed response times of up to one week in some cases. However the response that would come was professional and helpful.

To further understand how we came to these numbers read the full review below.

Introducing Elementor

Elementor is a page builder for WordPress that allows you to create feature rich websites without any coding skills or even design skills with their included templates and blocks.

In this Elementor review we will discuss why it’s one of the highest rated WordPress plugins we have ever reviewed and what it allows you to create whether you are a professional or not.

Elementor have a generous free plugin you can download here to get you started and following along as you read this review.

Now let’s go into more details about what Elementor is and does.

What is Elementor?

Above we said that Elementor is a page builder for WordPress. However the term page builder doesn’t do Elementor justice because it could be more accurately termed “Website Builder”.

I highlight this distinction in terminology because most WordPress page builders focus on allowing you to design the pages and posts within WordPress but don’t give you the flexibility to design the other parts of your WordPress site.

For example the header, footer, sidebar and even to the miniscule detail of trying to customize the way comments look on your site. 

With any other WordPress page builder having full design freedom over the whole WordPress website will be difficult and in many cases downright impossible. With Elementor however it is possible to such a degree that you don’t even need a typical WordPress theme (nice cost saving right there) because Elementor gives you control over all areas of design with their “Theme Builder” feature.

So with that said can you now see why I say calling Elementor a page builder is misleading? Ok, let’s dive deeper into what this plugin can do including a quick tutorial on how you can get rid of your typical WordPress template using it.

But first let’s meet Elementor and the people behind it.

Elementor Founders

How to use Elementor?

The Elementor interface is easy to use through a combination of its drag and drop elements, pre-designed templates and blocks and it’s in-line editor. See this in action below.

Click graphics below to open larger image.

Elementor In-line editing

Drag and Drop Interface

Game-Changer Features

The brief overview of Elementor I give above is not its game changing feature though, many other page builders have in-line editing, drag and drop elements and templates. In fact all of them do.

What really separates Elementor apart is its ability to use the same interface illustrated above to create custom designed headers, footers, sidebars and archives. Now notice how I keep saying the plural because with Elementor you can have for example a sidebar for one type of post and a completely different sidebar for another category of post. Can I hear any of you thinking, “Higher conversion rates and clickthroughs” you betcha! 

This advanced feature of Elementor’s theme builder is controlled through something called Display conditions, which changes the element being shown to your reader based on where they are on your website. This level of control used to only be available when using multiple plugins working in unison and never with the ease of use and flexibility that Elementor allows.

Oh and the cherry on top, you can use these same display conditions for one of Elementor’s latest features Popups. Yep, yet again another plugin you don’t need to buy when you have Elementor.

Elementor Pricing

Now that you know how good Elementor is, the natural question is price and how it stacks up to the alternative WordPress page builder plugins.

There are three plans to choose from (identical in features – different in cost)

There are a few alternatives to Elementor and I will include the notable ones below.

• Beaver Builder (already compared above)
• Thrive Architect (Another excellent option focused at digital marketers)
• Visual Composer (Starting to feel a little dated compared to the two above)

About Beaver Builder

Let’s discuss a few key points to further differentiate between Elementor and Beaver Builder.

First the table says the pricing is per year but for both plugins you could just pay the fee one time get the Pro plugin and never need to pay again. The only downside is you will have outdated plugin two years from now.

Secondly you will notice that for Beaver Builder the table says that most features are included and that is because you don’t get the Beaver Builder Theme, multisite capability and white labelling. To get those three extra features the price jumps up to $399 per year for Beaver Builder Agency license.  

And finally you will notice I differentiate between Elementor as designer and marketer friendly and Beaver Builder as Agency friendly. The reason for this is because Elementor has a number of marketing focused features Beaver Builder doesn’t have like pop-ups and countdown timers for online shop sales etc.

However Beaver Builder for many professional design agencies is still their preference possibly because of the white labelling options available. If this is something important for you I’m sure Elementor could accomodate this feature either themselves or through a third party app like WPMU DEV Branda. 

Elementor Pros and Cons

Are there up-sells?

There is no upsell with Elementor.

As soon as you buy Pro, you are taken to your dashboard to download the Pro plugin. (Remember you will need the free plugin installed first for it to work).

The only hint of an up-sell will come when your license key expires in one year at which time you will need to renew to get access to further plugin updates and support. This is a common developer model today to keep the business profitable so that they can keep making the plugin better for you. So for as little as $49 for the single site license per year I think you will agree it’s a small investment to make.

That being said, they do not force you to renew your license if you don’t want to. You get to keep the current version of Elementor Pro you have and all the designs you have created; you don’t lose your data if your license expires.  

Conclusion

The biggest recommendation I can make is that we use Elementor ourselves for designing pages and posts on this website.

An even better recommendation is that we are now in the arduous process of converting all pages away from our previous page builder and converting all key pages to an Elementor design.

Why undertake such a painfully long process with a website with over 1,000 pages? The reason is simple, Elementor is hands down the best tool we have ever used with WordPress and it warrants the time and investment to convert all pages to it.

Get started with Elementor.

Is there an Elementor coupon code?

Elementor is known to have occasional coupon codes and special offers and unlike many other developers who only do Black Friday sales and never have any other offers, you will find that Elementor is a bit more generous in this regard when you are signed up to their newsletter.

For example last year Elementor released one of their best features and one I use every time I design in Elementor called copy and paste. Just right click and copy and paste an element just like you would in Photoshop its a huge time saver and Elementor knew it was a game changer at the time and to celebrate they offered a coupon code to their newsletter subscribers.

This is not the first time and it won’t be the last so make sure to download Elementor here and while you doing that add your email to their newsletter. You can expect to receive an email roughly every week which discusses the latest features and my personal favorite incredible videos of what people have designed using Elementor.

It’s mind blowing stuff what some designers are doing with Elementor and I guarantee you will never have seen it before from any other WordPress plugin.

That being said apart from the occassional Elementor coupon codes delivered via their newsletter, another good time is Black Friday where you will typically save 25-30% and this is the exact date I have for my license and support/updates renewals. Believe me you want to have this because the new features being released all the time are worth it to update your license to receive.