Kadence WP is Joining the iThemes Family!

Today, I am very excited to share that iThemes has acquired Kadence WP and the whole team behind Kadence Blocks, a WordPress page-builder style block package, and Kadence Theme, a next-generation WordPress theme built for performance and easy development. 

[pullquote]By combining forces with Kadence WP, we’re doubling down on our mission to “Make People’s Lives Awesome” by making the tools you need to create WordPress websites that work to help you achieve your goals.[/pullquote]

We know our community of web developers, web designers, marketing agencies, and bloggers will love Kadence WP … and we can’t wait to see what you create. We know many of you already know, use and love Kadence WP.

Ultimately, we hope the addition of Kadence WP to the iThemes product lineup means you can make more money with WordPress, whether you build sites for clients or use it for yourself.

The Backstory

If you haven’t already heard of Kadence WP, we’re thrilled to introduce you to Ben Ritner, founder of Kadence WP. Ben and the whole team at Kadence WP have a contagious passion for life and for helping people achieve success online. 

I met Ben at a WordPress conference (remember those?) back in 2019. We became instant friends and started dreaming about working together someday. We instantly knew the potential of a partnership between iThemes and Kadence WP: Together, we could really innovate some very exciting stuff and, more than anything, do a lot more for our customers.

Started in 2013, Kadence WP was built out of Ben’s love of building innovative WordPress products and his drive to keep up with how quickly WordPress is evolving. Even before he was part of the iThemes family, Ben was already invested in making lives awesome.

Kadence WP: A New Platform For Building WordPress Websites

WordPress is constantly changing and demands that products and services must keep up. There’s never been a better example of a significant shift in WordPress than Gutenberg and the WordPress Block Editor.

As we all know, the WordPress Block Editor and Gutenberg have major ramifications for all WordPress users, and WordPress blocks have affected the entire editing experience in WordPress and will continue to for many years to come. 

[pullquote]In a nutshell, Kadence WP is a ground-breaking new platform for building WordPress websites in the modern era of WordPress.[/pullquote] The cool thing about Kadence WP is that the theme and block plugins are built to work together so you have a seamless experience between the theme framework and the block plugins.

The Kadence WP platform has two main parts:

1. Kadence Theme

Kadence Theme is a blazing-fast WordPress theme built for the modern era of WordPress. Here are a few things you’re going to love about Kadence Theme:

• Did we mention Kadence Theme is lightning-fast? Kadence Theme has a unique approach to performance and has outperformed many other leading themes in load time tests. 
• Kadence was built with deep integration with Gutenberg and the WordPress Block Editor, but it also fully integrates with popular page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, etc.
• Kadence utilizes the built-in WordPress customizer to bring you a powerful header builder and footer builder.
• It’s also Woocommerce-ready with extra features built-in
• Additional plugin integrations for Restrict Content Pro, so your membership website will have beautiful styling and features.
• Kadence has taken a fantastic approach to Starter Templates, so you never have to start from the dreaded white blank page again.

Download Kadence Theme Now

2. Kadence Blocks

Kadence Blocks are a truly innovative toolkit of WordPress block plugins that turn the WordPress Block Editor a powerful page builder. Here are a few things you’ll love about Kadence Blocks:

• With Kadence blocks, using the WordPress Block Editor is finally an enjoyable and rewarding experience. 
• Kadence Blocks make the Block Editor capable of creating content usually only possible through popular page builder plugins. Use the native WordPress Block Editor to create custom layouts and page elements with all the controls and functionality you need.
• With a design library of 20+ prebuilt designs, you will be impressed with how quickly you can drop content into your page, update text, and tweak styles to get amazing page layouts. 
• Each block has responsive controls to give you precision design tweaks for tablet and mobile devices. 
• A ground-breaking typography settings framework that allows you to choose from over 800 Google fonts and preview instantly within the editor. 

Download Kadence Blocks Now

Why We Believe Kadence WP is the Right Fit for iThemes

It’s no secret that the “themes” part of iThemes has been lacking for many years now.  While we got our start in WordPress themes in 2008, over the past 10 years, we pivoted to the more obvious needs of our customers (mainly WordPress security, backups, memberships and maintenance) as the theme marketplace got more competitive. 

[pullquote]Joining forces with Kadence WP means that iThemes can once again have an innovative and modern WordPress theme platform.[/pullquote] As you can see from the previous section, Kadence WP is truly a theme for the modern era of WordPress—and we’re making Kadence WP the official theme platform of choice for iThemes. 

Simply put: we believe Kadence WP is the future of WordPress themes and page building with WordPress. This means that we will finally sunset iThemes Builder and our legacy themes at the beginning of 2022, as we now have a superior solution to replace our original themes that are no longer truly compatible with the future direction of WordPress. If you’re a current iThemes Builder customer, we’ll be communicating more about this plan and how we’re going to help you prepare.

In addition, we have a shared mission and we’re not slowing down. By combining our forces, we can do more for you together.

“At Kadence WP, it’s long been our mission to help people achieve success online. To us, it’s more than just building a website. It’s about helping people build a passion, an influence, or an income that allows them to find a healthy cadence in their life. Learning and adapting to what our customers need has been a major part of what we offer. I’ve always tried to balance building what people want and what will help them be successful.” 

—Ben Ritner, Kadence WP Founder

With the explosive growth of Kadence WP over the last 10 months, the need for joining our forces became obvious. By teaming up, we can accelerate all that we are going for with Kadence WP. It also means Ben will get to focus on what he loves and we get to put more resources behind building the best suite of WordPress products available.

“The iThemes team has a history of building great products and a reputation of incredible customer support. Joining with them means that Kadence WP can leverage their knowledge in scaling along with their much-needed resources for us to be sustainable and successful. It all makes for a really powerful match and an exciting opportunity for me and our team at Kadence WP.”

—Ben Ritner, Kadence WP Founder

Ultimately, adding Kadence WP to the iThemes product lineup represents our pursuit to constantly improve, innovate and serve you, our awesome community. We want everything we build, maintain and support to help you do more with WordPress … and make you more money, whether you use WordPress for yourself or for your clients.

What Does This Mean for Current Kadence WP Customers?

Aside from the ownership change, existing Kadence WP customers won’t notice many changes. We expect your experience to be “business as usual,” meaning support, development, and products all remain the same.

[pullquote]Additionally, the Kadence WP brand is not changing.[/pullquote] Kadence WP will continue to offer performance-optimized products that help you build effective websites and will continue to be available for purchase at kadencewp.com.

Support, downloads, licensing and billing will eventually be more integrated with the iThemes Member experience, but for now, everything is staying the same.

What Does This Mean for iThemes Toolkit and Agency Bundle Members?

One of the more exciting parts of this announcement is this: starting today, current Toolkit and Agency Bundle members automatically get a Kadence WP membership, which includes the pro versions of Kadence Theme and Kadence Blocks, as part of their iThemes membership! 

This is one of the reasons our Agency Bundle plan (formerly called the Toolkit) is such a great investment: your membership automatically gets you access to all new products we build (or acquire!) throughout your membership year. We’re proud to deliver on that promise to you today. 

Login & Download Pro Now

Just note that because of the incredible value of a Kadence WP membership, pricing will be going up for the Agency Bundle on May 1, 2021. If you’re a current Toolkit or Agency member, your renewal rate will remain the same as long as long as your subscription auto-renews.

We’ll also be retiring the Agency Bundle product name to go back to the Toolkit to bring you a more straight-forward pricing model. 

What’s Coming Next for Kadence WP?

Ben and the Kadence WP team have a bold vision for the future of WordPress themes and blocks, and we can’t wait for what’s ahead. By combining forces, we’re going to be able to accelerate Kadence WP well into the future. 

[pullquote]Our goal is to be the best WordPress website building experience out there.[/pullquote] We have big plans for the future, including new products and big features that will be coming out soon. 

• One of the most exciting things on the horizon is that dynamic content for Kadence Blocks Pro is due out in the next month. 
• We also have a new plugin coming soon called Kadence Cloud. Kadence Cloud is going to allow you to create your own cloud of prebuilt content that you can use on any website and you will even be able to give out or sell access to your cloud. 
• Ben is also excited to be completing a lot of the top-voted feature requests for Kadence Blocks and Kadence Theme. Looking beyond that, we plan to have a major new product release this fall.

Questions? Join Us For a Live Townhall Webinar This Friday, April 9

We’re hosting a special townhall-style webinar to answer all your questions live, so plan to join us this Friday, April 9, @ 11:00 a.m. (CT). Can’t make the live event? Go ahead and register and we’ll email you the replay.

Register Now

Learn How to Use Kadence WP During This Upcoming Workshop, May 5

To help introduce you to the Kadence WP platform, Ben will be teaching a special online training workshop on May 5, 2021 @ 1:00 p.m. (CT) to show you everything you need to know about using Kadence WP to build a WordPress website from start to finish.  

During this online training event, you’ll learn how to use Kadence Theme and Kadence Blocks to custom build a WordPress website in under two hours.

Kadence WP: A Whole New Way to Build Websites with WordPress
A Live, Online Training Event
Wednesday, May 5 @ 1:00 – 3:00 p.m (CT)

Register Now

Save 20% Off the Kadence Membership Now Through April 30, 2021! 

To celebrate this announcement, Kadence WP is offering a big sale on the full Kadence membership! Now is a great time to get in on everything we have planned for you over the next year.

Right now you can save 20% off Kadence Membership through April 30, 2021. Just head on over to the Kadence WP site to make your purchase, where the discount is automatically applied.

The Kadence membership gets you the Kadence WP platform (Kadence Theme Pro and Kadence Blocks Pro) for use on unlimited websites, along with access to all features we release throughout the year. 

Save 20% Off Now

Last Chance to Get the Agency Bundle At This Price (with Kadence WP Membership Included for Free!)

The Agency Bundle gets you the Kadence WP membership … plus BackupBuddy, iThemes Security Pro, Restrict Content Pro, iThemes Training Annual Membership, iThemes Sync Pro, Landing Pages, Content Upgrades and more! That’s a GREAT deal, and a savings of over $1000.

The Agency Bundle plan includes everything in the iThemes product lineup, but in order to reflect the value of Kadence WP joining our family, prices for the Agency Bundle will be going up on May 1, 2021.

If you are looking at our best-value Agency Bundle, NOW is the time to take advantage of this low price for everything you need to build WordPress sites. 

Now is your chance to get grandfathered into the current Agency Bundle pricing before it goes up next month! If you’re a current Toolkit or Agency member, your renewal rate will remain the same as long as your subscription auto-renews.

If you haven’t taken advantage of the Agency Bundle, you can learn more about both of these great bundles and purchase today.

Get the Agency Bundle Now

Wrapping Up: Let’s Go Far Together

I want to thank Ben and the rest of the Kadence WP team as they have truly built something special at Kadence WP. I also want to thank the customers of Kadence WP. You have helped support an amazing product, and I hope we can earn your support for years to come.

Looking ahead, we know the future is bright. We’re more excited than ever to continue to innovate, lead, grow and help you do more with WordPress.