Divi vs Kadence
Divi or Kadence? We built the same site in both.
Short answer: pick Kadence if you want a generous free tier and you intend to configure it rather than replace it, and pick Divi if you want one product for the build and the client, with fewer surprises to find.
{ The short answer }
Divi or Kadence: which one is better?
Kadence reproduced the design exactly. The screenshot files of the original and the rebuild are the same bytes, not merely the same to look at. Divi reproduced it exactly too, and scored a perfect 100. Then we measured what Kadence's own stylesheet does to the page, and found the most surprising result of the whole project.
4
Accessibility points its stylesheet costs
Left stock, Kadence's own button rules shrink the announcement bar's dismiss control to 1.06 pixels under the minimum tap target. The page scores lower on accessibility with the theme's CSS than without it.
1
Performance point its payload costs
On speed Kadence is close to free: five requests and about 28 KB, worth roughly one point. The cost is not performance. It is an accessibility regression on a control the theme never intended to touch.
Both builds reproduce the same design from the same stylesheet. Read the full write-up, or see the detailed Kadence comparison.
{ What each costs }
What do Kadence and Divi cost in 2026?
Kadence has a genuinely generous free tier, header and footer builder included, and that free tier is what this build used. Paid Kadence is now sold through Liquid Web: Essentials is $99 a year, Pro is $299, and the Elite tier for multi-site management is $499. No lifetime option is listed. Divi is $89 a year, or $249 once for unlimited websites.
Kadence's entry tier costs more per year than Divi's does, and Divi has a one-time price where Kadence has none.
Prices checked on each vendor's own pricing page on 13 September 2026: Divi and Kadence.
{ Who should pick which }
Who should pick Kadence, and who should pick Divi?
Pick Kadence if you want to configure rather than replace, and you will check the tap targets on anything it styles that you also style.
Pick Divi if you want the builder and the theme to be one product, and fewer surprises to go looking for.
One caution specific to this pairing: Kadence and this design both use a class called wrap, and that collision forced an architectural decision the other builds did not face. Check your design's class names against your theme's before you commit to either.
And if you would rather we just built it for you: we will work in whichever of these you want. We have shipped sites on Kadence and we will do it again if that is what suits your team. We are not going to talk you out of a tool you already like.
Our preference is Divi, and this page is roughly why. Not because it wins on weight, because it does not, but because its problems are visible and fixable and its builder is one a client can actually learn. When something goes wrong in Divi you can see it. That matters more over five years than any single score.
Comparing a different pair? We built the same page against Elementor, GeneratePress, Astra and the WordPress block editor too, and the full write-up with every measurement in one place is in the main article. If you want to see how we work in Divi day to day, that is on the Divi developer page.
New sites start at $2,400, and you get a fixed price to approve before anything starts, so there is no hourly meter running while we work it out. You can scope out your entire project on the pricing page, or tell us what you are building and we will price it for you.
{ Keep it growing: monthly care & retainers } · month-to-month, cancel anytime
Care
$300 / month
Keep your site updated, secure, and online.
- Core, plugin & theme updates
- Daily backups
- Security & uptime monitoring
- Small fixes
- Priority support
Best value
Grow
$650 / month
Maintenance plus steady monthly momentum.
- Everything in Care
- Monthly content & page updates
- Performance & SEO monitoring
- A dedicated dev block
- Monthly check-in
Dedicated
From $5,000 / month
A true extension of your team.
- Everything in Grow
- Larger dev allocation
- Roadmap & strategy planning
- Priority availability
- Quarterly reviews
Prefer to itemize? Build your own estimate on the pricing page.
{ FAQ }
Divi vs Kadence questions, answered.
Should I build my site on Divi or Kadence?
Both reproduced this design exactly, so fidelity does not decide it. Kadence is close to free on speed, about one performance point. The cost shows up somewhere nobody checks: its own button styling shrinks the announcement bar's dismiss control to 1.06 pixels under the minimum tap target, which no performance score reports. Divi held a perfect 100 and needed none of that undone. Pick Kadence if you want its tooling and are willing to configure rather than replace.
What does a custom WordPress site cost to build?
Builds start at $2,400. Most sites land between $2,400 and $6,500 depending on how many unique page layouts you need and how much has to integrate with something else. The pricing page has the full breakdown and a calculator you can run yourself, so you can get to a number without talking to anyone first.
Do I have to build on the platform you recommend?
No. We build on whichever platform you want. We prefer Divi, for the reason above: it is the one place you can hand someone a drag-and-drop editor they already understand and still own every line of the theme underneath it. If you would rather stay on Kadence, that is a normal request and it changes nothing about how the work is done.
Can you move my existing Kadence site to Divi?
Yes, but it is a rebuild rather than an import. The platforms store pages in completely different formats, so nothing converts automatically. Your design, content and URLs carry over. The page structure gets built again. Worth knowing before anyone quotes a migration like it is a small job.
Will I own the site and the code?
Yes. When the build is handed over it is yours, theme files included. There is nothing locked to us and nothing you have to keep paying us to keep the site running.
Can you build from a design I already have?
Yes, and it is the exact thing this project tested. We took one finished design and rebuilt it into six platforms without changing a pixel, and all six reproduced it. If you arrive with a design from Figma or from another designer, the platform is not going to be the constraint.
Have a project in mind?
Tell us what you're building. You'll get a fixed price to approve before anything starts.