Thrive Architect Review 2024: The Best Page Builder Plugin?

Welcome to our Thrive Architect review.

If you want to drive sales and improve conversions, you’re going to need a way to build landing pages with ease. And you’re going to need a way to build conversion-focused page layouts.

In this Thrive Architect review, we’re going to take a deep dive into how this powerful WordPress plugin can help you achieve both of these objectives.

What is Thrive Architect?

Creating pages with the WordPress editor is like going to the dentist. You never know how it’s going to turn out.

At best, it’s an anxious wait. At worst, it’s painful.

While WordPress is a great blogging tool, it was never intended to build professional looking web pages. And while Gutenberg is making progress, it is still extremely limited.

Meanwhile, you need a WYSIWYG editor that let’s you build pages painlessly.

Thrive Architect is a visual page builder plugin for WordPress that helps you create great-looking, conversion-focused pages.

According to Thrive Themes:

It’s the fastest and most intuitive visual editor for WordPress.

The idea is to let you build your pages as fast as possible using the drag-and-drop editor so that you don’t spend endless hours fiddling around with shortcodes, CSS and HTML.

Using Thrive Architect, you can:

• Create a Homepage using one of the pre-designed Templates or adding elements like Icons, Buttons or Columns to your current theme.
• Build Landing Pages with built-in Lead Generation elements to help grow your mailing list.
• Format Blog Posts with features like Content Boxes and Styled Lists to make them stand out from the crowd.
• Create Sales Pages, Webinar Pages, Product Launch Pages, and more.

Building your pages with Thrive Architect

There are two ways to build a page with Thrive Architect. You can use a pre-designed Landing Page Template, or you can start from scratch with a Blank Template.

Both ways are valid. You just need to decide which one you want.

When you create a new Page, you choose the Launch Thrive Architect button:

Taking this option opens a new tab/window:

At the top of the Page is the default header menu and page title that you’d expect to see from your theme.

Click on the ‘+’ button icon on the right-hand side of the page and the Thrive Architect menu will appear.

So, let’s take a look at how that works.

Using the landing page templates

Thrive Architect includes hundreds of pre-designed landingpage templates. The beauty of these pages is that you could almost publish them straight away. You’ll have to dive in and edit the copy to suit your business, but at least you have the foundation for a quick start. By clicking on the ‘cloud’ button icon a template window will appear.

Landing page template sets

Thrive groups their Landing Pages in Template Sets. At the time of writing, there are 40 Landing Page Template Sets in their library, with more coming soon.

Each set of pages uses the same design components to create a consistent look-and-feel.

For example, here’s the latest set – Atomic. Notice how each page has the same branding:

The Atomic Template Set includes:

• Lead Generation Page
• 2-Step Lead Generation Page
• Confirmation Page
• Download Page
• Video Sales Page
• Webinar Registration Page
• Webinar Streaming Page
• Webinar Replay Page

Customizing a template

Once you’ve chosen a Landing Page Template, you can start customizing it with the WYSIWYG visual editor.

Each page consists of elements; for example, Heading, Text, Button, Icon, etc. As soon as you select an element on the page, its editing options appear in the sidebar menu.

For instance, if you picked the Heading element you could change the text, alter its layout and position, apply a background style, add a border, and more:

Note: Thrive Architect labels the element in several places on your screen, so you can be sure you’re editing the right content.

Here’s the original Storyteller 2-Step Landing Page template:

And here’s the customized template after changing the button color, and the heading font and color:

In just a few clicks you can adjust the page to fit in with your style and branding. Plus you can save your version of the template to use again.

What’s important to remember is that all of these changes are immediately visible on the editing screen. You can switch to preview mode if you wish, but there’s really no need as you can see everything right in front of you.

Thrive Architect is a genuine WYSIWYG visual editor.

Starting with a blank page

Sometimes it’s more appropriate to build your page from scratch, starting with a clean canvas. For instance, you may like the design of a page you’ve seen on another website and decide to have a go at building something similar.

Let’s take a look at three of the powerful and flexible design elements you can use to build your page.

Don’t worry, I’ll show you the other amazing elements later on 🙂

1. Full-width background

Adding a full-width background might not seem like a big deal, but you won’t find this feature on all page builders.

The key setting here is the “Content covers entire screen width” as it allows you to have a full-width background no matter what WordPress theme you’re using.

There are a couple more settings that I’ve used to create this background. First, I’ve added an image as a base layer and then I’ve applied a solid color layer on top. This helps when you want to start adding text like the heading below.

You can add as many layers as you like to create the effect you want. Other layer options include a gradient color, a pattern, and a video background.

Before we leave the background, there’s one more feature to show you. Using a full-width background section and two columns you can create a vertical split screen effect:

Once you have your vertical split layout, you can add different content elements. For example, you could have image and text, video camera and video screenshot, plus many other combinations.

2. Content Box

The Content Box is a dual-purpose design element in Thrive Architect. It serves as a content container for holding multiple elements you want to treat in the same manner, plus you can use it to highlight important parts of content.

First, we have a Content Box that contains an Icon and a piece of Text:

Nothing special, perhaps?

But, using the drag-and-drop handle, you can move the Content Box onto the background section.

When you’ve created a content box that you think will be useful again in the future then Thrive Architect lets you save it as a Content Template. It’s all part of their Rapid Implementation ideology.

3. Testimonial

Adding testimonials to your page is a proven way of demonstrating social proof. Thrive Architect has over 30 testimonial templates you can customize:

Let’s take a look.

Chic Light uses two columns for the Image and Text. You can drag-and-drop the column widths to fit your image and text as you wish.

The right-hand column contains two Text/Paragraph elements, each with a different font and size. Whilst the left-hand column has three Icon/Image you can edit.

Using this template you can change column widths, colors, images, icons, positioning, and more.

Adding lead generation options

Most landing pages have one goal in common: to generate leads.

Thrive Architect has two types of lead generation that you can use on your landing page.

1-step opt-in

The default Lead Generation method is the 1-Step Opt-in.

If you’re creating your own landing page, you can drag-and-drop the Lead Generation element from the sidebar onto your page.

You can choose to stack the fields vertically or have them running horizontally. Plus you can customize other features like colors and text.

If you’re using a Landing Page Template, then the Lead Generation element will already be in place:

2-step opt-in with Thrive Lightbox

The second Lead Generation method available in Thrive Architect is the 2-Step Opt-in, which uses the built-in Thrive Lightbox feature.

You decide which element on your page you want to be the trigger, and then use the Animation & Action option to invoke a Lightbox. For example, you could configure a Button Click to open the Lightbox with a Zoom effect:

The Landing Page Templates work the same. For example, the Storyteller 2-Step Opt-in uses the Animation & Action functionality to create a trigger:

When you click the button, it opens the built-in Thrive Lightbox:

Like all pages in Thrive Architect, you can customize the Lightbox design with the visual editor.

Email service integration

Whether you use the 1-Step or 2-Step method to capture email addresses, you’ll need to connect the Lead Generation form to your email service.

Thrive Architect lets you connect to your email service through an API or an HTML Code:

It has API Connections to all these email service providers:

Checking your page is mobile responsive

Every page you build with Thrive Architect, whether you start from scratch or use a template, is mobile responsive. But the plugin has three extra mobile responsive features that help you build unique pages.

1. Preview your page on different screen sizes

As you build your page, you’re only a couple of clicks away from checking what it looks like on various screen sizes:

2. Toggle the visibility of elements and entire content blocks

For any element, or any Content Box with multiple elements in it, you can decide whether it will be shown or hidden. In this example, you can see that the Icon element will be visible on Desktop and Tablet, but hidden on Mobile.

3. Tweak every detail

You can tweak the layout and position of elements for different screen sizes without having to create duplicate elements with the show/hide option. For example, on the testimonial box we can change the text size and position it under the image after removing the icon element:

As more and more people are browsing the web with a mobile device, it makes sense for your site to be mobile responsive. With Thrive Architect, you can provide the best experience, regardless of screen size.

The building blocks of Thrive Architect

You’ve already seen many of the main page building elements in Thrive Architect. But let’s take a quick look at a few more.

Conversion elements

Aside from Call to Action Buttons, Testimonials, Content Boxes, and Lead Generation Forms, Thrive Architect has four more conversion-focused building blocks:

• Styled Lists – Use bullet point lists with custom icons and styling to present your selling points concisely.
• Countdown Timers – Add a sense of urgency to your pages with the animated countdown timer and evergreen countdown
• Content Reveal – Hide content blocks until a certain amount of time has passed. Perfect for sales videos, where you can reveal the purchase button when you reach the “pitch” part of the video.
• Credit Card Icons – Fully scalable credit card icons give your visitors a clear signal for a purchase and create trust.

More components

Apart from the conversion elements, Thrive Architect comes with many more components you can use to create any page. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Click to Tweet – Encourage social sharing within your content.
• Google Map – Embed a Google Map on your site; great for local businesses.
• Post Grid – Display a grid of blog posts or WooCommerce products.
• Social Share – Add social share buttons and choose to hide share counts until above a certain number.
• Table – Take advantage of the intuitive HTML table builder and editor.
• Table of Contents – Automatically generate a table of contents for your page with anchor links that jump to each section.
• Video – Embed YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo or self-hosted video into your page.
• WordPress Content – Convert existing WordPress content into Thrive Architect content and manage it inside a self-contained block.

Content block templates

The design process is now easier than ever with a library of pre-designed content blocks.

This includes CTA’s, pricing tables, social proof sections, testimonials, lead generation sections, hero sections, and more.

And, for the newer landing page templates known as “smart pages” you will find a full set of matching content blocks.

This means you can dramatically alter the structure of your pages faster than ever before.

Thrive Architect and Gutenberg

Does Thrive Architect support Gutenberg? It sure does.

While you can create your blog posts directly within Thrive Architect, there are those that may wish to use the Gutenberg editor.

If that sounds like you, then here’s some good news:

You can create custom content within Thrive Architect, then add that content as a block within Gutenberg. Nice and easy.

From a customization stand point, this is amazing.

There are plenty of Gutenberg blocks plugins around that allow you to add various types of blocks but customization is heavily limited.

Now, you can create content the way you want thanks to this feature.

How much does Thrive Architect cost?

You can purchase Thrive Architect as a standalone product for $99/year and renews at $199/year thereafter for 1 site.

Alternatively, Thrive Architect can be purchased as part of the Thrive Suite which costs $299/year and renews at $599/year thereafter.

This includes use on up to 5 websites, unlimited support, and unlimited support.

Included in this price are updates, as well as access to other essential marketing tools part of the suite. These include:

• Thrive Optimize – Optimization and split testing tool to get more conversions and ultimately more customers
• Thrive Leads – List building tools to build your email list
• Thrive Ovation – To collect and display testimonials on your website
• Thrive Theme Builder – The best drag & drop WordPress theme builder on the market

And there are plenty more. For a full rundown, check out our in-depth Thrive Themes review.

What if you only want to use Thrive Architect and the A/B testing add-on? Will you still get enough value? I believe so.

Cloud-based landing page software is notoriously expensive and limits you on traffic, leads, and pages. With Thrive Architect you have none of those limits, and it is far more affordable.

Thrive Architect pro’s and con’s

Pro’s

• Easy to use and visualize your designs.
• Lets you create content that stands out from the crowd.
• Comes with 100+ landing page templates organized into sets.
• Includes conversion-focused elements to add to your page.
• Includes additional mobile responsive features.
• Light-weight plugin considering all the built-in features.
• Attractive pricing (lifetime updates & 12 months support).
• Large amount of integrations with email service providers.
• Add Thrive Architect content via Gutenberg blocks.

Con’s

• Some of the landing page templates look a little dated.
• High learning curve. Although this is an issue with most page builder plugins.

Thrive Architect review: final thoughts

Now, let’s wrap up this Thrive Architect review.

Do we recommend it? Yes, it’s a great landing page plugin. It makes building conversion-focused landing pages & custom page layouts easier.

Thrive Architect’s visual editor is capable of extremely advanced customization. All landing page templates are designed in themed sets so you’ll have every page for your sales funnel.

For example:

• Webinar landing page template
• Opt-in page template
• Sales page template
• Video sales page template
• Thank you page template
• And so on…

The newer “smart page” templates allow you to design new landing pages fast. And the content block templates speed up the design process further.

The A/B split-testing add-on for Thrive Architect gives you an easy way to improve conversions, without any technical shenanigans.

And thanks to the other plugins included in Thrive Suite, you can add far more functionality to your website.

For example, if you want to add a comments section to a sales page to demonstrate social proof during a launch – you can embed a comments block from Thrive Comments. Or you could embed a quiz from Thrive Quiz Builder.

Is Thrive Architect the right plugin for everyone? Not exactly.

The visual editor can take some getting used to. And, because the plugin isn’t available separately, you have to get all the other tools at the same time.

This may seem like overkill if you’re not going to use any of the other products but consider this:

Most SaaS landing page software will cost twice the price of the entire Thrive Suite, particularly if you want features like A/B testing.

For that price, you would get limitations on traffic or the number of pages you can create. You also wouldn’t get any of the other functionality such as opt-in forms, quizzes, etc.

With WordPress plugins, you have no such limitations.

Bottom line: Thrive Architect offers great value and is well worth considering for your landing page creation needs. I highly recommend giving them a shot. You can always fall back on their 30-day money back guarantee if Thrive Suite doesn’t meet your needs.

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