Page builders represent a huge market in the WordPress ecosystem. Here is the most important thing to consider before choosing one.

The WordPress page builder market is quite competitive. There are many options to choose from, all boasting some pretty impressive capabilities. I personally have used quite a number of them. In fact, I have probably have seen every one of them in use over the years given that many LearnDash customers opt to use page builders to design their online course sites.

While I certainly have my own preferences, this article isn’t an opinion piece. And quite frankly that’s not a can of worms that I feel like opening. Opinions on page builders are never-ending.

If you are in the market for a page builder then I want to offer up a piece of advice to consider before making your selection. It has nothing to do with things like ease of use, speed, or feature-sets. These things are pretty subjective. What I think is “easy” may not be the same for you, and vice versa.

My advice to anyone in the market for a page builder is this: choose the one based on what life is like after you’re done using it.

This means that when you decide to stop using your page builder you should have an understanding about what your content look like when it’s disabled. Not all page builders are created equal in this area. Some have been known to leave a bunch of random shortcodes and text on your page rendering your content useless while others won’t do this.

If you choose one that leaves a mess when disabled then you’re essentially locked into that builder. You can’t move, at least not without hours upon hours of work transitioning your content.

The good news for you is that there are many page builders that will not leave any kind of mess when disabled. Your content stays the same and sometimes even the formatting is minimally impacted. Go with those options. You’ll save yourself major headaches.