---
title: Site Builder Templates
description: "Site builder templates are the ready-made blocks your hosting customers drop into their own websites — hero sections, pricing tables, headers, footers. You build them in a visual editor in the admin area and they appear, read-only, in the Library…"
url: "https://rackhelm.com/documentation/site-builder-templates/"
updated: "2026-09-24"
category: "Products & Catalogue"
---

# Site Builder Templates

Site builder templates are the ready-made blocks your hosting customers drop into their own websites — hero sections, pricing tables, headers, footers. You build them in a visual editor in the admin area and they appear, read-only, in the Library inside the customer's site builder. This article is for operators.

## Before you start

> **Note:** Requires the `manage_site_templates` permission, which the built-in **Administrator** role holds alongside Super Admin. The sidebar link, however, is shown under `manage_settings` — a key with no permission record, so it cannot be granted from the Roles screen and only Super Admin ever sees the link. Anyone else with `manage_site_templates` must navigate to `/admin/site-templates` directly. See [Roles & Permissions](/docs/roles-and-permissions/).

> **Warning:** Do not confuse these with the **store template** setting under **Platform Settings → General & System**, which chooses the look of *your* store pages (`classic`, `modern_dark` or `modern_clean`). Site builder templates are content blocks for your customers' own sites.

## The Site Templates screen

Open **Platform Settings → Site Templates** (`/admin/site-templates`). Tabs across the top filter by type: **All**, **Content**, **Header**, **Footer**.

![The Site Templates list with type filter tabs and a table of thumbnail, name, type, category, order, status and last-updated](/wp-content/uploads/rackhelm-docs/catalogue-site-templates-index.png)
Types are colour-coded, and the thumbnail column shows the preview image the builder's Library will display.

A fresh install is seeded with 36 templates — 15 content blocks, 11 headers and 10 footers — so the Library is never empty. Most sit in a **Default** category, with a handful under Hero, Store, Corporate, Tech SaaS, Creative Studio, Minimal E-Commerce and App. They are created only if a template of the same name does not already exist, so re-running the seeder will not overwrite your edits.

## The three types

| Type | Offered when the customer is editing |
| --- | --- |
| **Content** | Any ordinary page. This is the default and the largest category — heroes, feature grids, pricing tables, testimonials, calls to action, contact sections. |
| **Header** | The site header region only. |
| **Footer** | The site footer region only. |

## Creating a template

1. Click **Create Template**.
2. Fill in **Template Name**, choose a **Type**, and optionally set a **Category**.
3. Set **Sort Order** and leave **Active (visible in builder)** on if you want customers to see it straight away.
4. Build the block in the **Template Body** editor — a visual editor with a block palette, layer tree and style controls.
5. Click **Save Template**.

![The Create Site Template screen with the metadata fields above and the visual builder canvas below](/wp-content/uploads/rackhelm-docs/catalogue-site-template-builder.png)
The editor's HTML and CSS are written into hidden fields when you submit; you never hand-edit them on this form.

### Field reference

| Field | Rules and effect |
| --- | --- |
| **Template Name** | Required, up to 255 characters. Shown as the tile caption in the customer's Library. |
| **Type** | Required. `content`, `header` or `footer`. Decides which builder context offers it. |
| **Category** | Optional, up to 255 characters. Groups templates within a type, for example "Hero", "Store". Most of the seeded set use "Default". |
| **Thumbnail** | Not a manual upload. A screenshot of your design is captured from the editor canvas as a downscaled WebP (maximum 600 px wide) and attached when you submit. Validated as an image — JPEG, PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, maximum 2 MB. If the capture fails or times out after 8 seconds the form still submits, without a new thumbnail. On the edit form the current thumbnail is shown and is replaced only when a new capture succeeds. |
| **Sort Order** | Optional whole number, minimum 0, defaults to `0`. Controls the order inside the Library. Ties are broken by name. |
| **Active (visible in builder)** | Defaults to on. Off keeps the template in the admin list but hides it from every customer's Library. |
| **Template Body** | Required. The block's markup, produced by the visual editor. Its stylesheet is stored alongside it. |

## What customers see

When a customer opens the site builder on a hosting service, the Library requests templates for the region they are editing — headers when the site header is selected, footers for the footer, content otherwise. Only **Active** templates of that type are returned, ordered by sort order then name, each with its name, category, markup, stylesheet and a resolved thumbnail URL. Ownership of the site is verified before anything is served.

> **Tip:** Give every template a distinct **Sort Order** and put your best two or three at `0` and `1`. The Library is a visual list and the top tiles get used most.

## Editing and deleting

Editing reopens the design in the same visual editor. Saving replaces the markup, the stylesheet and — if the capture succeeds — the thumbnail, deleting the previous thumbnail file. Deleting a template removes it and its thumbnail file permanently; customer pages that already used the block keep their copy of the markup, because inserting a template copies it into the page rather than linking to it.

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Cause and fix |
| --- | --- |
| "The template body field is required." | The editor canvas was empty when you submitted. Add at least one block before saving. |
| The saved template has no thumbnail. | The canvas capture failed or exceeded its 8-second limit — usually a slow or blocked remote image inside the design. Replace remote images with ones hosted on your own site and save again. |
| A template is missing from a customer's Library. | Check its **Active** switch and its **Type** — a content block never appears while the customer is editing the header region. |
| The thumbnail image is broken in the admin list. | Seeded thumbnails are served from the web root and admin-generated ones through the storage symlink. If uploaded thumbnails 404, the `public/storage` symlink is missing on that install. |
| The sidebar link is missing even though you can open the page. | Expected. The link is shown under `manage_settings`, which no role can hold, while the route needs `manage_site_templates`. Bookmark `/admin/site-templates`. |
| Web fonts look wrong in the thumbnail. | Font embedding is deliberately skipped during capture so a blocked font request cannot hang the save. The stored template still uses your fonts; only the preview falls back to a sans-serif. |
| Re-running the seeder did not restore a template you edited. | Seeded templates are matched by name and only created when absent. Rename or delete your edited copy first, then re-run the seeder. |