Elementor Free vs Elementor Pro: 16 Key Differences

Page builder plugins are a new revolution in web creation. With a page builder plugin installed on your WordPress, you will be able to create a beautiful website without writing any single line of code. With over 13 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.

1. Elementor Free vs Elementor Pro: Widgets

Just like other page builder plugins, Elementor also comes with a visual drag-and-drop editor. 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.

2. 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 JavaScript. 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 the above key parts.

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 area(s).

3. Popup Builder

After installing Elementor on your WordPress, you will see a new menu item called Templates on the main dashboard. 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, and so on. You can even use it 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).

4. 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.

5. 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.

Here are the third-party services supported by Elementor Pro:

• Mailchimp
• Drip
• ActiveCampaign
• GetResponse
• ConvertKit
• MailerLite
• Slack
• Discord
• MailPoet

6. 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.

7. Dynamic Content

Elementor is a multi-purpose page builder plugin. Not only you can use it to create a dynamic website, but you can also use it to create a more dynamic, complex website such as listing website to a blog.

As mentioned above, one of the features you can unlock after upgrading to Elementor Pro is theme builder — which you can use to create custom templates for your site parts (header, footer, single post template, and so on). When creating a custom template using this feature, you can add dynamic content such as post title, featured image, post meta, and so on.

Here is the list of dynamic content supported by Elementor Pro:

• Site Logo
• Site Title
• Page Title
• Post Title
• Post Excerpt
• Featured Image
• Post Info (author, date, comment, taxonomy, etc.)
• Post Content

If you use WooCommerce, you can also add dynamic content belongs to WooCommerce such as product title, product price, and so on.

In addition to the default dynamic content of WordPress, Elementor Pro also support dynamic content — be it custom fields or custom post type — you created with plugins like ACF, Meta Box, to JetEngine.

8. E-Commerce

The are a bunch of e-commerce plugins for WordPress. WooCommerce — without a doubt — is the most popular one.

With Elementor Pro, you can sell digital products without installing an extra plugin. Elementor Pro comes with two widgets dedicated to accepting payments. The widgets are:

• Stripe Button
• PayPal Button

The above widgets allow to require visitors to make a payment before downloading a digital item. You can the above buttons whether on a static landing page or a custom template.

We have a dedicated post covering how to sell digital products in Elementor using the above widgets in case you want to learn more.

9. Custom CSS

Elementor already offers plenty of built-in styling options to allow you to create stunning pages without touching a single line of code. But if you have CSS knowledge, Elementor facilitate it in case you want to use your knowledge to achieve certain styles that are not available in Elementor by default.

Custom CSS can be implemented on both Elementor Free and Pro. However, the process is quite complicated on Elementor Free as you are not allowed to add custom CSS directly to a certain widget. Instead, you need add custom CSS via theme customizer or using the HTML widget.

Conversely, the process is adding custom CSS is way easier in Elementor Pro. You can directly add your custom CSS to a certain widget via the Custom CSS menu on the settings panel.

We have two articles in case you want to learn more about how to add custom CSS in Elementor.

• How to Add Custom CSS in Elementor
• How to Add Custom CSS in Elementor Free

10. Custom Fonts and Icons

Elementor is integrated with Google Fonts and Font Awesome to allow users to add free fonts and icons. What if you want to use your font or icon instead?

Elementor Pro allows you to use your own font and icon in case you want to. The same thing cannot be done on Elementor Free. The ability to use custom font is quite useful to create a better website in terms of performance as you can use a local font.

11. Custom Code

The ability to add custom code is another feature you can unlock after upgrading to Elementor Pro. The feature is quite useful if you have JavaScript knowledge as you can place your script here.

For simplest instance, you can use this feature to place tracking code provided by Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and the similar tools.

The Custom Code feature itself supports JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

12. Animation Effects

The animation effects available on Elementor Free are limited entrance and exit effects, which you can apply to any element (widget, column, section). Elementor Pro allows you to apply more animation effects, including scrolling effect, mouse effect, and sticky effect (useful to create a sticky header).

In addition, Elementor Pro also allows you to add page transition effect and preloader.

13. Role Manager

Role Manager is a feature that allows you to set permission over how the users on your website to use Elementor. You can, for instance, allow users with the role of Editor to edit the content on Elementor without being able to edit the design. If you apply this rule, users with the role of Editor won’t see the Style tab and the Advanced tab on the settings panel as they are not allowed to make any change to the design.

Role Manager is a useful feature if you work with a team. You can also make use of it to allow your clients to add the site content — be it text or image — themselves without worrying about breaking the design. The Role Manager feature is only accessible on Elementor Pro.

14. Loop Builder

Again. Not only you can use Elementor to create a dynamic website, but you can also use it to create a very complex dynamic website. Including a listing website. If you often use this type of website, the Loop Builder feature is the feature absolutely need. You can unlock this feature after upgrading to Elementor Pro.

Loop Builder allows you to create a custom listing item template and use it on any page. You can add any dynamic content to your template. From default dynamic content such as post title and featured image to custom fields.

15. Notes

Notes is a collaborative feature from Elementor. The feature makes the collaboration more robust in Elementor. You can use the feature to leave a note to a certain element on Elementor. When leaving a comment, you can mention a user on your website.

The Notes feature itself is only available on Elementor Pro.

16. Global Elements

The global elements feature of Elementor allows you to make a change to multiple widgets at once. This feature is useful if you are creating a website consisting of multiple pages. You can, for instance, change the font family on five pages at once, with a single click. The global elements supported by Elementor are:

• Global widget
• Global typography
• Global color

You can only use this feature on Elementor Pro.

The Verdict

Over 13 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.