Thrive Content Builder is now Thrive Architect. It’s more powerful than ever. Why my review is different than the rest on the internet? I’ve tried and tested Thrive Architect for months since it’s released and compared it deeply with other plugins in WordPress market.

Read the review mindfully, and you will thank me later.

Type	Landing page builder
Starting price	$19/mo
Features	1. Vertical split layouts 2. Inbuilt lead generation 3. Thrive lightboxes 4. A/B split testing 5. Backward compatibility
Competitors	1.Elementor 2. Beaver Builder

In this post, I’m presenting you my review on Thrive Architect, the plugin I’m using on certain landing pages of my blog.

Previously the when I bought it, Thrive Architect was Thrive Content Builder. I even reviewed it a few months ago. You will get access to Thrive Architect as a part of Thrive Suite.

At the end of August 2017, the version 2.0 of the plugin was released and the Thrive team named it as Thrive Architect for branding purposes. The new name is great and also the new version of the plugin is loaded with great features and is faster than ever.

In this review, let me walk you through Thrive Architect, and also I will add some few notes regarding how their new plugin is different than the older Thrive Content Builder.

Is Thrive Architect still breaking pages? If you scroll down to the comments section of this post, you can see people complaining that Thrive Architect when it was released initially used to break pages i.e during the transition from Thrive Content Builder to Thrive Architect.

I also experienced this first-hand where it broke some of the elements on my landing pages.

But trust me, not now!

Thrive Architect has been improved from the ground-up, by Shane Melaugh and the Thrive Themes team. It’s now more reliable than ever. It has been refined a lot and is now crazy-stable that new features have been released week after week!

Am I using Thrive Architect? I have Thrive Architect installed on this site and also all my other affiliate sites.

Here in this blog, I’m using it along with Elementor for the pages where I need to use native A/B split testing, Thrive Leads and other Thrive-only functionalities.

• The main strength of Thrive Architect is its integration with a dozen of other email marketing, webinar, and digital marketing tools.
• It also integrates natively with other Thrive Themes products like Thrive Optimize, Thrive Leads, Thrive Ultimatum, Thrive Quiz Builder, etc.
• Thrive Themes allows you to have a complete sales funnel setup right under your WordPress site.

These are the main reasons why the other WordPress page builders can’t replace Thrive Architect!

Thrive Architect review

Thrive Architect is a powerful, and a standalone drag and drop WYSIWYG WordPress page builder.

It’s the next version Thrive Content Builder (first ever front end page builder for WordPress) as I told you earlier and comes with various powerful features.

You can use Thrive Architect to:

• Build conversion-friendly landing pages for lead generation, sales page, webinars, course pages, ebook pages, etc. It has inbuilt lead generation features and also option for light-boxes.
• Build blog page with lots of flexibility.
• Create product review and blog posts using the templates available under content blocks module.
• Create an attractive homepage for your website.

User interface

The UI is clean and simplified than the interface of the older version. The user experience is totally reconsidered and the design is totally revamped.

The user experience is swift and feels fluid when compared to their older plugin.

The new organization of the drag and drop elements allows you to easily find the element you need to use as opposed to Thrive Content Builder in which you needed to scroll down the list to find the element you are looking for.

In case of Thrive Content Builder, the element options were floating over the actual element you dragged in the page itself sometimes blocking the complete view.

But in case of Thrive Architect, the element options can be modified in the sidebar itself.

Getting the element customization options in the sidebar rather than as an overlay on the writing area is a great improvement.

Elements of Thrive Architect

​All the Thrive Architect elements come with extensive options.

You can alter every aspect of the element, whether it be color, border, margin, padding, tweak how it appears in mobile devices, spacing, animation, typefocus, shadow, alignment, background, and much more depending upon the element.

There’s simply no aspect of the element that can’t be altered in Thrive Architect.

This blog post would be too long if I start listing each and every option of each of the 34 elements.

The design elements are categorized as the foundation and building blocks. The foundation section includes some of the most used elements like text box, image, button, columns, headings, etc.

The foundation section includes some of the most used elements like text box, image, button, columns, headings, etc.

The next section of elements is called as building blocks. This section has the most elements in Thrive Architect.

Foundation elements

• Paragraph
• Heading
• Image
• Button
• Columns
• Background section
• Content box
• Content template and symbols (similar to Elementor’s Global widgets)

Building block elements​​​​​​​​​​

In May 2019, Thrive Architect introduced content blocks. I’m completely astonished by seeing the content marketing templates this element offers.

The templates available in this module are really great when it comes to building content marketing landing pages. And also the the call to action, product ratings, steps, pros and cons are really helpful while writing product reviews on your affiliate website.

They are regularly adding new templates to the content block element. I’m excited to watch how their template collection evolves over time.

Lesser-known Thrive Architect tip: In order to duplicate the element, you just need to hold Option/Alt key and drag the element. Automatically, the duplicate of the element is created.

Settings and template setup

Here’s the section that matters the most to you!

By clicking the gear icon at the top left corner of the Thrive Architect you can access the settings and template setup section.

In the settings section, You can setup page events on exit intent or timer. After it is triggered, you can display a Thrive Lightbox or a LeadBox if you are using Thrive Leads along with Thrive Architect.

The Edit HTML section allows you to display the code behind the page built by Thrive Architect. This code will be very helpful in doing search and replace to edit the content after the page is built and also to make HTML specific alterations to the page if you are a developer. No other WordPress page builder displays you the landing page’s source code.

Custom CSS allows you to add CSS that will be applied to the page you are designing.

Turning off/on the reminders that remind you to save the work periodically while building the page can also be done on this settings page.

You can also switch editor side – left or right in this page. I personally like the editor to be on the left side! The default one.

You do also need to note that the landing page templates are visible only if you are building WordPress pages but not posts.

Landing page settings allows you to modify the settings of the landing page like the background of the landing page, scripts to be loaded in the landing page (like a retargeting pixel), and some other settings that apply to the whole landing page as opposed to individual elements.

You can save the landing page to use it again and again, in case you are designing multiple landing pages of the same kind. This one is a huge time-saver for me!

You can also export or import a landing page. The landing page will be exported in a zip format containing HTML files and scripts. This option is very handy to transfer landing pages between your different sites or even to backup the landing pages.

There is also an option to allow you to revert back to the theme look from landing page look using the settings.

Hundreds of pre-designed landing pages to choose from

Imagine what it would be like if you have 100s of landing page templates at your disposal ready to be modified and tweaked to any extent rather than shelling out huge money on developers.

It’s a dream of every digital marketer right?

Thrive Architect also comes with hundreds of landing page templates you can choose to suit your needs. In Thrive Architect, the templates are beautifully presented and categorised neatly.

I’m planning to use “review” category templates extensively for my affiliate niche sites as these templates are designed extensively keeping conversion optimization in mind.

Here’s the kicker boys and girls!

Weeks after writing this blog post, Thrive Themes released a new set of landing pages called “Bright”. They are also known as “rapidly customizable landing pages”. Constantly adding value to the existing customers is the strategy that Thrive Themes use to wow you!

As you can see in the above image. You can alter every element in the landing pages.

The above screenshot shows how you can edit the eBook cover image as an example without using Photoshop and other tools.

You don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars to get your landing page developed by a developer. With Thrive Architect you can design any landing page you imagine and can modify every bit of it as per your wish.

More focus on responsiveness

Here’s one more!

Would you like to build landing pages especially for mobile devices? Now you can do that.

A conversion friendly and responsive page builder should give you complete control on how your page should appear in mobile and tablet devices. The Thrive Architect comes with dedicated ‘responsive’ section for every element as you can see in the below screenshot.

As you can see in the above screenshot, you can toggle the elements to be displayed on various devices. For example in the above screenshot, I’ve set an image to be displayed on all devices.

Some changes that are done (like font size changes) while in the mobile/tablet view will be only saved for mobile/tablet devices but not on desktop screens.

This is a much-needed addition. It is very helpful especially in case of light boxes. Previously, the Thrive Content Builder had no options for this, the Thrive Lightbox would gobble up mobile’s small display. But no more with Thrive Architect.

Advanced Designs

Thrive Architect is adding new design features and possibilities very frequently. We’ll reviewing some of these features.

Vertical split layouts

Vertical two column split designs have become a great trend nowadays in web design.

Thrive Architect has the vertical split layout design functionality.

This kind of vertical split layouts allow you to display the main image along with the same emphasis on headline and the text. Whereas, in “hero image” layout, image captures most of the attention than the crucial headline.

You can refer to the above video by Shane, the founder of Thrive Themes to get to know how to create vertical split layouts with Thrive Architect.

Fancy Dividers

Thrive Architect also introduced Shape Divider (which they call fancy dividers) functionality.

This feature can be applied to the content box and also the background section elements. This allows you to create really advanced looking page design.

As of updating this section, there were around 40+ fancy divider options to choose from. This is even more than the limited Shape Divider options that Elementor comes with.

Above is an example of a Fancy Divider called “Halftone”.

You can refer the above video for more features and options.

Lead Generation with Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect comes with inbuilt lead generation functionalities.

The two main features are:

1. Lead Generation element
2. Thrive Lightboxes

Let’s look at the lead generation element first. You need to drag this element to the work area.

Or alternatively, you can also import any prebuilt lead generation templates offered by Thrive Architect.

Here you can customize the fields of the lead generation form and connect the form to your favorite email marketing software through API or HTML integration.

Thrive Themes integrates from almost every major email marketing softwares from Mailchimp all the way to Sendy/Mautic. You can refer this page for integrations anyhow.

Apart from this, they’ve also got the Lightboxes functionality.

Once you launch Thrive Architect here, it’ll load up the lightbox popup builder.

Here you need to make use of text, image and also lead generation elements to create your popup.

You can trigger the published popups on your landing pages or when visitors click on any buttons on your landing page.

You can also trigger the lightboxes on your landing pages after a specific time or exit intent.

With Thrive Architect you get the basic lightbox functionality.

However, if you want lightbox templates and other lead generation ways like scroll mat, slide-ins, and much more you can go with Thrive Leads. It integrates tightly with Thrive Architect and super-charges your lead generation mechanisms.

It lets you implement many advanced lead generation mechanisms like signup segue, scroll mat, content upgrades, scroll triggered popups, templates, etc. It also comes with advanced reporting.

Akshay recommends: Thrive Leads Review: Detailed Analysis of Pros and Cons

A/B Split Testing with Thrive Architect

In order to do A/B split testing with Thrive Architect, you need to have access to Thrive Optimize as well along with Thrive Architect.

This adds split testing functionality to WordPress.

Here you can create variations of the original landing page, distribute traffic to them.

Here you need to select the goal of the test, and when the goal is satisfied, you can decide the winner of the A/B split testings.

This is a great way to boost the ROI with your ad campaign.

Compatibility

Backward compatibility

The Thrive Architect is backward compatible with the previous Thrive Content Builder.

As I’ve said earlier in this blog post, Thrive Architect was previously Thrive Content Builder.

When the rebrand was made, there were some major bugs and the transition didn’t go smooth. The upgradation from Thrive Content Builder to Thrive Architect ended up with some broken/locked elements that I manually ended up removing them using their code editor.

Except for some bugs here and there, the Thrive Architect is built to be backward compatible with Thrive Content Builder.

The legacy elements of Thrive Content Builder still works in the new Thrive Architect. Those elements now have a Migrate Element button, to convert them to new Thrive Architect elements.

But sometimes, upon clicking on “Migrate Element”, the padding and margins may get altered.

Content preservation

Content lock-in is a very serious issue in case of WordPress page builders.

You build attractive landing page with your page builder, and one day you deactivate and delete the page builder plugin.

Now, you’ll be ended up with a huge pile of shortcode or landing page content will disappear completely. It means, you are now a hostage for that page builder plugin.

Content lock-in was a huge issue with previous Thrive Content Builder, Divi Builder and also Visual Composer.

With Thrive Architect, even when you uninstall the plugin, the content of the landing page will still be present but it loses the formatting and stylings. It preserves the content HTML and also applies theme’s CSS to it.

Thrive Architect combats the serious problem of content lock-in effectively with their plugin. In face, they’ve documented this.

Compatibility with other themes and plugins

With the previous Thrive Content Builder, some elements called “Thrive Elements” were reserved to be only used with their Thrive Themes.

But now with Thrive Architect, no matter what theme you use, the page builder offers all the features.

Personally, I’ve tried Thrive Architect with GeneratePress, Genesis, and now with Astra Pro. I’ve never ran into theme compatibility issues. It should work with every popular WordPress theme that’s well-coded.

I’m currently using Thrive Architect along with Elementor; yes two page builders on one site. Both of these page builders are working great together.

Also, you need to note that I’m using plugins like Yoast SEO, ThirstyAffiliates, WP Fastest Cache, Social Locker, many other plugins. All is fine.

However, as far as I can remember page builders typically have some issues with Auto-optimize plugin.

Pricing

If you don’t have a license of Thrive Content Builder, then you need to obviously purchase Thrive Architect.

All of their plans come with lifetime updates. This is one of the features that very few page builders come with. I purchased Thrive Architect when it was Thrive Content Builder, still I’m getting updates

Akshay’s note: Thrive Architect is a great frontend visual editor plugin for WordPress. I absolutely love the simplicity, swiftness of the new plugin. I highly suggest you try this plugin out to create beautiful looking content on the fly.

I suggest you get it along with Thrive Optimize in a bundled package if you want split testing functionality.

I suggest you get it along with Thrive Optimize in a bundled package if you want split testing functionality.

While researching for some great WYSIWYG editors for WordPress, I finally settled with Thrive Architect.

The integration of the plugin with various other Thrive Themes products is phenomenal. It lets you create really advanced marketing funnels.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Comes at the one-time fee and lifetime free updates
• Quick regular updates and new features
• Comes with hundreds of conversion optimized templates
• Comes with in-built lead generation features
• Tightly integrates with other Thrive products

Cons

• Sometimes the mobile landing page preview differs from the actual mobile design
• The transition from Thrive Content Builder to Thrive Architect was quite aggressive
• When I paste the content from WordPress visual editor in Thrive Architect, the entire content (even images) will be listed under “text” element – earlier in Thrive Content Builder it used to auto-create elements for the pasted data.

Get my two $97 courses FREE on your purchase!

If you decide to buy the Thrive Architect, I’ll be happy to give you access to the following training courses.

1. Purchase clicking the below button in incognito/private window
2. Email me the receipt for the purchase at akshay@bloggingx.com
3. Get access to the courses within 1-3 days after the verification

IMPORTANT: While buying the products, open the below link in the incognito mode (right click and open in Incognito or Private window), complete the payment there itself or else sale may not be tracked and you may not receive my courses.

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FAQs on Thrive Architect

Final words

The Thrive Architect is marketed towards serious internet entrepreneurs and has many features and elements that makes you possible to accomplish any kind of marketing imagination on your blog.

If you are a marketer, hands down, it’s the best page builder plugin for marketers that you will get with Thrive Suite.

PS: If you are buying Thrive Architect, please buy me a coffee purchasing through my link. Let’s connect!