I have an announcement I'd like to share, and I hope you'll take the 4-5 minutes to read it and give it some thought.
I want to encourage everyone with a Lifetime membership to voluntarily support KrafterPro by "buying Mak a few coffees" twice a year, roughly $20 each time.
I've have set a recurring reminder on my own calendar every six months that simply says "time to buy coffee for Mak." It works out $40 a year for me, which isn't much, but if enough of us in the Lifetime community did the same, it could meaningfully help KrafterPro's continued development and long-term survival.
I also, actually, encourage Mak to start charging for new features in the future.
You might reasonably ask: why would I suggest paying for something extra when I have a Lifetime membership, and Mak promised that all future updates would be included?
The answer is simple.
"Because we want Mak to continue developing KrafterPro and creating new things for us."
Around 2020–2021, Elegant Themes discussed the sustainability of the Lifetime model. Elegant Themes needed continuing revenue to keep developing Divi. Rather than simply taking away existing Lifetime memberships, they introduced additional products and services around Divi.Â
Over time, we saw services such as Divi Teams, Divi Cloud, Divi AI, and other additions to the Divi ecosystem. As Lifetime members, we still had what we originally purchased. Our Lifetime Divi membership didn't disappear.Â
But if we wanted these additional services, we had to pay for them separately, and they did not have any lifetime option.
And I believe that is perfectly reasonable.Â
For Mak to keep creating new courses, products and spending time on webinars with us, it costs money, and that requires funding. The only realistic way to make that happen is to either charge for upcoming things, or introduce a yearly subscription.
For example, imagine Mak integrates AI directly into KrafterPro one day. Should that be free for Lifetime members too? I'd argue no,
Because you didn't buy "KrafterPro with built-in AI," you bought KrafterPro as it existed at the time. With AI integrated, it would be an update that changes everything.
Of course, as a Lifetime member of KrafterPro, you should still receive bug fixes and smaller updates, but if you wanted it with AI, there should be an extra cost. And I strongly recommend Mak, never offer lifetime for additional things that could be included (or excluded) with KrafterPro.Â
Or take another example: suppose Mak creates a dedicated course on using Divi AI once it's released (something Elegant Themes already announced that will be released with an additional charge if you want it). Shouldn't you be willing to pay Mak for that course?
Again, when you purchased your Lifetime membership, that course simply wasn't part of the deal.Â
So, fellow Lifetime members, please give it some thought.Â
If KrafterPro saves you time, helps your business, or has taught you something valuable, perhaps twice a year it's worth saying:
"Thanks, Mak. The coffee is on me." ☕
And be willing to pay for additional things added to KrafterPro and DiviUniversity.
Hello all, just wanted to say hi. I first started with Divi years ago (have a lifetime membership) then i drifted towards Elementor and used that for a bit until recently. I wasn't a fan of their new pricing structure and it felt like they were trying to do everything and being a master at nothing, spreading themselves to thin. So i saw Divi 5 launched and i happened to see Mak's youtube video about he new divi 5 course and figured that would be a good place to start learning divi 5 since i last used divi 4 years ago. I'm starting a small hosting and site design business (i'm disabled, legally blind in both eyes. No one is going to hire me for any job so I decided to start my own business! I've already got 1 client and talking to another) I was looking at Krafterpro too that seems super useful. Hopefully i can get up to speed on divi 5 and start to contribute to the community :)
Mak . After the latest batch of updates I get these two errors/warnings in site audit but design assist as well as modernize is at 100 %. I attempted removing autogrid and adding k-layout-grid-auto from the layout presets but that preset does nothing it seems. Also, would it be possible to get a list of presets with description of what each preset actually achieves included with every design update? Maybe if a preset is updated, what the change is so when updating we can make informed choices?
I have no icon in the button, are there more people? I have toggle averthing on, but no result, more people have this or a solutions?
Is anyone else as excited as I am about the new modules?!
The future isn't about replacing our skills (whether big or small), but about powering them up to the max, while protecting our most precious resources: our time and our Tokens.
Looking at the latest integration tests, one thing is crystal clear: the web design paradigm hasn't changed, it’s being perfected. Artificial intelligence doesn't wipe out the rules of the game; it simply amplifies the structure we choose to give it.And that’s exactly where things get fascinating. We expect KRAFTERPRO, with its upcoming updates, to step up as a true Facilitator.
No longer just a starting grid, but a whole ecosystem of pre-built, perfectly formatted website templates on a technical level (clean code, fluid spacing, and accessibility).
The real added value? Complete creative freedom without the technical headache.
I envision a future where it will be incredibly easy to visually drag & drop an entire section from one template to another, mixing and matching parts from different websites.
The AI will handle the rest, instantly adapting styles, fonts, and colors to the desired Brand. Built on this rock-solid foundation, everyone will be free to let their imagination run wild and customize the design exactly how they want, without the fear of "breaking" the layout or wasting hours on repetitive clicking.
Those who are already using a solid design system like KRAFTERPRO, supercharged by AI, will lead this transition by focusing on strategy and creativity.
The others, unfortunately, will just keep being serial clickers.Let’s be clear, though: this path is anything but simple. It’s not just about outsourcing tasks to a machine.
It takes study, a structured mindset, and the ability to master these complex tools instead of letting them master us. It's going to be a growth journey for all of us.
My name is Kim and I work from Seattle, WA. My professional background was marketing and brand strategy up until 2017, when I decided to learn web design/development. I've been doing that as a side-hustle up until January of this year when I decided to pursue it FT. My introduction to web development was WordPress, but now I also work in Wix and Squarespace.
So far, I've only used Divi for my personal website that I developed when I launched to FT. I'm exicted to become more fluent and love having this community as a resource.
https://quintessencewebdev.com/ - Updates coming soon!
In case you haven't seen this, WordCamp US is being held in Phoenix this year. If you would like the details, here is a link.
The main days are Tuesday, August 18 and Wednesday, August 19., with Contributor Day on Sunday, August 16 and Showcase Day on Monday, August 17.
I will be one of the volunteers, so if anyone from our Krafter community decides to attend, please look me up. I would love to meet you. Because I am a volunteer, I can offer you a friend discount.
SPECIAL DISCOUNT: Get a 20% discount of a general admission ticket with the code volunteer-friend20!
I hope to see some of you there.
So happy to be here and be part of the Divi Community!
My name is Mike and I'm a small business entrepreneur in my 60s, living in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. 26-years as owner and operator of vallartaweddings.com, executing luxury events and weddings for destination travelers. I'm now pursuing a career shift from event agency to content creation legacy for my brands.
I'm a veteran DJ with 40 years immersed in music, providing amazing experiences for my events.
Excited about using these skills for my business, dream up new ideas, build websites and create video for marketing, and social media. Never a better opportunity to dive in, and start creating.
Goal: Learn Divi really well, create business ideas, build stunning websites, learn AI, create impacting content, and share 50 years of experiences in life, music, creativity and business. All of this has been on the way for the last couple of years and things seem like they're coming together lately.
Thank you Mak for creating this valuable network! I've been following Mak regularly for three years or so, and always felt his lessons was going to lead to something ground breaking with Divi when he made SiteKrafter. I shared his passion to find solutions to real design problems in web design. I struggled for 15 or more years finding the best solution to build a great website for my business. Now I can create an agency too. Looking forward to sharing in the university, thank you, thank you!
I'm Charles, based in East Amherst, NY.
I’m happy to be here. Community engagement has been an important part of my development as a web designer. MAK’s tutorials were instrumental in my early days learning Divi as well as local WordPress meetups. It’s great to have this focused community online to share and help each other.
I got into web design and development while living in New York City as a side gig back in 2016 as my career in AdTech was winding down after a nice run working with companies like AOL and Dotomi.
In 2023 I moved back to my hometown and decided it was finally time to be my own boss doing what I actually enjoy — web design, development, SEO, and digital marketing. That's when CRH Digital was born.
At this point, I’m expert-level in Divi (v4 and v5) since I committed to Divi early on and have used it almost exclusively since then. The past few years have been busy. I started with a few sites I built for friends, and now I've built 40+ sites for clients including about half of which are on a monthly retainer for hosting, support, and maintenance.
Right now my biggest challenge is improving my workflow for new builds and running my business in general so I can scale more efficiently.
You can find our more about me at my website or connect with me on LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesharman/
Happy to swap notes on running a solo web shop including what’s worked and not worked over the years — feel free to reach out!
Best wishes to all 😀
Charles
Most of my professional career, from age 18 to 55, was in the aerospace industry, where I worked in technical documentation. That experience taught me to organize lots of information and communicate it clearly and straightforwardly.
I got my start in web design in the 1990s using Adobe PageMill, standard text editors, which gave me a core interest in how much the web has evolved. Since then, I’ve built dozens of WordPress websites and currently maintain 18 of them; all of them are Divi-5 except my sister’s blog. All of them are using more or less a design system. My desire is to get all my sites on the same design system, the same set of plugins, and keep looking to streamline them on the maintenance side.
Along the way, I earned two Bachelor of Science degrees—one in Software Engineering and the other in Cybersecurity. I also have experience in graphic design and web hosting.
Recently, I started Site4Success, LLC. (site4success.com) near Prescott, AZ, where I am trying to earn clients' trust and continue to work with WordPress/Divi/Design System while learning a lot more about local SEO, AI tools, and how they can help small businesses get found online.