New story: featuring an AI-driven WaaS

Launching Websites for Local SMBs with Astra’s Starter Templates

AstraCloud enables users to select starter templates, which are default templates from the free Starter Templates plugin from Brainstorm Force. It’s an fast-track for digital agencies to establish a Wix-like platform with minimal creative input, and start earning monthly recurring revenue quickly.

Scope and Overview

For every digital agency aiming to market websites quickly and with minimal fuss, AstraCloud emerges as a quick answer. Catering to the needs of small to medium-sized businesses, it offers the essentials: a handful of pages, a contact form, perhaps a calendar or booking feature. These modest, yet crucial offerings encapsulate what many local businesses, gyms, yoga studios, and professional sites require: a site to generate leads.

This Application Blueprint uses the free version of the Astra theme and the Starter Templates plugin. It’s created by wildcloud, this blueprint is unaffiliated with Brainstorm Force, the parent company of Astra and Starter Templates. The idea is to illustrate how effortlessly one can launch a robust website builder using a few plugins and multi-tenant cloud architecture. Indeed, launching your own SaaS can happen not in weeks or months, but virtually right away.

This blueprint is aimed at empowering digital agencies to effortlessly sell site templates offered by Starter Templates to a broad spectrum of small to medium-sized businesses. It’s a venture where you choose a series of site templates and subsequently offer these to a niche audience. In the following paragraphs, we’ll dive into how to set all of this up on wildcloud. Moreover, it’s ready for immediate use as it’s available in our Application library.

AstraCloud Overview

The core of this blueprint has the free versions of Astra theme and Starter Templates. While the free templates may feel limiting, upgrading possibilities abound especially if you’d prefer working with a page builder like Elementor or Beaver builder, as many templates created with these page builders are premium. More information can be found on website Astra’s website.

Watch the walkthrough in real time

User-Friendly Storefront

The storefront presents users with a diverse selection of templates, all displayed within an easy-to-navigate WooCommerce store layout. Each of these templates is directly connected to their own Tenant Snapshot on wildcloud through our free WaaS plugin suite.

For those who prefer hosting their store and marketing site externally, flexibility is at your fingertips. Simply set up the WaaS Host on your current site, establish a connection using API keys from your Core Application, ensure both WooCommerce and WooCommerce Subscriptions (or its free alternative) are installed, integrate a payment gateway, and you’re all set up for success!

Core Application

This is where the actual mechanics happen. It’s the engine room where your customers live, where you maintain the codebase of your application and also make any future changes to tenant snapshots if needed.

Both the User-Friendly Storefront and Core Application work in synergy, orchestrated by an API connection. This seamless interaction ensures that the users’ journey from selecting a template to having a live site is smooth and hassle-free.

Plan Structure: A Default plan with Site Templates

Within the WaaS Client of the Core Application lies a users role named ‘Default’. Every new subscribers will have access to all plugins in this Default role. What sets each Woocommerce product apart is each unique starting template, sourced from an individual Tenant Snapshot.

*Configuration of WaaS Client in Core Application*

In AstraCloud Blueprint, we’ve chosen to cater specifically to local businesses. To accommodate these businesses, we’ve selected an few of site templates from the Starter Site library. Currently, we offer four templates tailored for businesses in our local area: Cleaning Services, Plumber, Roofing Services, and Electrician.

To ensure they can only access the site template upon onboarding, we’ve made sure that the Default role cannot access the Site Templates plugin. Thus, new subscribers can only select their desired template upon registration. Of course, since we’re catering to local businesses, we recommended to enhance this Blueprint with the latest SEO and local optimization strategies, ensuring your clientele ranks prominently in their respective regions. You know this better than we do, so we’ve left this all clean for you to set up!

Next, we have four tenant snapshots, each corresponding to the templates we created. The process is straightforward: provision a new tenant, load the associated template with Starter Templates, and generate a tenant snapshot from that tenant.

*List of tenant snapshots representing site templates*

Once the snapshots are created, the corresponding tenants can be removed. These tenant snapshots are then called by the API during a new purchase, where the API will provision the snapshot with the most recent “GroupName”. You can learn more about group-names and tenant snapshots in our documentation.

Setting up the Storefront

Turning our attention to the Storefront, we link products to each tenant snapshot, providing them with a descriptive name and other details. It’s essential to understand that these are standard WooCommerce products, streamlined by the integration with our free WaaS plugin suite and WooCommerce Subscriptions.

Upon inspecting a product, we see that both the Subscriptions and WPCS product options are selected. This selection indicates that it’s designed as a subscription product, enabling WooCommerce to administer recurring charges to its subscribers. The activated WPCS product option introduces a new tab, which displays the Roles for functionality and tenant snapshots tailored for database configurations — our templated sites.

*WooCommerce product overview with roles and tenant snapshot selected*

Note that every WooCommerce product is labeled with the “Default” role, with its tenant snapshot reflecting the template crafted earlier in the process.

With your products launched, you’re officially in business.

License Activation Insights

While AstraCloud operates without premium license keys and features, expanding your site template offerings, tapping into premium templates, or utilizing popular builders like Beaver Builder or Elementor may pique your interest. If you’re contemplating this route, here’s a breakdown to guide you:

Starter Templates

Opting for Starter Templates requires an investment of $137. This fee unlocks 180+ premium templates and an addon choice between Beaver or Elementor. It’s crucial to select thoughtfully, as not all premium templates support the builder you might select.

This package also grants access to PRO features, such as white-label capabilities and an array of tools for the Astra theme, including the header and footer builder. Given the unlimited license keys, merely integrating the license keys in a Version Snapshot will suffice.

Beaver Builder

All Beaver Builder plans offer unlimited seats, presenting no unique considerations. However, should white-labeling appeal to you, it’s worth considering their Agency plan. To proceed, integrate the license key within a Version Snapshot.

Elementor

Elementor’s Expert plan accommodates 25 sites for $199, while their Agency package offers 1000 licenses at $399. A known challenge with Elementor is its absence of automatic license activation from the site—a challenge that deters some users.

But, with their CLI offers a workaround, enabling users to enjoy Elementor as their default page builder and benefit from auto-activation. If Elementor aligns with your vision, explore our White Glove services. Don’t hesitate to reach out, and we’ll gladly assist in integrating it with your Application.

AstraCloud Configuration Overview

At it’s core, AstraCloud serves simplistic portfolio websites comprising a few pages and basic features like a contact form. These sites seamlessly fit within our Small Container’s capabilities, with starting prices at $4.37 on our predefined plans. This setup supports up to 5k monthly users. For larger audiences, our medium and high-scale pre-configured plans can handle up to 12k and 50k monthly users, respectively.

It’s essential to understand the nature of pre-configured plans. As wildcloud users, you pre-purchase server space based on estimated utilization. However, these estimations might not always align with real-time demands, especially during traffic spikes. In a pre-configured setup, it’s crucial to opt for a scale configuration that accommodates peak loads to ensure consistent site performance. Yet, during non-peak times, much of this server capacity might remain underutilized. This is where the appeal of our metered plan becomes evident.

For businesses prioritizing adaptability, our professional plan introduces a metered pricing model, ensuring charges are solely based on real-time consumption. Paired with our robust monitoring tools, you’re not only assured of efficient resource usage but also optimal cost management.

Real-world Scenarios for AstraCloud

1. Website as a Service for Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents often require tailored websites to showcase their property listings, client testimonials, and localized content. These websites need to be visually appealing, responsive, and easily customizable as per each agent’s unique brand.

A Real-world Scenario

ProEstate, a SaaS company, recognized the growing demand for specialized websites amongst real estate agents. They decided to offer a platform where agents could swiftly set up their own personalized websites.

Using AstraCloud:

ProEstate utilized the Starter Templates with AstraCloud to curate a set of appealing real estate-centric designs.
With added plugins like interactive property galleries, embedded maps, and a contact form, agents could offer potential clients a comprehensive look into their offerings.
Agents could easily choose a template and customize it, adding their listings and personal touch without any technical hassle.

ProEstate’s SaaS solution was a hit, enabling countless real estate agents to establish a robust online presence with minimal effort.

2. Website as a Service for Local Culinary Businesses

Local restaurants, cafes, and bistros benefit immensely from having an online presence. With the shift towards online ordering and table reservations, a restaurant-specific website is indispensable.

A Real-world Scenario

DineWeb, a SaaS company, aimed to cater to this niche by offering a platform where local eateries could create stunning websites tailored to the F&B industry.