Bricks vs Elementor: which WordPress builder for client sites?

Bricks vs Elementor: how do they compare?

Both are visual WordPress builders, and both let a client edit pages without code. Bricks is installed as a theme and sold only as a paid licence. Elementor is a plugin with a free version, paid Pro plans and more than 10 million active installations listed on WordPress.org. Where they differ most is licensing and how a site is structured.

First, the reasons for our pick, since you’ll want to check them against the table. Bricks is the theme, so one product controls the whole front end. It has its own CSS class system and global styles. One licence covers unlimited sites, with the same features on every plan, and a client can be given content-only access. Most of our WordPress builds are in Bricks, and on those sites it adds up to clean, light pages that stay consistent and that the client can still edit. None of this makes Elementor a bad product, and several rows below go its way.

Sources, all checked on 12 October 2026: Bricks, Bricks pricing, Elementor pricing, the Elementor FAQ and the Elementor plugin page on WordPress.org. Prices are in US dollars before tax. Both companies change them, so check the pages before you quote.

You’ll notice there’s no row for speed. We haven’t found a fair, current test of the two, and a table row needs one. The next section explains how each one builds a page, how to test them yourself and what one of our own Bricks rebuilds scored.

How does each builder produce a page?

Bricks replaces the theme: you install it under Themes, and it supplies the header, the footer, the templates and the page content from one system. Elementor is a plugin that runs on top of a theme and takes over the areas you build with it. Neither approach is faster by definition; the quality of the build decides that.

• Bricks is a theme. It describes itself as a visual site builder theme for self-hosted WordPress, and its documentation tells you to install it under Themes, so there’s no second theme underneath it.
• Elementor is a plugin. Its FAQ says it works with all themes that respect WordPress coding standards, and Elementor makes its own Hello Theme as a lightweight blank canvas. An Elementor site has two layers, then: the theme, and the builder on top of it.
• Elementor’s help centre lists performance features you can switch on, among them inline font icons, optimised image loading, lazy loading of background images and element caching (which was marked experimental when we looked).
• Bricks’ home page has the heading “Unmatched Speed” and calls its sites performant, but it doesn’t link to a test to back that up. So measure it yourself; the steps are below.

Without a test, what you can compare is the structure. With Bricks, one product controls all the front-end output, so when a page is heavy there’s one place to look. With Elementor, the output is the theme’s plus the builder’s plus any add-on plugins’, which means more places to look and more settings to get right.

What is editing like for your client?

Both let a client click on a page and change it visually, and both carry the same risk: a client with full access can break a layout. Each lets you limit a user to editing content only. Set that up before handover and, from the client’s side, the difference between the two becomes small.

In our experience a client cares about two things far more than the builder’s name. The first is how the site was built inside it: with reusable components and global styles, one change updates every page, and with a site of one-off sections the client edits the same thing twelve times. The second is the handover, which should be a short video of their own site showing the five things they’ll actually do.

If your client has used Elementor before, that familiarity is worth something. A new editor, however good, is a new thing to learn. Ask them.

What do Bricks and Elementor cost?

Bricks has no free version: its plans run from $79 a year for one site to $249 a year for unlimited sites, or $599 once for a lifetime licence. Elementor has a free plugin, and its Pro plans run from $60 a year for one site to $204 a year for 25 sites. These are the October 2026 prices.

What the Bricks pricing page said on 12 October 2026: there’s no downloadable free version, but you can try it online for free. Local and staging sites don’t count against the licence limit. You can use the licence on your own websites and your clients’, but you can’t resell the licence itself. There’s a 60-day money-back guarantee. If you cancel, the licence runs to the end of the billing period; after that, updates, support and community templates stop, and you can still edit your Bricks sites as before.

And the Elementor pricing page on the same day: prices exclude tax, and subscriptions renew at list price. Both One plans showed a lower first-year price that day, so the table gives the list price. The page loads its figures by script from its own product data, so open it and confirm them before you quote. The Elementor FAQ says an expired Pro subscription doesn’t take a site offline, but Pro widgets and features become unavailable and new releases and security updates stop.

How do templates and the ecosystem compare?

Elementor has the bigger numbers. WordPress.org lists more than 10 million active installations of the free plugin, and Pro adds website kits and cloud templates, depending on the plan. Bricks gives no install count on its own pages, but every plan comes with its 149 elements, its community templates and its design sets.

Sources, checked on 12 October 2026: Bricks, Bricks pricing, Elementor pricing, the Elementor FAQ and the Elementor plugin page. The Bricks element count and the popups and forms cell were checked on 20 October 2026: the pricing page lists “All 149 elements” and the Popup Builder under “All plans include” and says every plan has the full feature set, and the Bricks Academy documents the Form element and its actions (email, redirect, login and registration, webhooks).

That installed base helps an agency in one real way. If your client later hires someone else to look after the site, that person has probably used Elementor, and is less likely to know Bricks. That’s a fair point in Elementor’s favour.

A big add-on market cuts both ways, though. Each third-party add-on is another plugin to update, another licence to renew and another possible conflict. Whichever builder you use, keep the list of add-ons short, and write it down.

What happens if you switch builders later?

You rebuild. Each builder saves layouts in its own format, and neither can open pages made in the other. Content that WordPress itself holds stays where it is: posts, media, users and products. The templates, the styling and any text typed straight into a builder layout have to be made again in the new one.

• Anything stored as WordPress content stays: blog posts, the media library, user accounts, WooCommerce products, customers and orders. Logins keep working.
• Every template is rebuilt (header, footer, page layouts, archive and single templates, popups and forms), and that’s most of the work.
• Text and images that live inside builder layouts are carried across, along with SEO titles and descriptions: by script where a script moves them cleanly, and by hand where it can’t.
• URLs mustn’t change by accident. Keep them the same where you can, and redirect each one that does change.
• Cancel the old builder’s licence last. Keep it active until the new site has been live long enough that you’re sure nothing was missed.

Lock-in works in both directions. A Bricks site is tied to the Bricks theme; an Elementor site is tied to the Elementor plugin, and its Pro features to a Pro subscription. Before you commit a client to either, open a staging copy, switch the builder off and look at what’s left. That’s your worst case.

Stopping payment is a milder version of the same question, and the two answer it differently. Bricks says a cancelled licence loses updates, support and community templates, and the sites can still be edited. Elementor says an expired Pro subscription leaves the site online, with Pro widgets and features unavailable and no further updates. Either way an unpatched site is a risk, so budget for the licence over the whole life of the site.

We move sites between builders as rebuilds: each template is built again on a staging copy while the live site keeps running. The steps are on white label website migration, and the website redesign checklist covers what to protect.

When is Elementor the reasonable choice?

Elementor is the reasonable choice when your team is already trained on it, when the client’s site is already built in it and works, when the client’s own staff know it, or when a small site has to start on the free plugin. In each of those cases, switching would cost more than a different builder could give back.

• Your team already builds in it. A team that knows one builder well will make a better site in it than in a builder it’s still learning. Retraining is a real cost, and your clients would pay for it in the first few projects.
• The site is already in Elementor. If it works and the client is happy, add to it. A rebuild in another builder needs a better reason than our preference.
• The client’s staff know it. An in-house marketer who has edited Elementor sites for years will be productive on day one.
• The budget is close to nothing. The free plugin is a legitimate way to launch a small site, and Bricks has no free version to download.
• A specific add-on is needed. If the project depends on an add-on that exists only for Elementor, that settles it.
• The client may change supplier. With 10+ million active installations, whoever comes next will probably know Elementor already.

That’s our advice even though Bricks is our default. If a project has to stay in Elementor, because the client’s site is built in it or your agency works in it, we build it in Elementor. We won’t talk you into a rebuild the site doesn’t need.

When is Bricks the better choice?

Bricks is the better choice when you build many client sites and want one licence for all of them, when you work from a design system with your own CSS classes, when you want one product in charge of the whole front end, and when the site is new, so there’s nothing to migrate.

• You build from Figma to a system. Bricks lets you set up your own CSS class system, global colour palettes and global styles, so the tokens in the design file have a direct home in the build.
• You run more than 25 client sites. One unlimited licence, yearly or lifetime, covers them all.
• The site needs loops and dynamic data. Listings and directories are built with the Query Loop Builder, which comes with every plan.
• You want fewer moving parts. The theme and the builder are one product from one maker: one thing to update, and one place to look when something breaks.
• It’s a new build. Nothing has to be moved, and nobody has to unlearn anything.

Elementor alternatives: what else can you build a WordPress site with?

There are three kinds: another visual builder, such as Bricks; WordPress’s own block editor with a block theme, which needs no builder licence at all; or a custom theme written by a developer, where the client edits content in fields and the layout lives in code. Each one trades editing freedom against control.

WordPress’s documentation says classic themes are built with PHP templates and don’t work with the Site Editor, while block themes let you edit all parts of a site with blocks. Block themes have been part of WordPress since version 5.9, so building with no third-party builder at all is a real option.

Our own answer is Bricks or a custom theme. We choose per project and explain the choice in your written scope: Bricks if your client’s team wants to edit on the page itself, a custom theme if the site needs custom logic or the leanest possible code. If Elementor is a hard requirement, we build in it. We don’t use Divi or heavy multipurpose themes. If a store is part of the brief, the platform question comes first: see Shopify vs WordPress. For Webflow, see white label Webflow development.

What is the best WordPress page builder for client sites?

There isn’t one best WordPress page builder for every project. The best one is the one your team builds well in, your client can edit without breaking, and someone will still be maintaining in three years’ time. For a new client site, ours is Bricks. Most agencies do best picking one and sticking to it on every new site.

To choose between Bricks, Elementor and the alternatives above, ask these five questions, in this order:

1. Is the site already built in something?

   If it works, stay. A rebuild needs a reason: a redesign, a builder that’s no longer maintained, or problems you’ve measured.

2. What does your team know?

   Skill in one builder beats a better builder used badly. If you’re choosing for the first time, build the same page in two and compare.

3. Who edits after launch, and what will they change?

   Text and images only: any option works, with content-only access. New layouts every month: a visual builder. Almost nothing: a custom theme is fine.

4. How many sites will the licence cover?

   Work out the yearly cost at your real number of client sites, using the tables above, and decide who holds each licence.

5. What happens if the builder goes away?

   Switch it off on a staging copy and look. Then decide whether your client can live with that worst case.

For a new site, our answers to those five questions come out at Bricks, for three reasons set out above. It’s a theme with its own CSS class system and global styles; one licence covers every client site, with the same features on every plan; and each client can be limited to editing content. On the sites we’ve built, the pages stay clean and consistent as they grow. But if the site is already in Elementor and works, or your team knows Elementor well, Elementor is the reasonable choice.

Then standardise. An agency with sites in four builders has four sets of updates, four ways of doing everything and nobody who knows all of them. Pick one for new work, and move older sites over when they’re being redesigned anyway. A website care plan is easier to run across one stack.