Elementor Free vs Elementor Pro: Detailed Features Comparison

Page builder plugins are a new revolution in web creation. With a page builder installed on your WordPress, you will be able to create a beautiful website without writing any single line of code. With over 10 million active installations, Elementor it the most-used page builder plugin for WordPress.

Elementor itself is a freemium plugin. While you can use it for free, there are lots of benefits you will get by using the pro version. Before upgrading to Elementor Pro, you might be wondering, what are the differences between Elementor Free and Elementor Pro? Read on. This post will get you covered.

In general, what makes Elementor Pro different to Elementor Free are the offered features. Elementor Pro, of course, offers more features than Elementor Free. The following are the Elementor Pro features that are not available on the Elementor Free.

• Pro Widgets
• Theme Builder
• Popup Builder
• WooCommerce Builder
• Third-party Tool Integrations
• Pro Templates

Let’s cover them by one.

Elementor Free vs Elementor Pro: Widgets

Just like other page builder plugins, Elementor also comes with a visual drag-and-drop interface. To create a page, you just need to drag the widgets from the widget panel (panel on the left side) to the canvas area. With Elementor Free, you only have access to about 30 widgets while with Elementor Pro, you have access to over 90 widgets.

Crucial widgets like Form, Call to Action, Posts, and Nav Menu are only available on the Elementor Pro. The following are the widgets offered by Elementor Free and Elementor Pro.

Elementor Free Widgets

Elementor Pro Widgets

All widgets on Elementor Free plus:

WooCommerce widgets will only appear if you have WooCommerce installed and activated on your WordPress.

With more widgets, you will be more flexible when creating a web page. Please note that the table above doesn’t list all widgets available on Elementor Pro. We only select key widgets. If you use Yoast, for instance, a Breadcrumbs widget is also available on Elementor Pro.

Theme Builder

Before the page builder era, it’s only a dream for a WordPress user who has no programming skill to create a theme. To create a WordPress theme, you have to master PHP, CSS, and HTML. These days, the vast majority of WordPress themes also use JavaScripts scripts. Today, this era is over thanks to page builders. Most page builder plugins, including Elementor, come with a theme builder feature. In Elementor, Theme Builder is only available on the pro version.

If you ever noticed, a WordPress theme consists of the following parts:

• Header
• Footer
• Single post template
• 404 page
• Category page
• Author page
• Tags page
• And so on

The Theme Builder feature of Elementor allows you to create those key parts above.

Each theme part you created with Elementor will replace the part of your active theme. For instance, if you create a header with Elementor and publish it, this header will replace the header of your active theme. Before publishing the header — as well as other theme elements — Elementor allows you to set a display condition. You can either apply the header to the entire website or specific page(s).

If you are curious what are the websites made with Elementor look like, you can visit the Elementor Showcase page. The Elementor team curates the best websites created with Elementor and displays the selected sites on this page (updated monthly).

Popup Builder

After installing Elementor on your WordPress, you will see a new menu item called Templates on the left panel. There is an item called Popups under this menu item. You will see nothing but a “Get Popup Builder” message when clicking Popups unless you use Elementor Pro. Popup Builder is a feature that is only available on the pro version of Elementor. You can use this feature to create any sort of popup. From ad banners, subscription forms, announcements, exit intents, and so on. You can also make use of the Popup Builder feature to create a beautiful website menu like the following.

If you have no idea about the concept of the popup you want to create, Elementor offers premade templates you can make use of. A popup itself can be displayed on certain pages using certain parameters. For instance, you can display a popup on a landing page after the page is fully loaded. You can also display a popup based on triggers. For instance, you can display a popup after your visitors click a button (like the screencast above).

WooCommerce Builder

If you use WooCommerce to build an online store then Elementor Pro is a great plugin you can install. Elementor Pro comes with a WooCommerce builder, allowing you to customize every part of WooCommerce. You can create a custom single product page, archive product page, shop page, and so on. Elementor Pro offers about 6 WooCommerce widgets:

• Products
• WooCommerce Breadcrumbs
• Custom Add to Cart
• WooCommerce Pages
• Product Categories
• Menu Cart
• Cart
• Checkout
• My Account

There are also some premade templates you can use to create a custom WooCommerce part.

Third-party Tool Integrations

If you use Elementor Pro, you will have access to premium widgets, including Form. This widget (Form) is crucial enough for a business website. You can integrate this widget with third-party marketing tools like MailChimp, GetResponse, MailerLite, and HubSpot. Not being able to use Form is a huge loss. You won’t be able to apply popular marketing techniques like email subscriber building.

The third-party tools supported by Elementor Pro include Yoast, the most-used SEO plugin for WordPress. You can add breadcrumbs to your single post template by integrating Yoast with Elementor Pro.

Another disadvantage of not using Elementor Pro is that you won’t be able to access the pro icons on Font Awesome. As you now, Elementor is integrated with Font Awesome to provide icons. Elementor Free doesn’t give access to all icons of the Font Awesome library. Plus, you won’t be able to upload your own icons.

Using Elementor Pro also allows you to add custom fonts.

Pro Templates

To save you time in creating a page, Elementor offers premade templates. Templates offered by Elementor ranging from homepages, about pages, contact pages, landing pages, single post templates, section templates, and so on. Recently, Elementor released a new feature called Template Kit. A Template Kit is a set of templates (home page, about page, contact page, single post layout, and so on) that are designed with the same design concept, allowing you to create a website in minutes by just importing templates.

Not all Elementor templates are available for Elementor Free, though. Some templates can only be used by Elementor Pro users since they contain pro widgets. Pro Elementor templates have a “PRO” label.

The Verdict

Over 8 million users can’t be wrong. Elementor is undoubtedly the most popular page builder plugin for WordPress. We don’t say “the best” since (to be honest) we haven’t tried other page builders. But sometimes, we don’t need to try another thing if something we use is capable of providing everything we need. Elementor is capable of providing nearly everything a page builder can provide. From theme builder, popup builder, WooCommerce builder, templates, amazing widgets, and so on. Also, it has a very intuitive user interface, the main reason why it’s hard to look away.

You can use Elementor for free, but the free version of Elementor only allows you to touch the surface of Elementor. You need Elementor Pro to dive deeper into the Elementor ocean.

Here are the features comparisons between Elementor Free and Elementor Pro.