I spent two years recommending Elementor to every client who wanted a store. It’s visual, it’s fast to start, and non-developers love it. I stopped. Not because it’s bad software, but because for a store under fifty products, it adds a layer of complexity that bites you later.
The problem shows up around month three. You’ve built a beautiful product page template in the builder. Then you want to change the button color. In a block theme, that’s one setting. In a builder, it’s a global widget style, a template override, and possibly a CSS class you added manually. I’ve watched clients spend an afternoon on a button color change. That’s the cost nobody quotes.
There’s also the performance angle. Page builders output a lot of markup and CSS. On cheap shared hosting, which is where most side hustles start, that translates to slow product pages. Slow product pages translate to abandoned carts. I’m not going to pretend a block theme is always faster, but it’s usually lighter, and the difference is visible on a $5-a-month host.
The counterargument is real: block themes are less intuitive for someone who’s never touched WordPress. The Site Editor in WordPress 6.x is better than it was, but it’s still not drag-and-drop in the way Elementor is. If you’re truly non-technical and need a custom layout today, a builder is a legitimate choice. I just want you to know what you’re signing up for.
What I use instead, for small stores: a lightweight block theme like Twenty Twenty-Four or a commercial theme built for WooCommerce that doesn’t bundle a builder. GeneratePress, Kadence, and Blocksy are all reasonable. They give you header and footer customization, some layout controls, and get out of the way. Product pages are handled by WooCommerce templates, which are consistent and predictable.
For the parts where you genuinely need a custom layout, like a landing page or a homepage, use the block editor with a couple of pattern plugins. WordPress’s built-in patterns have gotten good. You can drop in a hero, a three-column feature section, and a testimonial block without a builder. It’s less flexible than a builder, but it’s also less to maintain.
Here’s a concrete example. A client sells digital templates. Her store has twelve products. In Elementor, her product page had a custom template, a global widget style, and two plugins to manage the builder add-ons. Site speed scored 61 on mobile. We rebuilt with Kadence and the native block editor. Same layout, roughly. Site speed scored 89. She hasn’t touched the design in four months and doesn’t need to.
The exception is stores with unusual product layouts. If you sell configurable products with a lot of conditional fields, or you need a complex multi-step checkout, a builder or a specialized plugin might genuinely save you time. The rule I use: if the custom layout is on more than three pages, consider a builder. If it’s one landing page, use blocks.
What about the learning curve? It’s real, but it’s smaller than it used to be. The WordPress Site Editor is improving every release, and the block ecosystem is mature. The tradeoff is that you spend an extra afternoon learning blocks now instead of an extra afternoon fixing builder conflicts later. I’ve made that trade with every client for the last year and haven’t regretted it.
If you’re already on a builder, don’t panic-migrate. A working store with a builder beats a half-migrated store without one. But if you’re starting fresh, and your store is small, start with blocks. You’ll thank yourself when you need to change a button color.