Duda vs Elegant Themes Comparison 2026
Duda is a hosted site builder priced per project: $19 a month billed annually for one site, plus $19 a month for every site after that. Elegant Themes sells Divi, a WordPress page builder licensed at $89 a year for unlimited sites, which is why it has stayed in agencies building many small sites for a decade. An agency running ten client sites pays roughly ten times over on Duda's per-project model and pays the same $89 on Divi's licence. What Duda buys instead is a platform to build and host on; Divi is a plugin for a WordPress site you already have to run yourself.
A site builder aimed at people building for clients
Divi, on a licence for unlimited sites
At a glance
- Duda starts cheaper, at $19.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Duda | Elegant Themes | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $19 | From $89 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Not stated | Not stated |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
Duda
A site builder aimed at people building for clients
Duda is built for somebody making sites for other people: client permissions, a white-label editor and a per-site price that scales with the number of projects rather than the size of one. Sites are fast and responsive without hand-tuning. The team and white-label tiers are where its actual audience sits, and the cheapest plan is a single site for somebody trying it. Anybody building one personal site will find the agency machinery irrelevant and the price higher than the consumer builders.
Our note
Count the sites you will publish, not the features you want, because the per-project charge is what actually sets your bill here. Against Webflow the split is that this is easier to hand to a non-technical client and harder to push into an unusual layout.
Elegant Themes
Divi, on a licence for unlimited sites
Elegant Themes sells Divi, a WordPress page builder whose licence covers unlimited sites rather than counting them, which is why it has stayed in agencies for a decade. The visual editor works on the front end, so layout changes are made on the page rather than in a preview. A large marketplace of child themes and layouts sits beside it. Divi generates its own markup, and moving a site off it later means rebuilding, which is the cost nobody prices in at the start.
Why people weigh these two
- Elegant Themes instead of Duda
- Elegant Themes licences Divi for unlimited sites at $89, a pay-once WordPress route where Duda meters by site.
- Duda instead of Elegant Themes
- Duda is aimed at people building sites for clients, priced from $19 a month on a trial rather than Divi's flat $89-a-year licence for unlimited sites.
Which one should you pick
Duda is the pick for an agency that wants hosting, white-label client permissions and handover built in, and does not want to run WordPress at all. Basic is $19 a month billed annually for one site, and the White Label tier at $149 is aimed at agencies reselling the whole platform under their own name.
Elegant Themes is the pick for a WordPress freelancer building many sites, where an unlimited licence at $89 a year is the cheapest per-site cost in this comparison by a wide margin. The front-end visual editor suits people who design by adjusting a live page rather than a preview. The trade is that Divi generates its own markup, so moving a client off it later means a rebuild, a cost worth pricing in before adopting it for a site somebody might eventually take elsewhere.
Common questions
- Which is cheaper for an agency running several sites?
- Elegant Themes, by a wide margin. Divi Pro is an $89 a year licence covering unlimited sites, while Duda charges $19 a month billed annually for the first site and another $19 a month for each site after that. Ten client sites cost Divi's flat $89 a year and cost Duda roughly ten times its single-site price.
- Does Duda need WordPress?
- No. Duda is a hosted, standalone builder with its own editor and hosting included. Elegant Themes only works as a plugin inside an existing WordPress installation, so it assumes you are already running, or willing to run, WordPress yourself.
- What happens if I want to move a Divi site off WordPress later?
- It means a rebuild. Divi generates its own markup rather than clean, portable code, so a site built on it is tied to the plugin in a way that is not obvious until somebody tries to leave. Duda does not have this problem in the same way, since the platform itself is what is being paid for rather than a plugin layered onto something else.
- Which one is easier to hand to a non-technical client?
- Duda. Its white-label editor and client permissions exist specifically so an agency can hand over a finished site without exposing the platform underneath. Divi's front-end editing is friendly for the person who built the site, but handover was not the design goal the way it is for Duda's Team and Agency tiers.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.