What Is Elementor's Theme Builder and What Does It Control?
How It Actually Works
Rather than editing a specific page, each Theme Builder template is designed once and then assigned display conditions — "Entire Site," a specific post type, a category, or an individual page — determining where that template actually renders. Because it overrides the theme's own template files for the conditions it matches, a Theme Builder header replaces the active theme's header everywhere those conditions apply, without needing to touch the theme's code directly.
What You Can Build With It
- Header and footer templates, the most common use, replacing the theme's default header/footer across the whole site or specific sections.
- Single post/product templates, controlling the layout for individual blog posts or WooCommerce product pages, including dynamic content pulled from that specific post or product.
- Archive templates, controlling how category, tag, or shop listing pages display, including the loop layout for each item.
- Search results and 404 pages, giving a fully custom design to pages that would otherwise use the theme's often-plain default.
- Multiple templates with different display conditions can coexist — a different header for a landing page section versus the rest of the site, for instance, with priority settings resolving any overlap.
Getting Started With It
- Go to Templates → Theme Builder in the WordPress admin to create a new template of the desired type.
- Design the template visually using the same Elementor editor used for regular pages, including dynamic tags where relevant.
- Set display conditions to control exactly where the template applies, checking priority if conditions overlap.
Need a custom Theme Builder setup built properly? See Elementor customization.