As a web design agency, you know that there are hundreds of different CMS platforms, page builders, and website hosts to choose from, which can be stressful when you’re trying to pick just the right tool for your business. While there are hundreds of review sites, blog posts, and YouTube videos about each and every host and page builder out there, sometimes you just want to hear directly from another agency about what their experience was like with a specific platform. So I decided to do just that!

I interviewed three different types of agencies that use Flywheel as their managed WordPress host and Elementor as their WordPress page builder to see what’s so special about these two products. The agencies I interviewed were:

• Handyman Web Design: A one-man shop that uses Flywheel and Elementor to survive and thrive.
• The Partnership: A mid-sized agency specializing in local marketing in their home city of Atlanta, Georgia.
• Clarity Business Design: A small agency that’s mastered creating eCommerce websites for clients.

Read their stories below to see why Flywheel and Elementor are the perfect pair for running their sites, and why they could be perfect for yours, too!

Handyman Web Design

Before Jason Call, the owner of Handyman Web Design, found Flywheel, he was tired. Tired of working with random hosting providers, tired of awful hosting that made his job impossible, and tired of chasing jobs rather than building monthly recurring revenue. 

“I’m a marketer, not a tech wizard, and Flywheel takes care of the wizardry so I can focus on what I do best.”

Once he found Flywheel, Jason realized he could start to grow his business, he just needed a page builder that could help him build sites as fast as he wanted to. Enter: Elementor.

“I chose Elementor as my page builder of choice because it’s easy-to-use, has incredibly powerful design widgets, and most importantly, it’s constantly being improved. At this point, I don’t even use anything in the default WordPress editor; I work 100% in Elementor.”

Now with the help of Flywheel and Elementor, Jason has grown Handyman Web Design from a one-man shop to four part-time hires, 110+ clients, and recently expanded to a full-service digital team in July, all in a matter of three years!

“Now that my team has grown and I’m managing someone who designs our sites, Elementor’s theme settings make it easy to set my team up for success, and Flywheel took all the headaches out of hosting. Now all I need to focus on is building recurring revenue that allows me to confidently grow my business and take care of my family.”

So fast forward to 2020, and Jason can now focus on growing his business and his team instead of sweating the small stuff like being tied to cPanel or traditional WordPress themes.

The Partnership 

Jeremy Hill, the Executive Director of Digital & Development at The Partnership, has watched their agency grow to more than 20 full-time employees. They’re a female-owned, full-service branding, marketing, and public relations agency located in Atlanta that has experience working with global brands and local startups, alike. They collaborate with their partners to achieve business goals through ideation, strategy, and workshops. 

“Our process always, always, always begins with a site audit (if a site currently exists) and a brand discovery. From there, we use the data and insights uncovered in discovery to inform the arrangement of the new site.”

“With all the musts in hand, we bring in the creatives to work their magic with look and feel. Using all information collected up to this point, the creative team develops wireframes, then design comps, and all content and copy to support the site. Finally, our development team comes in and takes the web comps and XD work and brings the site to life.”

At this point in the project, Elementor is crucial to The Partnership’s workflow.

“For developers, finding ways to streamline the creation of repeatable tasks is one of the quickest ways to efficiency (and profitability). By integrating Elementor into our design and development process, we’ve been able to recognize significant efficiencies, improve site look and feel, and integrate improved functional elements. Elementor offers flexibility unlike any other page builder!”

Once the first version of the site is complete, The Partnership relies on Flywheel’s staging site feature to make live site revisions and leans on the expert support team to help with any hiccups they may run into after the site is approved by the client and is live!

“Flywheel’s Happiness Engineers are always available and very knowledgeable about WordPress and how it works with Flywheel. I appreciate that many of the engineers I speak with could easily be on my side of the conversation (or so it seems from their level of knowledge in our support chats). Seriously, the support is far beyond that of any hosting provider we engage with.”

With the help of Flywheel and Elementor, a project that The Partnership’s team would timeline out at eight weeks just two years ago can now be knocked out in half that time (if not quicker)!

Clarity Business Design

Erik Soper, Creative Director at Clarity Business Design, has been in the web design business for close to 10 years, and after finding Elementor, he’s been able to offer eCommerce solutions to new and existing clients!

“I was looking for a tool to implement Atomic Design, a method that focuses on designing building blocks to create a system for web design where each block is made of smaller blocks or components. Elementor proved to be especially effective at translating this method into practice, and the ability to create custom layouts for eCommerce pages and other custom post types has made Elementor absolutely essential for my work.”

Once Erik discovered just how customizable Elementor was, he paired it with Flywheel’s platform to master his workflow for eCommerce sites.

“I now have a site with standardized CSS and plugin configurations on my Flywheel plan that I use for an eCommerce site. I simply clone that site to spin up a new one and develop the nuances of branding and layout from there. Elementor Pro and WooCommerce is usually my go-to for these sites.”

Now that Erik has standardized building out sites with Elementor, he can now manage these sites with long-term service plans, or hand them off to his clients thanks to the ease of Flywheel’s platform.

“I wanted a hosting platform that would be easy for my clients to use if necessary, and easy for my team to use if they needed access to advanced processes like database management and emergency site restorations. Flywheel offered all of this and more: A secure and speedy platform, modular permissions controls through collaborators and organizations management, and a user-friendly dashboard that not only allows me to confidently hand off a site if need be, but it makes my day-to-day management process so much easier.”

With the help of Elementor and Flywheel, Erik is now empowered to build new websites faster, more precisely to his specifications, and more customized to each of his client’s needs.

So, there you have it! Three wildly different (and successful!) agencies all using Flywheel and Elementor to do their very best work. While there are hundreds of hosts and page builders out there, these agencies (and thousands of others) firmly believe that Flywheel and Elementor are among the best of the best.

Getting started with Flywheel and Elementor is super simple

When you sign up for Flywheel and Elementor, you’ll receive a free, 30-day trial, an auto-install of WordPress, the Elementor plugin, 24/7/365 support, and a delightfully-designed dashboard. What’s not to love?

LEARN MORE