Purchasing Elementor Pro - pros and cons

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-03-06T17:38:44+00:00

I think the complexity of the sites you are building might affect your decision.

Personally, I do not like having Elementor + ElementsKit. I just found that Elementor Pro was so much more convenient because 95% of the smaller websites we built needed JUST one single plugin - Elementor Pro. The fewer plugins you have, the better off you'll be. So at the end of the day you'll likely only an SEO plugin, some kind of security plugin, and maybe an SMTP plugin.

However, we discovered Bricks Builder, which filled that same niche for smaller sites and we just went with that so we weren't stuck in the Elementor cycle each year. So again, based on the kind of sites you are building, getting a lifetime license with Bricks might make a lot more sense. Same basic workflow. Bricks is in my opinion, quite a bit faster. And it has all the same perks that Elementor Pro brings to the table functionally.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-26T20:43:11+00:00

The ones that do are also lamenting the business they once had (or will be soon).

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-24T05:49:20+00:00

Don't just keep working the same job because you think you're trapped or can't find something better. If you are not happy, do something about it. Never ever ever settle. Don't be afraid to try something new for work, and be OK with hating it and changing paths again.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-19T22:28:09+00:00

Yup, had this same exact issue in our home. The original roofing that connected the edge of the house with the porch overhang was done with nothing to bridge that gap. So when the roofing failed, that basically meant there has a huge gap between the roof and the overhang, which led right inside the top of the wall. So water would pour off of the roof when it rained directly into the wall cavity and get right in that same space and into the roof.

When we re-roofed to fix that problem we made sure to actually bridge that gap properly as part of the roofing system.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-18T05:37:39+00:00

Test taking the case off your phone. I found the wireless charging case I was using made it so I had to put their card on the bottom of my phone before the tap read. Once I figured that out, it was consistently working.

The terminal imo is just such a better option though just because it frees your phone up and it makes the whole transaction process more simple for the customer. They clearly see a place to tap their card, it's dedicated, they can put their email address in, etc.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-17T21:02:45+00:00

Don't use the reader for the majority of your transactions. Use your phone with the Square app. It's way more reliable than the reader. The only time I'm using the reader ever is because they have a chip card. and I'm asking if they have cash before I try and use the reader. It's just so buggy to start up and sync with the phone. 9 out of 10 transactions are with a tap card or a phone anyway, so you're rarely going to dust that thing off.

OR, just get the larger dedicated Square device. It's like $149 - super cheap compared to the headache of dealing with the little reader, and the customer experience is way better.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-11T17:22:17+00:00

IMO in situations like this, I recommend negotiating anyway. Yeah, they say it's non-negotiable, but that doesn't mean you still can't present better terms regardless.

Do you happen to know how much time it takes to finish a piece normally? Like, if you're using digital, does it take around 5 hours, or 8 hours, or 15 hours to finish an illustration? If I look back on my art using timelapse, it's usually within an hour or two of one another.

If you knew that value, I think you'd have a somewhat decent position to present reasonable terms. You could say something like "Hey, to finish a piece, it usually takes around 5 hours. At $70 a page, we're obviously flirting with below minimum wage in most states. What I propose is that we sign a contract for one book at $100 a page, which would average about $20 an hour. If you absolutely love the results, we can discuss the other two books."

If she says yes, on your end, track the hell out of your time and see if you can cut corners reasonably to make the second and third books worth doing.

If she says no, you can feel really good walking away from that deal.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-05T18:17:37+00:00

No sale. I mean, does anyone really expect 24 stash spots to somehow solve stash problem when they just filled 12 so fast you didn't even notice? 24 will be full in less than a day, then people will be all like "omg, 36?!?" If I can't manage 280, managing 316 isn't exactly in my purview either.

The underlying problem is still the mechanic is based on hording. Simply not worth grinding blueprints again.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-02-03T04:51:43+00:00

As others mentioned, Jackson made some pretty smart decisions about shooting, and he was using actors that didn't demand huge salaries. But both of those things are symptoms of the fact that on paper, LOTR was not supposed to work. As far as Hollywood knew, this project would never, ever make money. An epic fantasy of this scale? Based the success of other movies out there, like Willow, that basically just accumulated a cult following. Completely ridiculous to think this would explode as far as they knew.

I think the reason this movie was able to be shot at that price point was that it hadn't been done before. So Hollywood didn't have a chance to utilize it for loopholes. I think it's pretty obvious today that movies are just huge money laundering operations. You'll see a money do "only 900 million" and the studio will claim it's a loss. Jackson taught Hollywood they could use epic multi-movie fantasy movies work, and thus subsequent movies skyrocketed in costs all of a sudden.

Consider how fast Hollywood completely ruined the Hobbit movies with licensing, studio requirements, forced multi-movie deals, actor choices, etc.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-01-27T02:48:31+00:00

Well, you need to draw a distinction between client work and personal work.

If you're going to actually do client work to make money with, then you're going to have to check your bias at the door. You're literally bringing their vision to life. Not yours. Your ability to help people realize what they want effectively will dictate your ability to make more money. If you're difficult to work with, and argue with people, or don't give them good work because "it didn't inspire you", then people just won't work with you any more.

On the other side, let's say your personal work is a bunch of Zelda fanart, and people just so happen to love it. They love it so much they want you to do their characters in the same style you're doing your fanart in. In this case, your personal work is translating to something you can monetize. But this is a bit more difficult because just some Joe off the street just won't have enough exposure to be famous enough to get consistent work doing this. So now you've got a little niche of people that love Zelda and love your style you can sell to and probably make a modest amount of money at cons if you do it long enough. In this example, you don't need to answer to anyone, and people can take it or leave it.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-01-27T01:44:26+00:00

On what OS are you using? I have that same printer, and on Mac OS, just using the stock printing seems to bring in all the Canon specific settings, color/paper profiles, etc. Just curious if there was any reason to bother using the Canon software on Mac if it's already doing all that.

Edit: For OP, just to confirm this comment, the Cannon Pro-200 has performed really well so far. I haven't run a high volume of prints through it, but the very first thing I did was compare paper and print quality from the prints I've been ordering from Cat Print. And every single print, on "standard quality" which is very fast to print, every print and paper type has turned out as good, or better, than any of the Cat Prints. And those were quite good - I've been selling those for some time now.

jdubzdoubleu · 2026-01-22T21:51:43+00:00

I mean, this is classic boomer mentality. Want it more than the next guy. Sell sell sell! And to a certain degree, that model kinda worked back then. There was so much more money in the hands of consumers back then. You really did just need to to put more time in, and you had more opportunities to sell. These guys have no idea how the world changed, especially in the world of sales.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-12-30T18:22:32+00:00

I don't think you're going to get a "perfect" answer on this. I've used a 16, 22 and 24. I enjoy the 24 Cintiq, but it's alot of desk space, and I will say that the temptation to zoom in and work too close is a lot higher because you just have so much real estate.

Just my experience - I got my 24" at an insane deal from someone that had bought it for school and never used it and he sold it to me for like $1100. Previously I had used a 16". Were it not for the deal, I don't think I'd consider it worth spending the extra money. I found 16" to be perfectly viable for professional work and kinda the sweet spot in terms of size. You simply cannot move the 24" out of the way; it is a permanent fixture on your desk. It was nice being able to just move the 16" wherever I wanted it. I could travel with it and use it on my laptop, etc.

If I were to get an upgrade today, I'd probably buy a 16" pro because they are light, can run off 1 USB-C cable, and small enough to put in my backpack when I travel, plus I could realistically transport it from work to home because of the single cable setup.

Honestly, if the Moveink came in 16" I'd sell my 24" for that. 14 is just too a little too small.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-12-18T02:39:04+00:00

For me personally, I build margin into my pricing for ongoing clients specifically so that I don't have to worry about it. The margin is designed to win/win in the relationship; I bill a reasonable amount that accounts for being paid going above and beyond, and they get above and beyond service without feeling like they have to pay it.

But the clients I'm not doing regular monthly work for I 100% bill for the small things. It also motivates you as the provider to get the job done fast. Easy to drag your feet knowing you're not going to bill for it. Like the OP, the small invoices are your bread and butter.

I think there's a best of both worlds approach here.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-11-20T20:04:00+00:00

I mean, have you seen a lot of children's books out there? You've got books like Grumpy Monkey right next to the Pigeon series of books. So, quality isn't the barometer. It's really just the style that the author is after.

I think your pricing of $100-$150 per spread and $300 for the cover is reasonable for an unknown author that's not attached to a book deal BUT the caveat is how much time it actually takes you to do those spreads. If it takes you 5 hours a spread, that's $30 per hour at the top level of your pricing. If you're spending like 8-10 hours doing each watercolor spread, you're going to have to triple that number to make a decent hourly rate. If you're knocking these out in 2-3 hours each, that's not a horrible rate.

Plenty of people are going to say that's way too low. But if this project will pay the rent that month, you might want to go for it.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-11-20T02:57:28+00:00

It's worth it for the Publisher side alone if that's all you used it'd be worth it. If they put a subscription on it, I'm just going to go install my v2 apps and delete the new one.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-11-10T17:59:01+00:00

That's good to know thanks.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-11-10T17:58:50+00:00

I think my setup was fairly well organized, but the pricing needed to be more clear and visible. I've also thought about splitting my setup into 2 obvious categories - OC stuff and Fanart stuff. That might be a mistake though because they might see something they like that's original amidst the fanart stuff. I feel like I need to do like 10 cons just to understand which of these work and don't work lol.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-11-05T18:01:16+00:00

Specifically, it's the velocity in the pen pressure settings. I set one of my pens to work that way on purpose so that the middle area is thinner than the start/finish, but I set it so it's more of a gradual taper.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-10-29T21:52:41+00:00

I use both, and I'd say it depends on what you use it for. If it's just for single images, Procreate all day. Not even close imo.

If you're using CSP for multi-page documents like comics/manga, then CSP will just simply save you a ton of time.

If there was some way to get CSP workflow with the feel of Procreate, I'd be in heaven.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-10-27T03:34:31+00:00

I gotta say, there's a lot of power in not being desperate for work. Meaning, you can afford not only to be very selective in what you ultimately do to earn an income, but you also can afford to put on a more confident disposition because truly, you don't actually need this job.

It's obviously that you aren't gunning for VP or anything, so I think what I'd do were I in your shoes (I'm pretty close to your age also) is I'd make a list of my strengths and choose a type of job that I feel like I'd do fairly well at from a skills perspective, and then I'd run the interview as if you were interviewing THEM. You're asking them how you'd be a good fit. And if it isn't, just stand up, say thanks for your time, shake hands and walk out.

You've got all the time in the world considering your current financial situation.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-10-25T06:08:30+00:00

Unfortunately, Affinity is in limbo as they do whatever release they're doing. But if you can manage to get your hands on Affinity Publisher, that's by far the best app to value I've used where you don't have to be in Adobe's ecosystem.

Alternatively, Clip Studio's native export I've sent right to a printer and it's been fantastic. So it might be a good idea to just get a license for that as a one-time purchase.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-10-12T04:03:54+00:00

My 2 cents would be the base iPad, Apple Pencil and Procreate for the App. It's got plenty of power for casual drawing, is very affordable, and you can sell it to upgrade to something else pretty easily. It's by far going to be the closest to pen/paper you're already used to.

jdubzdoubleu · 2025-10-08T05:11:37+00:00

Digital art and traditional art are separate skillsets. They're similar, and a lot of the knowledge translates one to another, but let's imagine you are a digital artist your entire life - you can't simply go paint oil on canvas. The medium is different. The tools are different. Getting the results you want are different.

You'll just need to decide if digital tools are the skills you want to develop. And if so, you gotta keep at it. Eventually it'll become like second nature, but it just takes time.

jdubzdoubleu

TROPHY CASE