Elementor vs Thrive Architect

Looking to take your website to the next level? Instead of using the built-in WordPress builder, switch to a premium drag and drop builder, so you can create beautiful, customized pages with ease. 

There are a number of drag and drop WordPress website builders that pose stiff competition to Elementor. WP Bakery, Themify, Brizy, Beaver Builder, and Avada to name a few. Thrive Architect is another on the list that we would be comparing with Elementor today. 

Although both have their advantages, they have significant differences as well. After reading this article, you should have a pretty good idea of which website builder is for you. 

What Is Elementor? What Is Thrive Architect? 

Both Elementor and Thrive Architect are drag and drop website builders. Drag and drop builders make it easy to customize pages according to your wishes. 

You can visualize how your pages will look while creating them. It is easy to delete parts of the page or add new parts by simply dragging “blocks” to the page. 

For example, a block might be an image, chunk of text, video, or call to action button. 

Drag and drop website builders make life easier for website owners, especially those with limited design experience. You don’t need to know any coding to build websites with drag and drop, and most drag and drop builders also give you ready to use templates, so you don’t have to create pages from scratches. 

Also Read: Best Sliders For Elementor

Elementor vs Thrive Architect: Drag And Drop Builder

The first aspect I will focus on is the actual drag and drop website builder. 

Elementor

Elementor has a great, easy to use drag and drop website builder.  You can design your entire site from the same screen – that includes your header and footer. 

There are tons of elements you can add to a page, such as: 

• Video
• Button
• Google Maps
• Divider
• Heading
• Text
• Image
• Icon

There are tons of great features built into the drag and drop website builder that make it super easy to edit and customize your site. Here, I will focus on some features and tools available to you: 

• Finder: Finder is a search tool that lets you immediately land on any Elementor page or setting page from wherever you are. Simply search for the page in the search tool and go to it right away. 
• Revision History: If you want to go back to a previous version of your page, you can do so. All of your edits will be saved automatically, so you don’t have to worry about losing your work. 
• Undo: You can also undo any changes you have made if you made them by mistake. 
• Draft Mode: You don’t have to worry about making changes to your live site by mistake during editing. When you are in draft mode, you are working with a “copy” of your site. Any updates will only be published to your live site when you are ready for that to happen. 
• Save Elements: When you create an element, you can “save” it so that you can reuse the exact same element on future pages. This will help you save time. 
• Export or Import Designs: You can export site designs and import them to other sites using JSON files. 
• Global Colors/Fonts: You can set global colors and fonts so that the fonts and color schemes look the same across all pages on your site. 
• Global Widgets & CSS: You can also create global CSS for your entire site. Also, you can create global widgets for the left-hand panel, which you can drag and drop into any page you are building. 
• Copy & Paste Elements: You can copy and paste elements – you can paste copied elements to different parts of the page or to different pages. 
• Copy & Paste Styles: You can also copy element styles and paste them on different pages. 
• Hotkeys: Save time by using hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts when editing and creating pages. 

There are so many ways to spice up your pages as well. You can add all kinds of things, like animations, to make your pages more interesting. Here are just some of the things you can add to your pages and some ways to make your website more appealing: 

• Shape Dividers And Pop-Outs: You can add various background “pop-outs” – images that look like they pop out of the page, using various shape dividers. There are over 26 different shape dividers you can use and customize. 
• Edit images: To make your images look more appealing, Elementor offers you several ways to edit them. For example, you can change the blur, brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue. 
• Animations and effects: You can add all kinds of animations and effects to your pages to make them more eye-catching. For example, one animation that you can add to your site is parallax scrolling, which is a type of scrolling effect that is pleasing to the eye. 

Check Out: Elementor vs Wix

Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect also has a great drag and drop website builder. There are tons of elements you can add to your pages with drag and drop, some of which I will mention below. 

The great part about Thrive Architect is that everything can be edited simply by clicking on it. If you want to edit a text element, for example, just click on it, and you will be able to edit it. 

Thrive Architect is designed to eliminate the need to install countless other plugins. When you have Thrive Architect, you can do away with plugins such as Contact Form 7 – most of what you can do with plugins can also be done with Thrive Architect’s built-in features. 

Here are some of the things you can add to a Thrive Architect page: 

• Sharing icons: Add social media sharing icons, so people can spread the word about your site on social media. 
• Blog gallery: A gallery of your blog posts 
• Column layouts: You can create column layouts made up of different elements by dragging the different elements into the column. You can edit the size of the column at any time. 
• Text over images: Add text over images. To make the text easier to read, you can change the color of the text, or you can add gradient overlays. 
• Custom fonts: There are over 700 types of fonts you can add to your pages.
• Full-width layouts: Add backgrounds that take up the entire width of the screen. This will make the page more eye-catching and interesting. 
• Vertical split layouts: Not only can you add background layouts that take up the entire width of the screen, but you can split layouts vertically. This will have the effect of splitting up the page and making it easier for people to scroll down and find what they are looking for. 
• Hover effects: Adding hover effects to elements will make the page more engaging. People will be more likely to engage with an element – or to items within the element – if it produces a hover effect when they hover their mouse over it. 
• Calls to action: Add buttons to your page to increase conversions. 
• Testimonials: Adding testimonials to your site will help increase conversions by boosting social proof. You can add testimonials from real customers. 
• Credit card icons: These icons serve two purposes. First, they immediately let visitors know the payment methods you support. Secondly, they also act as a “trust badge” and help increase conversions. 
• Lists: You can create bullet lists with custom icons. These lists make it easy to present the benefits of your product or service in a clear and concise manner. 
• Comments: Display comments from Facebook or Discus. 
• Star ratings: Add star ratings next to products or services to help increase conversions. 
• Google Maps: Insert a Google Maps widget, so customers can quickly find directions to your physical store on their mobile phones. 

In addition to all of these elements and features, Thrive Architect offers other features and tools, including: 

• Element visibility toggle: This tool allows you to have some elements hidden on certain devices. For example, if you want to make your site easier to read on mobile devices, why not hide certain elements? Some elements just don’t appear right on mobile devices, and in general, fewer elements on mobile devices can make your site easier to use. 
• Page preview: When building your site, you can quickly preview how the page you are building will look on both desktop and mobile devices. Using the preview button will allow you to see the page as customers will see it. It is important to preview the page on different kinds of devices because a page that looks great on desktop computers might have a bad UX on mobile devices. 
• Mobile editing: In addition to hiding some elements on mobile devices, you can continue to have them displayed but tweak the layout or position of the element so that it appears differently on mobile devices. 

Thrive Architect vs Elementor: Marketing And Ecommerce

In this section, I will focus on which of the platforms is better for marketing: Elementor or Thrive Architect. Which one has more features to help you get more conversions? 

Elementor

Elementor is great for marketing purposes. Here are some of the reasons I like Elementor for marketing: 

• Build beautiful pop-ups: The pop-up builder allows you to create eye-catching pop-ups. Build them using drag and drop, the same way you build your pages. Here are some of the types of popups you can create:
  • Email sign-ups
  • Exit pop-ups that appear when a visitor is about to exit your site
  • Log in forms
  • Welcome mats
  • Pop-ups that cross-sell related products or promote upgrades
  • Sales banners
  • Promotional banners
• Create beautiful forms: The same goes for contact and sign-up forms – you can build them the same way you can build pop-ups and pages. 

The pop-ups allow for customization in terms of when they are shown. For example, you can: 

• Exclude the pop-up on specific pages
• Include it only on certain types of pages or pages in a specific category
• Have the pop-up only appear after a user has scrolled down to a certain element, after a certain amount of inactivity, or after a user clicks on something
• Have the pop-up appear only on specific devices, after a specific amount of pages views, when visitors arrive from certain pages, and more

Here are some more elements that will help you increase conversions: 

• Countdown timers: Countdown timers add a sense of urgency and help increase conversions. 
• Lightbox overlay: These overlays pop up when readers click on an image or link. 
• Sticky bars: Sticky bars make it easier to collect email addresses for your newsletter. 

Explore: Best Thrive Themes Alternatives

Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect rivals Elementor in terms of the marketing elements you can add and the ways you can boost your conversion rates. Here are some of the elements you can add to your page: 

• Animated countdown timer: This includes evergreen countdown timers that are displayed to all visitors.
• Content reveals: Hide elements, such as a buy button, until a customer has spent enough time on a page.
• Guarantee boxes: Add a guarantee, such as a money-back guarantee, to increase conversions.
• Click to tweet: Add click to tweet buttons to help people spread the word on social media. 
• Testimonials: Add testimonials from real customers to boost your conversion rates. 

Another feature is the A/B split testing feature, which allows you to tweak your site for optimized conversions based on A/B split tests. 

Elementor vs Thrive Architect: Templates

Which platform has more premade templates for you to use, Thrive Architect or Elementor? 

Elementor

Elementor has over 300 templates. Not all of them are available to free users, but there is a decent enough selection. 

Premade templates exist for: 

• Gym and fitness sites
• Travel blogs
• Law firms
• Online courses
• Flooring companies
• And much, much more!

There are also templates for specific page types, like a homepage, contact page, or about page. 

In addition, there are “website template kits” – a website that contains several templates, so you can set up different pages. These kits are geared towards specific needs. 

All in all, I found Elementor’s premade templates very good. They look stylish, are highly mobile responsive, and offer great value. 

Thrive Architect

According to Thrive Architect, they also have over 300 templates you can use. That seems to be around the same amount that Elementor offers. 

Thrive Architect also has a feature called Smart Landing Pages. Smart Landing Pages will:

• Automatically adapt a landing page’s color scheme to your site’s existing color scheme
• Allow choosing from premade color palettes approved by professional designers
• Allow you to style a few elements in a column at once
• Have your logo placed on the landing page automatically

Thrive Architect vs Elementor: Integrations

Which third-party services does each platform integrate with? For example, if you use Mailchimp, can you add subscribers to your Mailchimp newsletter list with the signup forms of Elementor or Thrive Architect? 

Elementor

Elementor integrates with many tools that are widely used by marketers around the world. Here are the integrations offered by Elementor: 

• Aweber
• Mailchimp
• Drip
• ActiveCampaign
• Convert Kit
• Hubspot
• Zapier
• GetResponse
• MailerLite
• MailPoet
• Automizy
• WooCommerce
• Yoast
• Rank Math
• ACF
• LearnDash
• Toolset
• MemberPress
• Tutor LMS
• Slack 
• Discord
• Facebook SDK
• YouTube
• Vimeo 
• Dailymotion
• SoundCloud
• Spotlight
• Google Maps
• Google Fonts
• Adobe Fonts
• Font Awesome 5
• Font Awesome Pro
• reCAPTCHA

In addition to all these integrations, there are various add ons that were created by third-party developers. For example, there are elements that let you add more blocks, tweak your performance, get more templates for Elementor, and much more!

For a full list of third-party add ons created by developers for Elementor users, go to this page. 

I do want to mention that you can also create your own add on if you are a developer. 

Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect has a great selection of integrations as well. According to their website, Thrive Architect integrates with at least these tools (possibly more as well):

• ActiveCampaign
• Amazon Web Services
• arpReach
• Aweber
• Campaign Monitor
• Constant Contact
• ConvertKit
• Get Response
• Facebook 
• Drip
• Google
• Go To Webinar
• Hubspot
• Infusion Soft
• iContact
• Mailchimp
• Mad Mimi
• Klick Tipp
• Mailer Lite
• Mail Gun
• Mail Poet
• Mail Relay
• Mandrill
• Ontraport
• Postmark
• reCAPTCHA
• SendFox
• Sendgrid
• Sendlane
• Sendowl
• Sendy
• SG Autorepondeur
• SparkPost
• Twitter
• WebinarJam
• WordPress 
• Zapier
• Zoho

While both platforms offer a wide range of integrations, it does seem that Thrive Architect wins in two aspects: Email marketing and webinars. 

Thrive Architect seems to give you a lot more options for email marketing than Elementor. If you need to work with a specific email marketing software that is on the Thrive Architect list but not the Elementor list, you might need to use Thrive Architect. 

Thrive Architect vs Elementor: Pricing And Free Trial

The final thing I will look at in this comparison is pricing. Which platform is cheaper, and does any of them offer a free trial? 

Elementor

Elementor offers very fair pricing. There are a number of plans available, including a Forever Free plan!

The Forever Free plan lets you build as many sites as you want using drag and drop. However, you are limited to around 30 templates and 40 widgets. 

Here are the premium plans available for Elementor: 

• Personal – $49/year: This plan is for one site only. It gives you access to more than 50 widgets, more than 300 templates, and 10 full website template kits. You also get the theme builder, the form builder, the WooCommerce builder, the pop-up builder, and better support. 
• Plus – $99/year: This is the same plan as Personal but for 3 sites. 
• Expert – $199/year: Again, this is the same plan, but it allows you to build up to 1,000 sites. While 1,000 sites are not exactly unlimited, it exceeds what most people will ever build. 

If you get a premium plan and then don’t renew it, you won’t exactly lose all of your pages. However, you won’t be able to install new premium templates, you won’t get premium support or updates, and you won’t be able to drag Elementor Pro widgets. 

If you get the one website plan, you can always transfer it to another domain. 

Premium plans also come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. 

Thrive Architect

Unfortunately, Thrive Architect does not offer a free plan, unlike Elementor. However, it is relatively cheap. 

Nevertheless, it is more expensive than Elementor. In fact, it is more expensive than Elementor’s most expensive plan – the Expert plan, which costs $199/year. 

To get Thrive Architect, you will need to sign up for Thrive Suite, which contains a bunch of Thrive tools (more on that later). 

Thrive Suite costs $228/year (this comes out to $19/month, but you have to pay yearly), and you can install it on up to 25 plans. 

If you want, you can also pay quarterly – $90 every three months. This comes out to $30/month or $360/year. 

Since you can only install it on 25 sites, I think it is a lot more expensive than Elementor Pro Expert, which costs $29 less per year and lets you create up to 1,000 sites. 

So, here is what Thrive Suite includes: 

• Thrive Theme Builder
• Thrive Architect
• Thrive Quiz Builder
• Thrive Leads (for building your email list)
• Thrive Optimize (A/B split testing)
• Thrive Comments
• Thrive Apprentice (create online courses)
• Thrive Ultimatum (create countdown campaigns)
• Thrive Ovation (display testimonials)

While this seems like a lot, remember that you can get most of that with Elementor. For example, there is a plugin that lets you split test Elementor sites, and you can also split tests with Google Optimize. 

Elementor also has a website template kit for creating online courses. 

Similarities And Differences

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Wrapping It Up: Which Is Better, Thrive Architect Or Elementor? 

I have to say that I believe Elementor to be a better option than most of its alternatives. Thrive Architect is more expensive for what it gives you. 

Most people only need 1-3 sites, so you will be paying $49-$99/year as opposed to more than double that with Thrive Architect. 

Also, the free option will allow you to build a site if you are on a budget. If you need to upgrade, the Pro plans will allow you to do pretty much all you can do with Thrive Architect.