If you are an Elementor user, please read on, as this article is definitely for you. And even if you don’t use it, after reading this, you might decide to make the switch, as ElementsReady is a plugin from QuomodoSoft that promises to add tons of extra functionality to the popular page builder, thereby massively increasing its flexibility and versatility.
Since many plugins are available that load Elementor with extra addons, blocks, and widgets, ElementsReady is facing fierce competition to grab its market share. In this article, we will be scrutinizing the plugin to see whether it is likely to cause its competitors to lose sleep.
Overview and Key Features
ElementsReady includes more than 105 premium widgets. These cover a host of useful things like:
- Flip box
- Animated headlines
- Image masking
- Image carousel, slider, and gallery
- Lottie animations
- Post grid, tab, slider, and carousel
- Social sharing
- Contact forms
- Pricing table
- Weather
- Business hours
- Mailchimp
- WooCommerce product slider, grid, and tab
- EDD functions, including login, product grid, and slider, register, cart, etc.
- WordPress search box, tag cloud, calendar, etc.
- GIVE campaigns
- LearnPress
That list is by no means exhaustive, and the plugin includes tons more widgets catering to most needs.
ElementsReady also includes over twenty pre-made landing pages covering a range of different page types, such as:
- Personal portfolios
- Charity non-profits
- WooCommerce stores
- Product pages
- Medical
- SEO and other kinds of agency
- Restaurants
As if all that is not enough, the plugin also has:
- Builders for header, footers, mega menus, and widgets
- Template library
- Floating and particle effects
- Column management
- Unsplash media
- Cross domain
- Live copy
- Mega menu builder
- Over 700 pre-made elements for Elementor
That is an impressive arsenal of tools to help you create your web pages quickly and efficiently.
Pros and Cons
As with every plugin ever created, ElementsReady does have both good and bad points. Here are our observations:
Pros
- It combines the functions of several plugins into one.
- The plugin offers remarkable value for money, given the features offered.
- It provides many of the features of Elementor Pro but at a significantly lower cost.
- Lots of documentation is available online, with links to much of it from the plugin admin panel.
Cons
- It only works with Elementor, so if that is not your page builder of choice, this plugin is not for you.
- The documentation is not particularly well written, and many of the videos are somewhat hurried, making them difficult to follow.
- Many of the extra tools could be superfluous to some people’s needs.
Concerning the last item in the Cons list above, many will probably worry that the unused features could potentially sap site speed in the same way as having too many plugins can. However, it is possible to activate or deactivate each feature via the plugin’s admin panel.
There are so many features included with ElementsReady that it is impossible to discuss them in detail here. Therefore, we’ve selected a few of our favorites to give you a flavor of what the plugin offers.
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Feature 1 – Embedding Lottie Animations
Nowadays, websites must have high visual appeal if they are to capture, engage, and retain as many visitors as possible. A perfect way of achieving this is to use those cute cartoon-style animations that you often see in training videos and presentations. These are easy to create using the open-source ‘Lottie’ format.
ElementsReady enables you to easily embed Lottie animations directly into your posts and pages through Elementor. All you need to do is locate the Lottie widget from the ElementsReady section that appears in the Elementor sidebar and drag it to where you need the animation to sit. Next, you upload your Lottie file, select which options you want (sizing, autoplay, loop, etc.), and you’re good to go.
The following three images show the process for embedding Lottie animation files into your pages and posts:
Numerous resources relating to Lottie files are available on the internet. There, you can find a ton of information on how to create them, plus there are plenty of ready-made ones available cheap or for free. It is also possible to employ designers to make them for you, and that can be very cost-effective if you find a good designer on Fiverr. The advantage of creating your own is that they will fit your needs precisely, and you won’t need to worry about copyright issues.
Feature 2 – Flip Box
As we mentioned above, visual appeal is everything with websites nowadays. Therefore, another great feature of ElementsReady that allows you to jazz up your site is the flip box.
As the name suggests, this widget allows you to insert a flappable double-sided box containing text, icons, and images on both sides, all highly configurable to suit your needs. Furthermore, it’s possible to set the box to flip vertically or horizontally, and the flip speed and how it transitions are also configurable.
The next three images show the process for inserting flip boxes:
Here is an example of a flip box being inserted into a post, showing the front side:
And here’s the rear side once the box has flipped:
Live demonstrations of the various flip box types in action are available here.
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Feature 3 – Header and Footer Builder
Another fantastic way to pimp up your website is to have eye-catching headers and footers.
ElementsReady includes header and footer builders, which use a selection of pre-made templates offering different combinations of layouts. Additionally, a wide range of customization and configuration options is available, allowing you to get them looking precisely how you want them.
Furthermore, it’s also possible to include elements like sign-up forms, image galleries, social buttons, and more in the headers and footers, alongside the things you can typically do using Elementor. And, of course, you can build them from scratch if you wish.
Below is an example of an eye-catching header created using the header builder in ElementsReady:
And here is one of a footer made with the footer builder, which contains a small image gallery in a grid format as well as social media buttons:
Feature 4 – Floating Effect
Another super-nice feature that ElementsReady offers is the floating effect. This allows you to give elements in posts and pages the appearance that they are gently floating. This effect can look particularly pleasing on most site types as it brings otherwise static content alive. A range of different configuration options allows you to customize things to your liking. To see what is possible, click here.
Feature 5 – Particle Effect
The particle effect adds different shapes of any size which float around the screen. With it, you can create snow or rain showers to give a winter feel, leaves tumbling around for fall, or stars hovering around to give a twinkling effect. In fact, the possibilities are endless. The size, frequency, speed, randomness, and direction of the shapes are all configurable. Some examples of the particle effect in action are available by clicking here.
Feature 6 – Image Masking
The image masking feature lets you create image masks that can be inserted into posts and manipulated into different shapes. This can add really make even the most boring images interesting:
Further details of the image masking feature can be found here.
Feature 7 – Animated Headlines
As the name suggests, this feature allows you to create headlines that are animated. The feature already exists in WordPress, but creating lots of them in that without the help of a plugin such as ElementsReady can be a long, cumbersome process. Furthermore, the plugin includes a number of pre-defined animation effects for you to use.
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Click here if you’d like to see some examples of animated headlines in action.
ElementsReady Pricing
ElementsReady offers three different plans, with the option of annual or one-off lifetime payments.
Each plan offers identical features, the only difference being the number of site licenses included. The prices of each are as follows:
- Personal – $19 per year or $45 lifetime for up to five sites
- Business – $45 per year or $119 lifetime for six to twenty sites
- Unlimited – $105 per year or $255 lifetime for unlimited sites
Annual plans include updates and support for the subscribed year, whereas lifetime plans naturally include those forever.
Please note the prices mentioned above are a part of a limited-time 40% off deal. It is therefore advisable to buy now if you want to be sure to get that discount.
The Verdict
With prices currently starting from $19, ElementsReady offers a significant bang for your bucks. It boasts a features-to-price ratio that makes it a serious competitor for Elementor Pro, which costs $49 upwards per year.
In fact, with Elementor Pro, if you have less than 25 sites, you need to buy individual licenses for each of them. So, for five websites, you will be paying 5 x $49 = $245. That is significantly more than the $45 you will pay for the five domains covered by the ElementsReady Business plan. Furthermore, Elementor does not offer an unlimited Pro plan – their closest equivalent to ElementsReady’s unlimited offering is ‘Agency,’ which covers up to 1,000 websites but costs a gut-wrenching $999 per year.
Elementor Pro does have a slight edge when it comes to overall features, plus it also includes premium one-day support as opposed to ElementsReady’s ticket support. However, if it just boils down to how much budget you have available, ElementsReady wins hands down.
ElementsReady comes with a 14-day moneyback guarantee. What’s more, the developer also offers a thinned-down ‘lite’ version of the plugin available in the WordPress plugin directory if you want to try that out first.
Try ElementsReady Today
Keep reading the article at Learn WordPress with WPLift. The article was originally written by Simon Wright on 2021-11-23 16:12:37.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.