A year ago, ZipWP was a fast way to get the first draft of a WordPress site. Today you can design a site by chatting with AI, host it, put it on your own domain and send email from it, all from one place.
This year we shipped more than 25 product updates. The biggest one went live on 30 October: ZIP AI, a new way to design AI websites inside ZipWP. Here is what changed and what it means for you.
- ZIP AI: design and edit your site by chatting with AI
- One plan: hosting, a free domain, business email and $400+ of premium plugins
- More ways to start: from a URL, a wireframe, a template or your voice
- Faster edits: Ask AI, Rewrite Copy and Regenerate Site
- Easier to run: simpler go-live, AI Troubleshooter, SSH
- Bring what you already have: migration, static hosting and MCP
ZIP AI: A Better Way to Design AI Websites
Most AI website builders give you one generic page and leave you to fix it. ZIP AI works differently. It is a chat-based way to design and edit a WordPress website, and it comes from the team behind Astra, Spectra and CartFlows.
The idea is designer-made, AI-assembled. Professional designers create the sections, and the AI picks and arranges the ones that fit your business. Because every site is built from a shared library of hundreds of sections across dozens of design styles, different businesses get genuinely different-looking websites, not one template in a new colour. And when our designers improve a section, sites built afterwards benefit too.
How it works
- Tell it about your business. There is no blank prompt box. ZIP AI asks a few questions about what you do and sharpens your answers as you go, so even a rough description becomes a solid brief and your copy is specific to you.
- Preview designs. You see designs built for your business and choose one before anything goes live.
- Keep editing by chat. Describe a change in plain language, such as “make the hero shorter” or “add a pricing section”, and the site updates. There is no builder to learn, and it is how you keep the site fresh on day 40, not just day 1.
What makes it different
- You own the result. It builds on WordPress, so your site works with the plugins you already know and nothing is locked in.
- It ships a working site. SureForms forms are wired in during the build, so your site can take an enquiry on day one.
- It converts sites built elsewhere. Import an HTML or ZIP export from tools like Claude, v0 or Bolt and ZIP AI turns it into editable WordPress blocks. Importing HTML does not use any credits.
- It extends with code snippets, so you can add custom features without touching core files.
What this means for you: you do not need to be technical to get a professional-looking site, and you do not need to be technical to change it afterwards.
One Plan, Everything You Need to Get Online
A great site still needs hosting, a domain, a theme, plugins and an email address. Bought separately, that is six or seven purchases, renewals and subscriptions to track. We wanted ZipWP to be the opposite: AI builds it, we host it, and you are live in minutes.
So every annual plan now includes everything below, with nothing extra to buy. The point is simple. You can say, “I have ZipWP. I can create my site, customize it with premium tools, connect my domain, and keep it hosted in the same place.”
$400+ of premium WordPress plugins
The WordPress & Web Toolkit gives you the premium products behind millions of WordPress sites:
| Plugin | What you get |
|---|---|
| Astra Pro | The #1 WordPress theme, trusted by 2M+ sites, with a premium header and footer builder |
| Spectra Pro | 50+ advanced blocks for the block editor, no page builder subscription needed |
| Premium Starter Templates | 300+ ready-made designs across dozens of niches |
| Ultimate Addons for Elementor | 70+ advanced widgets for Elementor |
| SureForms Premium | Lead forms and multi-step forms with CRM integrations |
You can use them on up to 3, 10 or 1,000 sites depending on your plan. Managing licenses is easier too: open the WordPress Toolkit tab in the ZipWP sidebar, connect your Brainstorm Force account once, and every plugin in your plan appears with its license key, remaining activations and renewal date.
A free domain
Every annual plan includes a free domain for the first year. You can search for and buy more domains inside ZipWP, with first-year and renewal prices shown at checkout, and a new domain connects to your site automatically. We also added many more extensions, including .org, .io, .net, .online, .store and .shop.
Managed hosting
When you finish building, you do not need to move your website anywhere. ZipWP includes managed hosting with unlimited traffic, and we handle the server setup so you can focus on your business instead of infrastructure.
Business email on your domain
Contacting customers from [email protected] works, but it can look less professional. With business email in your plan, you can create addresses like [email protected] or [email protected], so customers see your business name the moment your message arrives. Setup takes a few clicks inside ZipWP.
What changes between plans
Every annual plan includes AI site building, premium AI designs, AI customization, hosting, a free domain and business email. The difference between plans is how much you can run:
| Plan | Live sites | Business emails | Toolkit sites | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 1 | 1 | Up to 3 | Premium |
| Pro | 2 | 2 | Up to 10 | Premium |
| Business | 5 | 3 | Up to 1,000 | VIP |
Business also adds the AI Site Planner and more blueprint and sandbox sites, which helps if you build for clients. Prefer not to pay yearly? The one-time Hobby plan gives you a fixed pack of AI site generations to launch a site on your own hosting, with no renewal.
You can try ZipWP on the free plan first, and every paid plan comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee.
More Ways to Start Your Site
Every project starts from a different place. Some people have an old website, some have a plan, and some just know what they like. This year we added a way in for each of them.
Rebuild any website on WordPress from a URL
Choose From URL in your dashboard and paste the link to an existing website. ZipWP analyzes its pages, structure and offerings, then creates a sitemap, wireframes, copy and a new WordPress site. It suits an old consulting site whose content is still right but whose design is dated, because you do not have to explain your business again.
Plan the whole site first with the AI Site Planner
On the Business plan, the AI Site Planner lets you plan your pages, structure your content and approve the design on a wireframe before anything is built. It is also a quick way to get client sign-off.
This year it learned to show your real brand early. You can apply colors and typography, choose Google Fonts, pick stock images or upload your own, add your logo, set video backgrounds on hero sections, drag sections between pages, and start from an existing site with Import from URL. Not sure how many pages you need? Choose Decide for Me and ZipWP recommends them for you to adjust.
What this means for you: fewer surprises after generation. You approve the look first, then build.
Start from a designer-made template
If you already know the look you want, Classic Templates is a faster path. We brought the Starter Templates library, which has powered thousands of websites, into ZipWP. Pick a template and it is live on a temporary URL in one click, with no hosting to set up and no plugin to install. Every template works with both the Block Editor and Elementor.
Building a store? Choose between SureCart and WooCommerce, and your sample products are now generated to match your business, so a sneaker store gets running shoes instead of generic hoodies. You can also choose which pages to import, so a bakery that is not ready to blog can simply skip that page.
Describe your business out loud
Typing a long business description can feel like a chore. Click the microphone icon in the description box, speak, and ZipWP turns your words into text as you go.
Edit Faster After Your Site Is Built
The feedback we hear most is that a generated site can feel generic and that changing it takes too long. A lot of this year’s work went into fixing that, starting with chat editing in ZIP AI (above).
Ask AI, your in-builder copy editor
Select any text and click Ask AI in the toolbar to rewrite, shorten, expand, fix grammar or change the tone. It knows your page context and business details, so suggestions fit your site instead of reading like filler.
Regenerate or rewrite without starting over
Regenerate Site re-runs the AI builder and updates your WordPress site with a new design, colors and content. Rewrite Copy changes only the words and keeps your design, layout and images. Each uses a credit, and you get a notification when it is done.
Go Live and Keep It Running
Launching is where many people get stuck, and so is the first time something breaks. We made both easier.
- Add Live Site: add your domain (one you own or a new one), choose how to build, verify and go live in a few steps.
- Verify early: add and verify a domain days before launch, then go live instantly with no DNS wait.
- A record verification: if your registrar (Bluehost, GoDaddy or Hostinger, for example) does not support CNAME records, you can verify with an A record instead.
- Disconnect a domain in one click: your site keeps running on its ZipWP URL, which is handy when handing a site back to a client.
- Speed and control: US-region hosting for American visitors, a Purge CDN Cache button, one-click LiteSpeed cache clearing and SSH access alongside SFTP.
Fix problems with AI Troubleshooter
A blank screen or a “critical error” message usually means digging through plugins, themes and logs. On sites hosted with ZipWP, AI Troubleshooter detects common issues such as 500, 403, 503 and 404 errors, explains what went wrong in plain language and offers one-click fixes.
Bring What You Already Have
ZipWP is no longer only for new websites. Bring your existing sites, and the ones you build with other tools, and manage them in the same place.
Migrate your WordPress sites
Your content, plugins, themes, media and users move over while your original site stays untouched. Choose the method that fits your setup:
- WordPress login details: enter your admin credentials and ZipWP handles the rest.
- Backup file: upload a backup from All-in-One WP Migration, Duplicator, UpdraftPlus or WPvivid.
- SFTP: connect to your hosting server when you do not have WordPress admin access.
More than 1,200 websites have already been migrated this way, and you get an email with a login link to your new site when it is done.
Host sites built outside WordPress
Built a site with Claude, v0 or Bolt? Upload it as a .zip or a single .html file and ZipWP gives you a live URL. It supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Vite and Astro builds, and self-contained PHP sites. Use Replace Files to update it without changing the URL, and connect your own domain when you are ready.
Manage ZipWP from Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT
Connect ZipWP to AI assistants like Claude, Cursor and ChatGPT using MCP (Model Context Protocol). Then ask in plain language to create a WordPress site, start from a template or blueprint, clone an existing site, or build a static site and deploy it to ZipWP. You set up the connection once from MCP Connections in your account settings, and more than 250 websites have already been created this way.
Also New This Year
- WebP image uploads, for smaller files and faster pages.
- Sandbox sites, the new name for experimental sites with no live site attached, so it is clear where to experiment and where to test changes before they go live.
Every update is in our What’s New log.
What’s Next
The goal behind every update is the same: make it easier to get online, with fewer tools, subscriptions and technical tasks along the way. ZIP AI is the start of a new chapter, and we are still building.
If you are on a limited plan, now is a good time to unlock more: more live sites, premium tools, hosting, a free domain and business email. Start free, and you are covered by a 7-day money-back guarantee when you upgrade.
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