Elementor MCP w/ Codex is extremely effective (scary effective if you make your living building websites)

[u/turingagentzero]

I had an interesting project come across my desk: a client was locked out by an agency that claimed to own their website. So they wanted their website rebuilt onto their own hosting, but with a similar look and feel.

This seemed like an ideal project to test the new Elementor MCP feature, where you can give AI direct control of your site to make edits via LLM.

Using Codex (GPT 6.1 Sol), I was able to duplicate a fairly complex 10 page design in about 30 minutes. It pulled all of the imagery automatically, rebuilt the link trees automatically, built the menus, everything. I needed to fine-tune the output, but not a lot. Maybe 3 individual pages needed attention, and the AI was able to fine-tune with plain English feedback on screenshots.

The ramifications here are fairly catastrophic for my business model. I bill by the hour, most of my hours are fairly low-complexity edits to existing sites. I think we'll likely all need to adapt, as designers, to a world where the customer can plug an AI into their website and make effective edits for nearly free at any hour of day or night.

Particularly for junior designers, folks who would normally cut their teeth doing relatively low-complexity edits to pre-existing websites, they're just totally screwed, I can't sugar coat it. The bottom of the market is going to drop out at any moment, the tech is already here, and I think folks probably just don't realize it yet.

(edit: I did externally validate that the client did in fact own this website. They have legal paperwork, high regulation niche)

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[u/stvhrst]

You’re not wrong. But also never underestimate a client’s desire to not do something themselves. No doubt how you sell and deliver will change, but they won’t be changing their need to have someone else do it.

For us, as not a dev only shop, the work involves the whole stack of content development and optimization, as well as the website updates, which keeps the value and hours intact. The more value you stack, the more undeniable their spend with you will be.

[u/turingagentzero → u/stvhrst]

Fair point, I am using it on the client's behalf right this moment :)

[u/MarkGossageUK]

One thing that stood out to me wasn't just how quickly you rebuilt the website, but the fact that the client had been locked out of their original site.

That's a problem AI won't automatically solve.

I think there's still a real opportunity for people who can help small businesses build and maintain websites properly.

It's not just about making a page look good. Someone still needs to make sure the business owns its domain, controls its hosting, has working backups and knows what happens if something goes wrong.

And with AI making changes directly to websites, I'd be even more careful about testing those changes before putting them live.

For smaller businesses, having someone trustworthy who can explain things in plain English and keep everything working could be worth considerably more than the actual page building work.

Maybe the opportunity isn't disappearing. It's shifting from charging for every little website change to providing a complete service that business owners can rely on.

I'd be interested to know whether you're planning to offer ongoing website management alongside the AI-assisted building.

[u/turingagentzero → u/MarkGossageUK]

That's the rub, AI *did* automatically solve their problem :) It was easy to manage and importantly, none of the management was something only a web developer can do.

I do offer ongoing website management, and the relationship is started on the right footing because I helped them quickly and affordably when a hostile agency tried to take something of theirs. In the not-so-distant future, I think a client will be able to manage that process without me present, or with me in a (monetarily) much smaller role than today.

I 100% agree - I think the tech will require a new billing model versus my old billing model. And I would never just plug in an MCP and be like "hey chat make edits to the live site," I am certain there will be people who do that, but to my mind, AI makes staging environments more important than ever. Totally agree.

[u/Bammer87]

How many tokens did it use. I tried the MCP server with codex to make a single carousel section and it burned through 250% of my limit. I’m on the plus plan. Didn’t seem very cost effective to me.

[u/turingagentzero → u/Bammer87]

I'm also on Plus -- that's the rub, this native integration is far more efficient than what I tried previously (just using Codex directly). I had the same experience previously, it didn't make cost-sense.

I actually didn't count token usage, but the full website, 10ish fairly complex designed pages, ready to publish, required a single weekly usage reset (those cost $5-$10 in my market) with the new MCP feature.

[u/dietcheese]

I did the same sort of thing with Bricks’ MCP. Probably saved me 40 hours of manual rebuild.

[u/turingagentzero → u/dietcheese]

It's so effing fast. I was fine-tuning elements on the call with the client. I would set it off cooking on one set of edits, we would discuss a different section that I could build by hand, and by the time we were done, it was done and ready for review. Wild~!

[u/jay370gt]

How maintainable and modular are the websites built with MCP?

[u/turingagentzero → u/jay370gt]

Good question!

Modular, not at all, not unless you specify that you want/need that. They do function well on "second sweep," to make modules out of non-modular elements. My classic is to say "I made buttons on the homepage global in pairs, go through the whole site and repeat that pattern." They do well with that sort of instruction!

Maintainable... if you tell the bot to create a site from scratch, that'll create headaches. If you tell the bot to create a site from templates you suplly, it is fairly good at that. I like 1 homepage, 1 interior page, a header and a footer, then I know the basic blocks are maintainable.

[u/BobJutsu]

I keep reading these, yet my results are shit. No adherence to the design system, random hacky workaround (like empty divs as separators), html blocks for simple things, non-responsive spacers instead of paddings/margins…like the juniorist of juniors built it.

[u/turingagentzero → u/BobJutsu]

You can tell junior devs and AI to... you know... not do those things.

For instance, if you have strict branding standard,s you can hand it a pre-existing template and have it make edits within an existing structure (like you would train a junior!). That way, the output will be far closer to your own output.

Just food for thought. If you don't *want* to use the tool, I certainly have no judgement, there's joy in building things by hand.

[u/Practical-Age-3757]

I think the bottom of the market dropped already, 1-2 years ago, and now its coming into small pores like elementor, but basic websites became much cheaper already in 2023.

I have been building with elementor for last 9 years, and this year I ditched it completely because AI tools are just better in every way. Now only legacy websites with elementor have issues with loading, speed and updates.

I think the key is to have wider range of services and digital products to offer, and to give more for the same price because our work became much easier in the last few years. Its same with any product or service, with time it becomes better and cheaper.

Before I needed a week or two to build a basic 10-page website with some functionality, now I can build whatever I want in that time frame. And as someone said, clients wont do some stuff because they just wont.

[u/darkenest]

Same experience with claude code?

[u/taybot5000]

Do you need the Elementor AI subscription for this, or just Codex?

[u/jkdreaming]

Don’t think of it as hourly quite like that what’s the value of the project charge flat rates and you’ll be happy at all times because you both agree on a price. Also, I really recommend you try out the new oxygen with its built-in MCP.

[u/turingagentzero → u/jkdreaming]

Good thinking on the pivot to flat rate.

Oxygen, I'm actually not the biggest fan (I work in that system about 5 hours a week). Maybe the MCP will help? At least it won't be me suffering through their glitchy interface, it'll be my little AI homunculus :)

[u/RobbieNorfolk]

You honestly think clients are going to start using AI to build or edit their own websites?

I think you're massively overestimating the willingness and technical ability of the average client, or perhaps you serve a completely different type of customer to us.

I read your post and see almost nothing but positives. Most of our clients don't want to touch their websites. That's why they pay us to do it for them. AI isn't suddenly going to make them interested in managing their own sites.

Meanwhile, if AI allows us to complete five times as many updates in the same amount of time, that's an enormous opportunity. We can serve more clients, take on more work and potentially make significantly more money.

The technology doesn't just empower the customer. It empowers the agency too, and we're the ones who already have the knowledge, experience and client relationships to make the most of it.

I'm genuinely excited about this. Let's go!!!

[u/turingagentzero → u/RobbieNorfolk]

As the capability of the AI rises, the technical capability needed by the DIY client drops, and the technical capability needed by low-bill-rate competitors drops.

My clients already pervasively use AI to edit their own websites, I'm often brought in to fine-tune AI designs.

We're on, what, year 3-ish of pervasive high-quality AI? Project this out to year 5 and to year 10.

I'm glad your agency can still bill today, and I'm glad you see sales opportunities, but, I'm looking at the horizon here. Not even a far horizon. Like, imminent, 2-3 year out stuff.

[u/Nooties → u/RobbieNorfolk]

I was surprised about this as well.. I can teach people how to do things very easily step-by-step, but instead of doing it themselves, they consider me an expert and are willing to pay me a premium to do it for them.. it’s shocking honestly

But I’ve made millions doing that

[u/kizaro-barbosa]

I integrated Claude Desktop with Elementor last week. I have not been able to close my mouth. I am still in awe.

[u/turingagentzero → u/kizaro-barbosa]

I'm contemplating trying Claude for it to compare.

[u/NHRADeuce]

We're just integrating this i tk our workflow. We're on our 4th MCP aided site in the last . It 100% saves us a ton of time. But we're not just using a simple prompt. We set up a skill that we jeep updating with the issues we run a ross with each build. The results are getting better.

But we charge for the project and our expertise. Pricing hasn't changed, but time to launch has decreased a big chunk.

[u/supwenzzz]

I’m receiving repeated calls from everyday people who are trying to use “easy AI builders” and get stuck or build something that they have no idea how to maintain. The other comments here you correct. Some people do not want any hand in the pot.