Cultivate Go

Cultivate Go costs $5,000. The majority of sites do not require any additional out-of-scope work, but the ones that do typically have 1-2 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).

We’re typically available to start Go projects within a few weeks. Most clients have their new site live within two to four weeks after their initial call with us.

In comparison, Cultivate Pro costs $16,000. Our Pro waitlist is typically around 2 months, and once the project is started it usually takes 4–8 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. The difference is with Pro we create a custom design just for you, while with Go we select an existing design and style it to match your brand.

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.

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.

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!

Every website we launch includes 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 offer a higher level of support called Cultivate Care.

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 Cultivate Care you’ll automatically get white-glove updates for every major WordPress release, as well as proactive improvements to your theme.

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.