Beaver Builder – Plugins and Theme Review

If you already had a taste of WordPress, you might have realized that there is a hard way of building a website and there is an easy way that can save you time, keep things as efficient, fast, and much more!

This will be a review of one of our favorite plugins, Beaver Builder. We use it for many different reasons, but mainly because is efficient, has clean code which allows you to have a fast optimized website, very easy to use, and if you have clients or you teach people how to use WordPress, you will see that teaching someone how to use the beaver builder is piece of cake, super intuitive and can make beautiful and professional pages.

Another great side is the huge support community that the Beaver Builder has grown full of amazing and helpful people and this plugin is always up to date regarding security, bugs, and other details which are important for a website.

Either way, in this review we will go over these points and many more so you are quickly able to manage this tool and create great professional websites!

So, What is Beaver Builder?

Basically, Beaver Builder is a page builder plugin that uses a system of drag-and-drop, which makes the creation of WordPress websites pages and content extremely easy and fast. All their modules to build content work in the front-end of the page or post you are editing, allowing you to see the final result as you develop. And the best part, no coding required!

Throughout this review, we will as well, show you how this plugin works and how flexible it is. As you study it, you will as well realize how complex it can become, but only if you need it to be complex. Which allows you to build almost anything you want, inclusive automatized areas of the website that update by themselves as the content is added.

But in this review, let’s keep things simple, shall we? That way, you will be able to decide if this plugin is the right page builder for you.

Let’s start with the Why!

Nowadays, WordPress has it’s own Block Editor. So you might wonder, why would I need a page builder like Beaver Builder? Well, simply put, the WordPress Block Editor is relatively new and so still has a lot to be improved. In the meantime, through the Beaver Builder, you don’t only have far more and better options, but it is way more flexible as well, regarding the visual that you want for your website.

We mention this because the Block Editor is not really a page builder, is more like a standard WordPress Editor displayed with a couple more features. While with page builder, it allows you to completely change the whole layout of your website. Especially when you have the right theme that is compatible with your builder. Which is also that Beaver Builder also provides, a Theme and a Child Theme.

Main Features of Beaver Builder

Here we will be listing some of the many great features they provide:

• Visual Editor with fully functional drag and drop platform – Beaver Builder allows you to edit the full page display by just simply drag and drop some of the modules into the page you are editing. All that you have to do is to select which module you want, either text, a picture, a video, a link, and so on, and insert it in the area of the page that you want it to display. As you drop the block, you will be able to see in real-time how the block will display in the front-end of your website, on the actual page. Beaver Builder also allows you to edit the internal configuration on the module in an easy way where you see your changes straight away
• Clean Interface – Beaver Builder display is extremely simple and friendly and has no unnecessary information distracting you or popping up while you are doing your work. All the modules are displayed in a sidebar that you can open as you need it and even move it around, so it suits your visual needs in the best way possible.
• Responsive and easy configuration for multiple devices – Another amazing feature is that the modules and the builder itself have a function where you can see how your pages display in multiple device sizes so you can make pages that are fully responsive and load fast either for desktop, tablet or mobile.
• Module and Page Templates – Beaver Builder brings along a series of templates and pre-formatted modules to optimize your time when building webpages, so you don’t have to start over from the beginning every time you build a page. For example, for modules, you have a youtube module that allows you to insert only the link and it will automatically embed the youtube video on the page. With pages, you can select pre-built pages with a certain layout and do your changes on top of it. And to make things even better, you can save your template and modules for further use in the same or other websites you might have to manage!
• Themes Compatibility – Beaver Builder is compatible with any theme you decide to choose, but we advise you to choose a theme that is friendly with page builders for better results.
• Layout based on columns and rows – Beaver Builder allows you to build custom rows and columns, this way you will be able to organize your modules without needing to code in CSS to display them as you want.
• Fully customizable pages, posts, and products – Another great feature is the ability to not only being able to make the pages looking the way you want but as well posts and products for woo-commerce for example. That way, you can make your website a unique look.

How does Beaver Builder work?

It is as simple as installing the Beaver Builder plugin, then activating it. That will allow you to use it for pages. If you want to use it for posts as well, you might have to activate that feature in Settings > Beaver Builder > Post Types and add the option of posts.

Adding your 1st piece of content with Beaver Builder

When you add a new page, WordPress will give you the option of opening the page with Beaver Builder, before that choose a title and then go ahead You will see that once the builder is loaded, the interface is very clean.

In this example, the header and footer were already set up, as you can see. Now, you are able to start building the content of the page (By the way, both header and footer were also done using Beaver Builder extension “Beaver Themer” which is quite an addon with great new functionalities).

Now, in the top right, in the “+” sign, you will see that there are 4 option:

There you can checkout the modules, rows, templates and the saved content done by you.

Now, after clicking in the “+”, choose your module and go ahead building your page!

Once you drop your module, go ahead to customize it, add text or pictures as you please. Every module has diffetent options and settings that you can use.

Below, you can see the module of a text editor, this one for text is the most flexible because you can write headings, paragraphs, lists and so on.

For the Text Editor module, for example, you don’t even need to open the module. If you click directly in the text on the page, it will allow you to edit it with ease.

Creating a page layout

Dragging and dropping modules is easy. Now, you need to be able to build a layout so that the modules are able to fall into the right places so that they display properly.

For this, after clicking in the “+”, go to the column of the rows and start positioning them as you wish your content to display.

This way, you are now ready to start adding you modules to the page.

Using Templates

Templates are another amazing feature that allows you to make pages in minutes. You basically upload the template, then you change what is already on the page. This way, you can also learn some techniques on how to make pages a bit more complex, this way you can make real masterpieces.

Simply go to templates, choose the template that you want and add it! Take into consideration if you already had previous content displaying on the page, you can either choose to substitute your current page content or just append the template after the content you already have, this can be very useful when you want a specific module displaying in a certain way that you saw in one of the templates.

Let’s talk about pricing.

Beaver Builder has its free version that can be used to build a very simple website but if you want to go a step ahead, the premium version is totally worth it. The premium version allows you to build an unlimited number of websites, so you only need to pay it once. Then if you wish to renew it after one year it is advisable so that you can keep in touch with the developers in case that any support is needed, the renewal has a 40% discount already applied. Their support is great and they even have a Slack channel where their huge community answer quite quickly to solve any issue you might have.

Here are their pricing:

• Standard $99 – This package will give you access to the page builder and premium modules & Templates
• Pro $199 – This is the one we recommend for most professional website developers as it has everything from the Standard package, allows you to use it in a WordPress Multisite, and comes with the Beaver Builder Theme which is a super flexible theme for you to build and configure every part of your website
• Agency $399 – Now this one only has an extra which is the White Labeling. This allows you to change all wording of Beaver Builder and page builder on the admin area, as well as the core Templates. A must for big agencies.

I’ll be listing here 2 more very useful tools that are addons for Beaver Builder and give you even more flexibility when developing:

• Beaver Themer $147 – This one is quite amazing as it allows you to edit entire layouts of archive pages, entire post types, 404, and even search pages. This means that even the woo-commerce pages can be completely changed with new layouts. Besides that, you are able to build your header and footer with some amazing features, like mega menus.
• Beaver Addons $99 (combo of both) – This one is recommended by Beaver Builder and again brings you more functionalities and makes some others easier to use. With this addon, you can avoid having to install further plugins for websites that need maintenance mode and also allows you to create headers and footers. Besides that, the real deal is the modules and templates it brings along, dozens of them!
  • PowerPack $69 (individually) – Over 65 new modules, more than 350 rows and page templates.
  • WooPack $59 (individually) – Special Woocommerce modules.

Choosing between the Free and Pro

You need to make a comfortable choice. Bear in mind that depending on the type of website you are going to build, maybe the free version is enough but if it is not, you can always choose to upgrade it until you are satisfied.

The templates in the Pro version are quite useful and some of them are made for specific industries, this doesn’t mean that they cannot be modified to suit the industry you are working on.

If your design skills are not the best and you want to develop websites quickly, for sure, the Pro version will make your life extremely simple and allow you to develop beautiful websites that your customers will be amazed at.

Now, if your design skills are great, the Pro version is still a good option as it will allow you to save your templates and layouts for further use, so you don’t have to start over again and again.

Another great reason that would be useful the pro version is the modules that it brings along, and for that, the addons allow you to go even further with special modules that bring WordPress experiences to a whole new level.

The Free option would suit better if you would like to simply display your portfolio or a simple website with mostly text content.

Our verdict about Beaver Builder

Beaver Builder is in our opinion the best page builder & Theme combination currently out there. Is the one we have been using and it looks like it will be the one we will keep using for some good long years due to the easiness, aesthetic display, flexibility, clean code… and many other reasons.

The fact that is has a growing community and addons that make this simple tool extremely powerful is another reason that we love Beaver Builder, it always keeps surprising us.

In the meantime, if you have any question, please let us know in the comments below.