Cultivate Go

Semi-custom WordPress themes with all our best technology — available now!

See our portfolio of sites built with Go →

Compete with the biggest sites, but at a fraction of the price.

Once your site gains traction and starts generating revenue, you might wonder about the next step. Should you keep using an off-the-shelf theme until you can save up tens-of-thousands-of-dollars for a custom theme? Or should you settle for a bargain basement agency? Is there an option that strikes a balance between the two without compromising on technology?

Introducing Cultivate Go: filling the gap between off-the-shelf themes and expensive custom themes.

Cultivate Go is our semi-custom theme design and white glove site setup. You choose one of our core themes—which we customize with your logo, brand colors, and typography—and then we set it up on your staging environment and launch your site in just 1 week and for only $5,000.

Since Cultivate Go is built with Cultivate Pro, you’ll have the exact same features, functionality, and support as themes costing up to 10x as much. That means your Cultivate Go site can compete on an even technological playing field with bloggers who have millions of monthly pageviews.

Next available Go launch: Monday, December 9, 2024

What makes Cultivate Go different?

Showcase your brand

A semi-custom theme
made for your brand.

We’ve included ample opportunity to make every Cultivate Go theme completely branded just for you. Naturally we can drop in your logo, but since all our themes are built with the WordPress theme.json configuration file, we can easily change dozens of stylistic aspects—colors, fonts, and more—to truly make it your own.

Affordable technology

All the features at a fraction of the cost.

Cultivate Go themes have the exact same features and functionality as our Pro and VIP themes that cost up to 10x more. Plus, every Go theme includes our white glove site launch where we rebuild your site in staging, audit your plugins, update all settings, and seamlessly launch your new site with no downtime—exactly like our costlier services.

Our best Technology

Our best technology

All CultivateWP themes are fast, secure, easy to use, feature-rich, and well-coded. We absolutely refuse to compromise on the quality of our technology.

That means Cultivate Go themes are just as fast, secure, easy to use, feature-rich, and well-coded as our traditional Cultivate Pro and VIP themes—but at a fraction of the cost.

All CultivateWP themes including Cultivate Go are:

Mobile First

Designed how your audience sees it.

Accessible

Universally accessible, regardless of abilities.

SEO-Friendly

Created following SEO expert guidance.

Theme.json

Fully tokenized from design to code.

Gutenberg

Thoroughly utilizing the WordPress block editor.

Coding Standards

Built the right way with WordPress standards.

Pagespeed

Designed & developed to be uncommonly fast.

Core Web Vitals

Able to pass Core Web Vitals with flying colors.

Included with Cultivate Go:

Cultivate Category Pages

Cultivate Category Pages enables you to turn normal category pages into content-rich curated landing pages that not only rank better in search engines but are also more helpful for your visitors.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is Cultivate Go, and what’s your waitlist?

Cultivate Go costs $5,000. We’re typically available to start Go projects within a few weeks, and most clients have their new site live within two to four weeks after their initial call with us.

Most sites don’t require any additional out-of-scope work, but the ones that do typically have 2-4 hours of additional work to build new features or resolve technical issues with their current site. Out-of-scope work is completed on an hourly basis ($250/hr in 15 min increments). Simple changes may be performed during development but most complex work is best performed post-launch as a Standard Support request.

Note: Starting in 2025, Cultivate Go is $6,000.

Does it really take one week?

Most Go sites are launched within 3-5 business days after their Go start date. Here’s a summary of the entire process:

1. You schedule a call with one of our designers to learn about how our themes work and select one or two Go themes that might be a good fit for you.
2. Within a day or two after the call, our designer shares some mockups showing your selected Go themes with your logo, colors, and typography.
3. Once you decide which theme you’d like us to build, you select a start date for your Go project. You can see our next available date above.
4. On the scheduled Go start date, you implement a content freeze (ie: no new posts or edits) and we’ll temporarily disable new comments on your live site. We’ll copy your site to staging, build your new theme, set up the theme and key plugins, and customize the homepage + recipe index. This takes 2 business days, so if you selected a Monday as your Go start date, you’d have it ready for review by end-of-day Tuesday.
5. You can review the staging site and customize the content. Once you’re happy with the site, we will push it live, replacing your current live site (hence the content freeze). We recommend keeping the review period to 1-2 days to minimize the length of time of your content freeze.

How does Cultivate Go compare to Cultivate Pro?

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.

Note: Starting in 2025, Cultivate Go is $6,000, Cultivate Pro is $18,000, and Cultivate VIP is $45,000.

Do you offer branding services, too?

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

Logo Refinement ($1,000) If you already have a logo you generally like but it needs a bit of cleanup before your site redesign, this is the plan for you. We’ll redraw your logo to vectorize it and then create 4 or 5 additional variations of the logo for you to choose from. We’ll also create a Style Guide with a complete set of brand colors and typography that compliments your logo. This is usually the best option for bloggers who like their existing logo but need technical improvements to it.

Standard Brand Package ($4,000) A 1-week redesign of your logo where we’ll create 3 new text-based wordmarks for you to choose from, 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 in a full complement of file formats plus we’ll create a Style Guide with a complete set of brand colors and typography that compliments your logo. 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 who want a refresh but don’t want to lose their valuable brand equity.

Full Brand Package ($10,000) An intensive month-long design process where we’ll create a completely new illustrative concept for your brand—optimized for web use and accessibility, of course. You’ll receive an all-new logo in multiple orientations, new supporting graphical elements, a Style Guide with a complete set of brand colors and typography that compliments your logo, 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.

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 if you’d like!

How does your ongoing support work?

We have two ways we support your site: Cultivate Care, and Standard Support.

Cultivate Care is a proactive approach to improving your theme.
As SEO guidance changes, new blocks become popular, and the WordPress block editor evolves, we are constantly updating and improving our core starter themes. With every major WordPress release (typically 2–3 times per year), we’ll compile a list of all recommended improvements with à la carte pricing. You can select just the features you want, knowing exactly what they’ll cost, and we’ll implement those updates on your site.

Standard Support
In addition to ongoing Cultivate Care proactive improvements, you may occasionally need new creative work—a new block or feature, modifying or redesigning an existing block or element, changing colors/fonts/spacing, etc. When you need new creative work, just ask and we’ll add you to our support queue. We typically take anywhere from a few days to couple of weeks to perform the work, depending on complexity and scheduling.

We encourage all clients to have a technical support partner like NerdPress , iMark Interactive, or SiteCare. You will continue to use them for your regular tech support, so always go to them first; they will escalate theme-related issues to us if needed.

What makes you different from other theme builders?

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.

Where can I see examples of your past work?

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