Bricks Review: Features, Latest News, AI & Pricing

Bricks is a visual WordPress site builder packaged as a theme. It combines page building, theme templates, dynamic data, query loops, components, WooCommerce design tools, forms, popups and a growing design-system workflow in one product.

Updated September 2026: Bricks is now at version 2.4.1. The product has evolved far beyond the original page-builder comparison: recent releases introduced a unified Style Manager, component slots and variants, HTML/CSS-to-Bricks conversion, AI-assisted site editing, MCP-compatible abilities, a central Builder Browser, global design-system transfers and new WooCommerce workflows.

Latest Bricks news

The latest stable release is Bricks 2.4.1, released September 22, 2026. It is a follow-up maintenance release to Bricks 2.4, fixing template imports, CSS Sync behavior, WooCommerce rendering, Stripe checkout refreshes, media offloading and several permission checks.

The larger Bricks 2.4 release arrived on September 16, 2026 and introduced some of the most important changes in the builder’s history:

• AI Abilities: compatible AI clients can create and edit pages, templates, components, classes, variables, queries, menus and WooCommerce configuration.
• Builder Browser: manage pages, templates, components, enabled post types and media from one central interface.
• Global import/export: transfer design-system data between Bricks sites while reviewing dependencies and conflicts.
• CSS Sync: synchronize Custom CSS with visual style controls.
• WooCommerce improvements: new setup tools and v2 Cart, Checkout and My Account workflows.
• Custom builder layouts: save different interface profiles for different workflows or users.

What is Bricks?

Bricks is different from builders that sit on top of a separate WordPress theme. The builder itself is delivered as the active WordPress theme, so the same system controls pages, headers, footers, archives, single templates, WooCommerce templates and other theme-level layouts.

The visual editor is aimed at users who want drag-and-drop building without giving up access to HTML structure, CSS classes, variables, dynamic data or custom code. That makes Bricks approachable for designers but particularly attractive to developers and agencies that want a more systematic design workflow.

The visual builder

The Bricks canvas provides responsive controls, reusable classes, CSS variables, global colors, custom breakpoints and direct access to code where needed. More than 110 elements are included across all license tiers.

Bricks also supports native layout primitives such as sections, containers, blocks and divs instead of forcing every layout through proprietary widgets. This makes it easier to build structures that remain understandable when custom CSS or JavaScript is added later.

Style Manager and design systems

Bricks 2.2 introduced a unified Style Manager for theme styles, classes, variables, colors and typography. It is one of the most important additions for teams building larger sites because reusable design decisions can be managed centrally instead of being repeated element by element.

The same release expanded components with Slots, Style Variants and Property Bindings, giving Bricks a more mature component system for reusable sections and interface patterns.

Components and reusable content

Components let you build reusable Bricks structures while exposing only the properties that should change between instances. This is useful for cards, calls to action, testimonials, pricing blocks and larger design systems.

With slots, variants and property bindings, one component can support different content and visual states without duplicating the entire structure. Bricks 2.4 also improved component browsing, usage tracking and transfers between Bricks sites.

Dynamic data and Query Loop

Dynamic content is one of Bricks’ strongest areas. The built-in Query Loop can retrieve posts, terms, users and other data and render each result through the same visual structure.

Query loops can be nested, filtered and combined with dynamic tags. This makes Bricks useful for directories, listings, custom post types, membership sites and content-heavy projects without requiring a dedicated listing builder for every use case.

Paste HTML and CSS into Bricks

Bricks 2.3 added a particularly useful workflow for developers and AI-assisted design: you can paste HTML and CSS into the builder and Bricks converts it into editable native elements, classes and variables.

This is useful when starting from a coded prototype, an external design tool or AI-generated markup because the result does not have to remain a static code block.

Bricks AI and MCP-compatible abilities

Bricks 2.4 introduced AI Abilities, allowing compatible AI clients to connect through the Bricks AI configuration screen and work with the site through defined capabilities.

Those abilities cover pages, elements, templates, components, global classes, variables, color palettes, queries, navigation menus, WooCommerce setup and import/export. AI tools can also convert HTML and CSS into editable Bricks content or make targeted edits to existing pages.

This is more interesting than simply placing a chatbot inside the builder. Bricks is exposing structured editing operations that compatible coding and AI clients can use while remaining subject to WordPress permissions and the individual abilities you enable.

Bricks for WooCommerce

Bricks includes a dedicated WooCommerce builder rather than treating WooCommerce as an afterthought. You can visually design product archives, single products, cart, checkout, account pages and other commerce templates.

The current WooCommerce toolkit includes variation swatches, quick view, WooCommerce-aware query loops, template hooks and the newer v2 Cart, Checkout and My Account elements. Bricks 2.4 also added a guided WooCommerce setup workflow.

For custom WooCommerce projects, this can reduce the amount of template overriding and theme-specific PHP traditionally required to achieve a custom storefront.

Forms, popups and interactions

Bricks also includes form, popup and interaction functionality. That means many projects can avoid adding a separate popup builder or simple form plugin just to handle common lead-generation interfaces.

Whether that actually reduces your plugin count depends on the project. Advanced forms, marketing automation or specialized CRM workflows may still require dedicated plugins.

Bricks and WordPress performance

Bricks is explicitly designed around performance, clean markup and smart asset loading. Because it combines the theme and builder layers, it can also avoid some of the duplication that occurs when a large multipurpose theme is paired with a separate visual builder.

That does not mean every Bricks site is automatically fast. Large hero images, third-party scripts, excessive animations, web fonts, WooCommerce extensions and poorly written queries can still create slow pages.

The main performance advantage is architectural: Bricks gives you enough control to build a lightweight site without requiring a heavy collection of design add-ons, provided you use that control carefully.

Does Bricks replace Gutenberg?

Not necessarily. Many Bricks sites use the Bricks builder for templates and complex layouts while keeping the WordPress block editor for blog posts or client-editable content.

Bricks has also continued improving its relationship with the block editor. Components can participate in Gutenberg-oriented workflows, which gives agencies more options for deciding which parts of a site clients should edit in Bricks and which should remain in core WordPress.

Bricks strengths

• Theme and visual builder in one product.
• Strong dynamic data and Query Loop capabilities.
• Reusable component and design-system workflow.
• Deep WooCommerce template control.
• Developer-friendly CSS, variables and custom code access.
• Performance-oriented architecture and smart asset loading.
• Rapid development pace and detailed changelog.
• AI/MCP-compatible editing abilities without making AI mandatory.

Bricks limitations

• Learning curve: classes, variables, components and dynamic queries reward structured thinking but can feel more technical than simpler builders.
• Theme dependency: because Bricks itself is the active theme, switching away later requires rebuilding Bricks-specific templates and layouts.
• No free downloadable version: you can test Bricks in its online playground, but production use requires a paid license.
• Fast release cadence: frequent new capabilities are valuable, but agencies should still test major updates on staging before rolling them across client sites.
• Advanced projects still need ecosystem plugins: specialized forms, memberships, filtering or automation may still require third-party tools.

Bricks pricing in 2026

All Bricks licenses currently include the full feature set. The difference is primarily the number of websites and whether the license is annual or lifetime.

• Starter: $79/year for 1 website.
• Business: $149/year for 3 websites.
• Agency: $249/year for unlimited websites.
• Ultimate Lifetime: $599 one time for unlimited websites, future updates and support.

Local and staging sites do not count toward the activation limit. Bricks also provides a 60-day money-back guarantee and an online playground where you can test the current builder before purchasing.

Check the official Bricks pricing page before purchasing because licensing can change over time.

Who is Bricks for?

Bricks is particularly compelling for agencies, freelancers and developers who want visual building without giving up structured CSS, reusable components, dynamic queries and direct access to code.

It also works well for WooCommerce projects and custom-content sites where theme templates need to react to dynamic data.

For a user who only wants to assemble a small brochure site from ready-made templates with minimal technical decisions, Bricks may offer more control than necessary. Its strongest advantages appear when the project benefits from reusable systems and long-term maintainability.

Need help building, fixing or optimizing a WordPress site with Bricks? See our WordPress Maintenance service or WordPress Speed Optimization service.

Bricks review: final thoughts

Bricks has matured into much more than a visual page builder. Its design-system tools, components, dynamic queries, WooCommerce builder and recent AI abilities make it closer to a visual WordPress development environment.

The current direction is particularly interesting for professional workflows. Bricks is adding AI-assisted editing without abandoning structured classes, variables, components and permissions, so automation does not have to mean generating unmaintainable page markup.

Its main trade-off is the same thing that makes it powerful: Bricks rewards users who are willing to understand how a site is structured. For agencies and developers, that is usually an advantage. For casual users, it can mean a steeper learning curve than a simpler template-driven builder.