Custom blocks the editor team will actually use.
Custom Gutenberg blocks built in React or ACF. Editor-grade controls, scoped to your design system, with the patterns your marketing team ships every week — not the patterns a marketplace block library half-fits.
Built in
Patterns
Controls
Design tokens
What is custom Gutenberg blocks?
Custom Gutenberg blocks are bespoke block editor blocks built in React or ACF — scoped to your design system and editorial workflow. They replace marketplace block libraries that load megabytes of editor JavaScript and expose more controls than your design system permits.
Why custom blocks
Marketplace blocks fit nobody. Custom blocks fit your design system.
WordPress block libraries on the marketplace are a useful starting point and a long-term maintenance liability. They expose more controls than your design system permits, render markup you didn't write, and load assets you can't audit. Custom blocks are the opposite — built to your design tokens, scoped to what should be editable, and shaped around the patterns your marketing team actually ships.
What we hear most
When teams need custom Gutenberg blocks.
Marketplace blocks drift the design
Hero block from a library exposes 30 controls. Marketing tweaks padding, type, and colour outside the design system. Brand erodes one page at a time.
ACF flexible content is bottlenecking
Old ACF flexible content fields work but feel like 2014 WordPress. Editor wants block-style live preview. ACF blocks give the structured-fields-with-preview middle ground.
Specific commerce or SaaS pattern
Pricing comparison, feature matrix, calculator, SaaS hero with embedded video, or interactive testimonial. None of it lives in a marketplace library.
Brand-specific motion and interaction
Editorial hero, scroll-triggered counter, marquee strip, magnetic CTA — the brand's visual signature. Custom blocks let marketing drop them into pages without engineering tickets.
Editor performance
Marketplace block libraries load megabytes of editor JS even when no blocks are used. Custom blocks load only what's used, only where it's used.
Locked down for non-technical editors
Need editor controls that prevent marketing from breaking layout. Toolbar limited, sidebar scoped, inner blocks restricted — without writing a workaround.
What we deliver
What ships in a Haxtiv custom-blocks engagement.
A block library built to your design system, scoped to your editorial workflow, and documented for in-house extension.
Block library
- Custom blocks matched to your launch templates
- React-based blocks for live-preview interactivity
- ACF blocks for structured fields with preview
- Inner-block patterns for nested controls
- Block variations and transforms for reuse
Editor experience
- Toolbar and sidebar controls scoped to design tokens
- Inner-block restrictions to keep layout stable
- Branded panel labels and grouped controls
- Editor styles that mirror the front-end exactly
- Helpful empty states and validation messaging
Design tokens
- Theme.json integration (color, type, spacing)
- CSS variable plumbing across editor and front-end
- Style presets and block variations
- Responsive controls scoped to the breakpoint system
- No drift between block UI and rendered output
Performance
- Selective block enqueue (only loads where used)
- Editor and front-end bundle separation
- @wordpress/scripts build with code-splitting
- Critical CSS for above-the-fold blocks
- Real-user CWV monitoring post-launch
Documentation & handover
- Block API documented for in-house extension
- Loom walkthroughs for editor and developer audiences
- Storybook (optional) for block design system
- Migration scripts from old patterns where needed
- 30 days of post-launch support included
Process
How this service runs end to end
The same six-step shape we use across every Haxtiv project — adapted to the specifics of this scope.
01
Discover
Audit, intent, and the part nobody is saying out loud
We open with a working session — not a deck. We pull analytics, crawl the existing site, audit the brand, and interview the people closest to revenue. We surface the friction inside the team, not just the friction on the screen.
02
Define
Sitemap, story, and the metrics that actually matter
We define the audience journeys, the commercial pages we are willing to defend, the SEO architecture, and the measurable outcomes. You get a shape of the project that survives feedback because it was built on evidence.
03
Design
Editorial system, art-directed, never templated
Type, grid, motion, and tone built as a system. We design the hero, the long pages, the unloved corners, and the empty states. Every screen looks like it belongs to the same studio. Nothing is parked for later.
04
Build
Production code your team can keep
WordPress, Shopify, or page builder — we build clean, accessible, performant, and documented. Component-led, naming you'll recognize next year, and a changelog your in-house team can read.
05
Launch
Migration without losing rankings or sleep
Pre-launch crawl, redirect map, schema and metadata cutover, performance baseline, and a launch playbook. We run the deploy with you, not at you.
06
Grow
Care plan, CRO sprints, and quiet improvements
We stay involved. Monthly performance reports, security and core updates, and CRO sprints that compound. The site gets better the longer you keep us.
What this looks like in production
Numbers we earn, not numbers we round up.
Sites shipped
across 27 countries
Studio hours
delivered since 2019
Avg conversion lift
post-redesign clients
Client retention
into year two
In their words
Senior teams who chose us.
Haxtiv replatformed our marketing site without losing a single ranking. We saw organic leads up 38% inside the first quarter and the editorial team finally has a layout system they don't fight.
Mara Iglesias
VP Marketing · Lumenwave Health
Headless WordPress redesign
Our previous Shopify build was a Frankenstein of apps. The Haxtiv team simplified the stack, rebuilt the PDP and CRO patterns, and our store is faster and more profitable than it has ever been.
Daniel Korver
Founder · Northbound Goods
Shopify Plus rebuild
Frequently asked
Answers worth asking for.
Don't see the question you're holding? Send it to [email protected] and we'll answer the same day.
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Where to go next
Gutenberg development
Block-first WordPress builds.
WordPress plugin development
Custom plugins, including block plugins.
WordPress theme development
Custom themes from scratch.
Custom WordPress development
Hand-coded themes, ACF, blocks.
WordPress development
Top-line WordPress build.
WordPress design agency
Editorial design system.
WordPress page builder experts
Cross-builder expertise.
Headless WordPress
Next.js + WP backend.
Start here
Brief us on the blocks your editor team is missing.
30-minute call. We'll review the design system, the patterns, and share a fixed quote within 48 hours.