Cultivate Go

Cultivate Go is a semi-custom theme while Cultivate Pro is a fully custom theme—the difference is in the design.

With Cultivate Go ($5k) we start from an already built Pro theme and customize the logo, colors, fonts, and more—then begin the white glove site launch. You’ll have all of the common features & functionality all bloggers need but with a pre-built design that’s branded for you.

With Cultivate Pro ($16k) we design a custom theme just for you starting from 175+ pre-built design patterns. You’ll have all of the common features & functionality bloggers need but with a design that’s uniquely your own.

Cultivate Go starts at $5k, with most themes coming in around $6k. Our Go waitlist is typically around 3 weeks, and once the project is started it usually takes 1 week to complete.

In comparison, Cultivate Pro starts at $16k, with most themes coming in around $17k. Our Pro waitlist is typically around 2 months, and once the project is started it usually takes 4–6 weeks to complete. The scope of work, features & functionality, technical solution, white glove site launch, and post launch support are identical between Go and Pro.

A new logo & brand often goes hand-in-hand with a website redesign. We have three branding services, depending on your needs.

• Full Brand Package ($7,500) An intensive 4-week design process where we’ll create a completely new concept for your brand—all optimized for web use and accessibility, of course. You’ll receive an all-new logo in multiple orientations, new supporting graphical elements, all-new brand colors, and a shareable brand guidelines booklet (PDF) along with your logo in a full compliment of file formats. Includes two rounds of logo revisions which is usually plenty, but you can add on additional rounds (hourly) if you’d like. This is usually the best option for bloggers looking for a complete, comprehensive rebrand.

• Standard Brand Package ($2,500) A quick 1-week design refresh of your brand where we’ll create a new text-based wordmark using certain conceptual aspects of your existing logo—all optimized for web use and accessibility, of course. While it won’t contain an illustrative logomark (think the Target logo, or the Nike Swoosh) it will communicate your brand name in a succinct and professional manner. You’ll receive a new logo with new brand colors in a full compliment of file formats. Includes two rounds of logo revisions which is usually plenty, but you can add on additional rounds (hourly) if you’d like. This is usually the best option for successful bloggers who want a refresh but don’t want to lose their valuable brand equity.

• Guided Brand Colors (performed hourly, typically $250–$500 total) Our designers will help you select accessible color palette based on your current logo and design guidance. This is usually the best option for bloggers who want to keep their existing logo but need to update their colors for accessibility purposes.

Of course if you’re happy with your current logo, we’re more than happy to keep it! Many successful bloggers, especially those with a rich site history, don’t want or need to change their logo. We absolutely do not require you to rebrand your site for a new theme. We also don’t require you work with us for a new logo or rebrand. We’ll happily work with whomever you choose and can provide guidance to make sure they create something that works well with your new theme. Heck, we’ll even recommend some logo designers for you

Every website we launch includes CultivateWP Standard Support, which is very straightforward. Need something? Maybe a new block, or perhaps style revisions? Any kind of creative work? Just email us! We only charge for actual time spent performing design/development work—that means no ongoing monthly retainers, and no invoices for time spent on emails or calls. We also have a Priority Support option.

Many of our clients also use a tech support company like NerdPress or iMark Interactive. If that’s you, continue to reach out to them for your regular tech issues; they’ll escalate any theme-related issues to us.

One more thing: when it comes to major WordPress releases you might consider reaching out to us for a white glove theme update. Since the introduction of the Gutenberg block editor, WordPress changes can be rather dramatic as new features and functionality are added. In those cases it makes sense to have your theme creator address breaking changes to the theme itself. With our white glove service, we’ll copy your site to staging, run the updates, and correct any breaking changes to the theme.

With CultivateWP Standard Support, we’ll perform the work hourly (typically just a few hours) and will only invoice you for time spent performing actual work. With CultivateWP Priority Support, you get white glove updates for all major WP releases at no additional cost.

Every designer & developer serving the high-traffic, ad-supported blogging space should deliver beautiful, fast, accessible, mobile-first WordPress themes using the block editor. Those are the table stakes!

What makes us different is our technology implementation.

First, our designers and developers work hand-in-hand through a fully tokenized design system. We use shared JSON code in both design and development that matches 1:1 with the new WordPress theme.json configuration file. Unlike a simple UI kit, every element and component in our design system has a corresponding code snippet. Our designers understand how development works because they use the exact same tools and functionality as our developers! That means they create speed-optimized designs that help our developers build themes that pass Core Web Vitals with flying colors.

Second, our Cultivate Category Pages feature is the gold standard when it comes to adding curated content to WordPress categories. Some other theme builders have pieced together similar functionality but they’re rarely coded well. Our Cultivate Category Page implementation does it the up-to-date WordPress way, meaning you won’t have duplicate content that disrupts SEO, and you won’t have to use out-of-date technology like widgets.

Third, and most importantly, we fully utilize the block editor. That means the back end editor matches the front end—line for line, image for image, font for font—so what you see truly is what you get. That also means we bring the block editor to just about every manageable part of your site. With a CultivateWP theme you’ll not only edit your posts and pages with the block editor, you’ll also manage your home page, Cultivate Category pages, sidebars, after-post comments area, above-footer area, and even more.

We’re able to do all of this because we do things the WordPress way. No tricks, hacks, or shortcuts.

We’ve launched hundreds of WordPress websites. Here are some Cultivate Go sites in our portfolio.