Recently, we were talking about WordPress’ new website builder, and how it is a very big disappoointment so far. Basically, the new versions of WordPress force users to use the new website builder, but the experience is full of clutter and unfulfilled features.
The best website builder for WordPress out there is still the end-to-end solution Elementor. Recently, the team announced a new bundled offer that goes beyond the website builder to provide a 360 solution to create a website from scratch using WordPress, the Elementor Cloud Website plan. This new package is very competitive on the market, as it provides a full WordPress website-creation solution at a price way lower than other hosting providers do.
The Elementor Cloud website package includes :
Elementor Design features
Drag-and-drop live editor : The Elementor original tool that made Elementor famous. Just select blocks, drag-and-drop them, move them around, and fine-tune for tablet and mobile screens. I’ve tried them all and the Elementor live editor is by far the most superior on the market out there to build WordPress websites.
90+ widgets : widgets are basically feature-specific blocks, like latest posts, Facebook like button, accordion view, header, divider, image gallery, … While some widgets could use a little design improvement, they all work perfectly and there’s enough of them to build a complete website, whether it is a company website, a blog, or an ecommerce website.
300+ templates : Templates are pre-made pages where you just have to change the texts and images to make a website yours. As I like to keep the design of a website minimal, I am not a big user of Elementor templates, but having such a wide selection of unique templates is a nice option.
Elementor hosting and custom domain
Now here is the sweet spot of Elementor’s Cloud offer. To get those services for just $99/year makes Elementor’s Cloud offer the cheapest hosting+domain provider out there. Other hosting+domain providers may lure you into an equivalent deal (though I don’t know any) when you sign up, but I know for a fact that they ALL increase their prices year-on-year, knowing that you’d rather pay a few extra bucks instead of migrating your website to a cheaper host over and over again.
I use many host+domain providers, and here are my expenses (prices in US dollars) :
| Provider | Hosting 1st year | Hosting following years | Domain 1st year | Domain following years | Total first year | Total following years |
| Godaddy | 152.48 | 157.78 | N/A | N/A | 152.48 | 157.78 |
| Dreamhost | 119.40 | 155.88 | 0 | 17.99 | 119.40 | 173.87 |
| Site 5 | 107.40 | 141.77 | 19 | 19 | 126.40 | 160.77 |
| Hostgator | 53.70 | 107.40 | 20.94 | 17.99 | 74.64 | 125.39 |
| Siteground | 47.40 | 179.88 | 27.95 | 17.99 | 75.35 | 199.87 |
| Justhost | 47.40 | 155.88 | 11.88 | 34.87 | 59.28 | 189.75 |
| Bluehost | 59.40 | 119.88 | 11.88 | 32.99 | 71.28 | 160.54 |
| A2 Hosting | 49.56 | 101.14 | 37.41 | 37.41 | 86.97 | 138,56 |
As you can tell, some providers lure you in with attractive prices, but sometimes the price doubles the following year, making the initial price not so attractive. Also consider that those prices do not even include the SSL option, and some providers charge as high as $50/year for a SSL certificate. Those prices were not looked up on the internet, those are the actual prices I paid, so those are the REAL prices. I have also experienced an equal quality of service for a regular website with all those providers. I haven’t inserted OVH in this comparison table because the service is so unreliable, it is better to not even consider going through OVH for hosting + domain services.
From this standpoint, you can see how the Elementor Hosting + custom domain offer is far superior in terms of pricing than any other hosting + domain provider.
Elementor complete website bundle
The Elementor Cloud Website package comes with a page-long list of other features that simplify the creation of your website :
- The popup builder is pretty handy to push subscriptions or promotions to the eyeballs of your visitors.
- The SSL Certification is a big plus for eCommerce websites.
- The free automatic backup is also a feature that many hosting providers will charge you for it.
- The fact that your website is hosted on Google’s Cloud Platform is a seal of undeniable and unbeatable reliability.
For all those reasons, I greatly encourage anyone who needs to easily set up a website in a cost-efficient manner to go for the Elementor Cloud Website solution. This advice comes from someone who builds a lot of WordPress websites and has spent a lot of time and money doing so.