Divi Builder is maybe the best WordPress page builder plugin for agencies. We said so because its license allows you to use it for as many websites as you want. In other words, you can create websites for all your clients with only a single license. Each website can have a unique API key for update needs as well. If you want to use it for a personal use, you might love the fact that the licensing applied by Elegant Themes (the developer of Divi Builder) also allows you to download two useful WordPress marketing plugins: Bloom and Monarch.
Are there other reasons to use Divi Builder? Read on to learn more.
Divi Builder: The Intro
Divi Builder is a WordPress plugin developed by Elegant Themes. The plugin was initially only available for Divi and Extra, two premium WordPress themes developed by Elegant Themes. In 2015, Elegant Themes announced that its page builder was available as a standalone plugin. Meaning that you can use it on any WordPress theme, not limited to Divi and Extra anymore.
One crucial thing you need to know. Divi and Divi Builder are two different products. Divi (just “Divi”) is a WordPress theme while Divi Builder is a page builder plugin. If you prefer to use Divi Builder on the Divi theme (and Extra theme), you don’t need to install the standalone Divi Builder plugin as it is available as an integral part of those two themes. If you install Divi theme or Extra theme on your WordPress site, Divi Builder is automatically available on your site.
Are there differences between Divi Builder as a standalone plugin and Divi Builder as a built-in feature of Divi theme and Extra theme? Nope. At all.
Divi Builder is released as a premium plugin. Elegant Themes offers two options to get it: with a yearly subscription ($89 per year) and a one-time purchase option ($249). As we said in the opening section, the license applied by Elegant Themes allows you to use its products (including Divi Builder) on unlimited websites, make it a great option for agencies.
Divi Builder: The Features
Visual editor is the main feature offered by page builder plugins. Divi Builder is no exception. With it, you can create a beautiful page without needing to deal with CSS or HTML. Everything is drag and drop. It also comes with a theme builder feature which you can use to create custom templates for the header, footer, and other parts of your site. Here are the features you will get.
— Visual Editor
You will have a visual editor to edit your post or page in a visual way. You just need to add the elements you need and then make the customization accordingly. In Divi Builder, elements fall into 3 types:
- Section: Represented in a blue
- Column: Represented in a green
- Module: Represented in a grey
Clicking the gear icon on each element will open a panel where you can make the customization and styling. To add a new element, you can click the plus button.
If you work on a long page, there is also a handy feature you can make use of — Layers View — to make it easier for you to jump between elements on your page. You can use the feature to jump to a certain section, column, or even module in a single click instead of making a long, deep scroll.
— Theme Builder
Divi Builder was initially a mere page builder plugin. It had no feature to create a custom header template or a custom footer template like it is today until version 4.0 was introduced in 2019. Since version 4.0, you could create custom templates to replace the default templates of your theme thanks to its Theme Builder feature. This is great as you can create a fully customized website without coding. You can create custom templates using its visual editor. The theme parts you can create the custom fields of are:
- Header
- Footer
- Single post template
- Archive pages (category page and tags page)
- Author page
- 404 page
- Search results page
If you use WooCommerce, you can also create custom templates for the single product page, product category page, and other WooCommerce pages.
The Theme Builder feature supports display conditions, allowing you to assign a certain custom template to a specific page(s) or post(s). You can, for instance, create a custom single post template and assign it to posts under a specific category, a specific tag, a specific author, and so on.
— Dynamic Content
The ability to add dynamic content is a crucial enough feature you need to notice when selecting a WordPress page builder. Today, most page builder plugins come with this feature, including Divi Builder. You can add dynamic content — whether the default WordPress dynamic content types such as featured image, post title, post meta, and so on — or custom fields you created with Advanced Custom Fields.
The ability to add dynamic content is especially should be your priority if you plan to use the Theme Builder feature as it will allow you to add the required elements such as post title, post meta, site logo, site title, and so on.
— Premade Layouts
You have two options to create a page using Divi Builder. First, you can create the page from scratch. You can choose this option if you have your own design concept. Second, you can create the page from a premade layout. A premade layout contains predefined elements (sections, columns, and modules). If you want to create a page from a layout, you can simply import one and then tailor the default content (images, texts, and so on) with your own ones. This is a saver time way to create a page with Divi Builder. Also, it is a great option if you have no idea about the concept of the design you want to create.
Divi Builder provides the layouts in packs. A layout pack is a set of premade layouts designed specifically for a certain website type. A layout pack can consist of 4 to 8 premade layouts. There are over 180 layout packs offered in total (over 1,300 layouts).
— Modules
Modules are the actual design elements you will use to create a page and other design types (templates and posts) in general. Compared to other page builders, say Elementor, the modules offered by Divi Builder tend to fewer (read: Elementor vs Divi). It offers only 39 native modules as follows:
| Accordion | Email Optin | Pricing Tables |
| Audio | Filterable Portfolio | Search |
| Bar Counters | Gallery | Shop |
| Blog | Image | Sidebar |
| Blurb | Login | Slider |
| Button | Map | Social Media Follow |
| Call to Action | Menu | Tabs |
| Circle Counter | Number Counter | Testimonial |
| Code | Person | Text |
| Comments | Portfolio | Toggle |
| Contact Form | Post Navigation | Video |
| Countdown Timer | Post Slider | Video Slider |
| Divider | Post Title | Icon |
If you need more modules, you can visit Divi Marketplace to discover Divi plugins developed by third-party developers. Some plugins, like Divi Supreme and Divi Essential, offers a set of modules to allow you to add more creative elements to a page.
In addition to the modules above, Divi Builder also offers dedicated modules for WooCommerce. The WooCommerce modules will only show up if you have WooCommerce installed and activated on your WordPress site. Here are the Divi Builder modules for WooCommerce:
| Woo Breadcrumbs | Woo Notice | Woo Product Rating |
| Woo Cart Products | Woo Product Add To Cart | Woo Product Reviews |
| Woo Cart Totals | Woo Product Description | Woo Product Stock |
| Woo Checkout Billing | Woo Product Gallery | Woo Product Tabs |
| Woo Checkout Details | Woo Product Images | Woo Product Title |
| Woo Checkout Information | Woo Product Information | Woo Product Upsell |
| Woo Checkout Payment | Woo Product Meta | Woo Products |
| Woo Checkout Shipping | Woo Product Price | Woo Related Products |
| Woo Cross Sells |
— Third-Party Integration
If you use tools like HubSpot, Mailchimp, MailerLite, or similar tools, you can also integrate your account with your website. Divi Builder supports integration with those third-party tools. You can integrate your account using the Email Optin module. Here is the list of the third-party tools and services you can integrate Divi Builder with:
- ActiveCampaign
- Aweber
- CampaignMonitor
- ConstantContact
- ConvertKit
- Emma
- Feedblitz
- FeedBurner
- GetResponse
- HubSpot
- iContact
- Infusionsoft
- MadMini
- Mailchimp
- MailerLite
- MailPoet
- Mailster
- Ontraport
- SalesForce
- SendinBlue
— Global Elements
The ability to add a global element is another handy feature offered by Divi Builder to streamline your workflow. It is another time-saver feature offered by the page builder.
What is a global element?
Say you want to create a website that consists of 8 pages. On each page, you want to add a button that has exactly the same style (color, behavior, typography, size, and so on). Instead of making the styling on each button on each page — which is very time consuming –, you can create a global button. By creating a global button, you only need to make the styling once. If you make a change to the global button, the change will be applied to all pages it is added to.
Divi Builder allows you to create a global item for all elements (section, column, and module).
— Display Conditions
The Display Conditions of Divi Builder allows you to control the visibility of your content. You can show or hide certain elements on your page by certain parameters such as user login status, user role, web browsers, operating system, date and time, cookie, and so on. You can apply a Display Condition to all Divi Builder elements. Be it section, column, or module. The Display Conditions of Divi Builder supports the following parameters:
- Login Status
- User Role
- Web Browser
- Operating System
- Cookie
- Date and Time
- Page Visit
- Post Visit Product Purchase
- Cart Contents
- Number of Views
- Post Information
- Website Location
You can read this post to learn more about the feature.
— Background Pattern and Mask
Background pattern and background mask started available in Divi 4.15.0. The features allow you to add extra decorations to a background. Be it a section background, column background or module background. Divi offers 20+ background patterns you can choose from. They are available in a vector format so that you can scale them without compromising the quality of the pattern image.
Background mask, just like the name suggests, allows you to add a layer mask to your background. There are 20+ mask shapes to choose from and you can set things like aspect ratio, color, and blend mode when adding a mask to your background.
Both background pattern and background mask can be accessed from Content tab on the settings panel. You can open the Background settings block to access them.
— Advanced Gradient Builder
Elegant Themes introduced a new feature in 4.16. The feature allows you to create a gradient that consists of more than two colors. In version 4.15 and the older versions, you could add only maximum of two colors on a gradient.
Since version 4.16, when creating a multi-color gradient, you can set any stop for the second color, third color, fourth color, and so on. Also, you have your gradient to choose from:
- Linear
- Circular
- Elliptical
- Conial
— Custom CSS
Although Divi Builder already comes with a bunch of styling options to style up elements, some styles can only be achieved via custom CSS.
In Divi Builder, custom CSS can be added to every element. From section, row, column, to module. Unlike, for instance Elementor, you don’t need to add a selector to target a certain element part. All you need is to directly add the CSS properties and values to the CSS editor.
To start adding custom CSS, you can go to the Advanced tab on the settings panel and open the Custom CSS block.
The fields available on the Custom CSS block depends on the element you are editing. Each field here represents the part of the element you can style. For instance, if you are editing the Blurb module, you will get 6 fields.
Divi Builder allows you to add custom CSS to both the normal state and hover state. To add custom CSS to hover state, you can click the cursor icon right above the CSS editor.
Divi CSS editor of Divi comes with the following features:
- Color Picker
- Auto Complete and Suggestions
- Error Reporting
- Multi-Select
- Search, Find and Replace
If you often use custom CSS on your Divi projects, you can save your CSS code snippets to Divi Cloud so that you can access them from any website you build with Divi.
Additional Products and Services from Elegant Themes
— Divi Marketplace
Divi Marketplace is an official marketplace introduced by Elegant Themes in 2020. On this platform, Divi creators (developers and designers) can sell their products, while regular Divi users can buy the products they need. On Divi Marketplace, you can get Divi products like:
- Plugins
- Child themes
- Premade layouts
Divi Marketplace is a platform dedicated to Divi community. Elegant Themes promised to not sell their own products on the platform.
— Divi Cloud
You can think of Divi Cloud like Dropbox whereby you can store your files on the cloud and access them from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. But unlike Dropbox, Divi Cloud is designed specifically to store Divi assets. On Divi Cloud, you can store Divi assets such as layouts (be it page layouts, section layouts, or module layouts), code snippets, theme builder templates, and so on.
Divi Cloud is available as a freemium service. All Elegant Themes members — be it new or old — can store their Divi assets for free for up 50 items. To store more items, you need to pay extra fee.
— Divi Teams
Working with a team? You can try Divi Teams, then. Divi Teams is a cloud-based collaboration tool introduced by Elegant Themes in late 2022. In Divi Teams, you can invite your team members and grant them access to your Divi products.
Some permissions you can grant to your team members are:
- Billing access
- Theme and plugin download
- API key access
- Divi cloud access
- Marketplace item download
Divi Teams is a paid service. You will be charged a $1.5 monthly fee per team member.
— Divi Hosting
Elegant Themes teams up with several premium WordPress hosting providers to provide hosting service designed specifically for Divi. The program is called Divi Hosting. The resources of Divi Hosting are optimized for Divi to make sure your Divi-powered WordPress site run seamlessly.
In Divi Hosting, all plans are pre-installed with Divi. In other words, you don’t need to buy Divi separately. Some hosting providers teaming with Elegant Themes on the Divi Hosting program are:
- Flywheel
- Pressable
- Cloudways
- SiteGround
— Divi VIP
The Elegant Themes support has been excellent. They always try to fix any issue you consult. If your issue can’t be solved via chat, they will grant temporary access to your website to find the issue themselves (without asking for your username and password). You can give the Elegant Themes support team remove access from the Support Center menu within your WordPress dashboard.
If you can’t way to get things fixed, you can try Divi VIP.
Divi VIP is a service from Elegant Themes that offers exclusive treatments to users. Two main exclusive treatments you will get are:
- Faster support. Your queries will be answered within 30 minutes
- 10% off on Divi Marketplace
Divi VIP is a premium service. Once you subscribed, everyone on your team (even your clients) will get the same treatment as you are.
The Bottom Line: Divi Builder Review
Overall, Divi Builder is a great page builder plugin. It allows you to create beautiful pages on your WordPress site without dealing with CSS. The ability to create custom templates for header, footer, and so on is another selling point. The biggest downside of Divi Builder probably is its limited modules collection. As a comparison, Elementor offers over 90 modules (called widgets) while Brizy offers 42 modules (called elements). But as long as the offered modules can cover your needs, it is not a serious problem.
The licensing applied by Elegant Themes is the most compelling selling point, especially if you work for a web agency. With a single license, you can use Divi Builder (and other Elegant Themes products) to build as many sites as you want, which is great to cut off the production cost.
Pros:
- Great navigation feature on the visual editor
- Complete enough features
- Not limited to a certain theme
- Compelling licensing, especially for web agencies
- Open ecosystem
Cons:
- Lack of modules
- No built-in flexbox. Need extra effort to create a website with complex layout
48 thoughts on “Divi Builder. The Perfect WordPress Page Builder Plugin for Agencies in 2023”
So Divi has a built-in advanced gradient builder? It’s cool, then.
Divi advanced gradient builder feature is so underrated
Thanks for revealing all the Divi features. After using it for a while, I agree with you that Divi Builder is a bit heavier than its competitors, but it’s not a huge problem for me. What bothers me more is that I need to install a plugin only to add a star rating 😪
No need installing a plugin. Just follow these steps:
Step 1: Add the Icon module. Select the star icon and set the color
Step 2: Go to the Advanced tab and open Custom CSS block. Paste this snippet to the Main Element field. The snippet:
display: inline;Step 3: Duplicate the module according to the number of stars you want to add.
Brilliant. Thanks for the solution!
Hi Leah,
You can read this post for more detailed instructions 😀 https://www.wppagebuilders.com/create-star-rating-in-divi-without-plugin/
I think Divi should make it easier for us to set the flexblox layout. It will allow us to create more complex layouts without dealing with CSS
Divi is the best value for money builder on the market at the moment. Especially for agencies and freelancers.
Agreed. Divi is not perfect, but it is by far the best option for a freelancer like me. I just need to pay once to use Divi on all my clients’ websites. Plus, Divi has a very well-established ecosystem compared to other builders.
Exactly. Also, their technical support is second to none
version 5 will be a massive step for Divi. Can’t wait for it
Although Divi Builder can be installed on any theme, I strongly recommend using the Divi theme instead as you don’t need to install an extra plugin to use the builder. Why installing two different WP products when you can achieve it with a single product?
Anyways, the technical support provided by Elegant Themes is outstanding. They may not be quite as fast to respond that they used to be, but still pretty darn quick to answer a question in a friendly supportive way.
Lifetime membership is the reason why I prefer using Divi over Elementor. Also, the technical support approach adopted by Divi is way more interesting to me. Unlike Elementor that provides supports via email only, Divi offers two ways to get help. First, you can use the life chat. Second, you can use temporary remote access to allow Divi support team to figure out the issue on your site by themselves. So far, I’ve always found the Divi tech team super helpful.
And they still have Divi VIP for more instant responses.
Indeed. The Elegant Themes technical support is second to none.
A lot to learn but the support team are outstanding. I haven’t done web design for years and coming back to Divi, the support I’ve been receiving from the team has been thorough. Very much appreciated!
I give my 5-star rating to their technical support team. But seriously, Divi needs to improve their lack of layout options. Too many CSS snippets involved for simple layouts such as placing two elements side by side. I bet those migrating from Elementor will be frustrated using Divi.
What bothers me most about Divi Builder is the requirement to click a button on the settings panel every time we are done make news changes. When you forget to click the button before clicking the close button, you need to start everything from the start.
Just like the writer suggests, Divi is by far the best option for WP agencies and freelancers wanting to create clients’ websites with a page builder. People argue that Divi features are far behind Elementor. That’s completely right. But what have Divi been offering are so far enough for me. The problem with feature-oriented builders like Elementor is that they often release unstable features. I still remember when Elementor released its new theme builder interface which broke many websites post-update.
I personally fine with the slow-paced development of Divi. They have been working for over 2 years for Divi 5. It’s long *sigh* but again I have no complain at all. One of the things I’ve noticed improvement on is the transparency and more regular progress updates, which I’m sure the community appreciates. What I really hope is that they won’t change the business model after Divi 5 release. Hope they never remove the lifetime plan.
Divi 5 will be a massive update. Can’t wait!
Hello Aliko. Thanks for the comprehensive review. I have one question. Is Divi compatible with Pods?
Hi. Yes, Divi is compatible with Pods, just like ACF.
The author is right. Divi is the best option for WordPress agencies. The permission to install Divi on unlimited websites with only a single license is what agencies really need. I’ve just started my agency business and Divi lifetime membership is a budget saver.
As a freelancer, there have been a lot of subscriptions fees I need to pay on a regular basis. From hosting, domain, Photoshop, to Freepik. So, to find a page builder that offers a lifetime membership is like finding oasis in the desert. Not objected at all to spend a bit more bucks upfront. Really appreciate Elegant Themes for preserving their lifetime membership.
Is it possible to add shortcode in Divi?
Hi Alice,
You can add shortcode using either the Code module or Text module.
Hat off to Elegant Themes for not rolling out useless features to Divi. Also, their lifetime membership plan is simply unbeaten.
Exactly the reasons why I prefer using Divi over Elementor.
I am a blogger owning 10+ websites and find Divi is the best-suited solution for me. No need to install an bunch of plugins to add contact form, create custom header and footer. I love using Divi as it offers a one-time purchase option.
What I love most about Divi is that all the features added are based on functionality. No gimmick. Have no problem with its slow-paced development cycle as it a bootstrapped business typical.
Elegant Themes should add built-in options to add numeric pagination on the Blog module and more layout options to be really unbeaten.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s so frustrating that we got to install an extra plugin to add numeric pagination.
Hello. Thanks for the comprehensive writing. I have one question. Does Divi have a feature to allow users access editor without being able to edit the design?
Hi Rick,
Yes. Divi has the feature, called Role Editor
Indeed. Divi Builder is the best solution for WP agencies and freelancers that rely on page builder. Lifetime membership, third-party extensions, excellent support. These are crucial for sustainable business.
Does anyone notice that Divi has a built-in SEO feature that no reviewers even mention? It allows you to add custom title as well as custom description for SEO. No need to install a bloated SEO plugin.
Thanks for the addition, Sylvain. Just want to make it clear that the feature is only available on Divi theme. The standalone Divi Builder plugin doesn’t have the feature.
Always impressed with how Elegant Themes handle users’ complain. No middle man. However, I also think they desperately need to make improvement if they don’t want to get left ever further, given aggressive improvements by other competitors. Layout options is the main issue Elegant Themes needs to address. Hope they bring new things after Divi 5 update.
Couldn’t agree more. Hope Nick and team will bring many new features, layout-related in particular, after Divi 5 update. Divi is still the best option for a freelancer like me.
The Elegant Themes support team never let me down. Always get my issues fixed no matter the level.
Always impressed with how Elegant Themes treat the community. Their most recent decision to allow users to disable AI is yet another proof they grant users a complete freedom to use the tool according to users’ needs. Pretty sure not every user welcome AI warmly. Especially those taking care of client’s sites.
Elegant Themes’ move on AI deserves massive respect.
The Elegant Themes support team is super reliable. Always.
They need to make many improvements on the Blog module. I am tired of installing a plugin every time I want to add numbered pagination on my blog page.
Yes. Divi is the best option for agencies and freelancers working with WP. Its support is the most reliable one in the WP scene. No third-party. A bit lack of features compared to competitors. Hope they will add many new features after the Divi 5 release.
Contacted the Elegant Themes support and they always try their best solving every issue I ask. All without involving a third-party. Unlike the other page builder that relies on third-party support.
Elegant Themes support is simply outstanding. The Divi product itself is great for a freelance web developer like me as I can get it with a one-time purchase option. This is crucial to save yearly expense as I also use other paid plugins on every website I built, which mostly charge me on a yearly basis.
An Amazon affiliate blogger here. I can’t find a better solution than Divi for my 10+ blogs. Their lifetime membership is super worth it to me, allows me to save my yearly expense. Also, I don’t need install a single plugin for basic feature and functionality and contact form, email subscription form, CTA, etc.