Introducing RaffleWP Starter Site: a ready-made competition website theme

A competition website needs more than a collection of prize pages. The homepage, navigation, competition cards and individual prize details all need to feel like parts of the same site. RaffleWP Starter Site gives you that starting point, with an editable WordPress theme built around raffleWP.

It is included with a current raffleWP licence and available from My licences. You get the Starter Site addon, a bundled block theme, Light and Dark styles, reusable page layouts and six illustrated example competitions.

What is RaffleWP Starter Site?

Starter Site is an optional addon that helps you install and set up the RaffleWP Starter theme. The theme provides the website design; the raffleWP plugin continues to provide the competition functionality, working alongside WooCommerce.

That gives you a connected starting point for the customer-facing website, with a featured competition hero, competition grid, category filters, winners blocks and a product-detail layout. You can keep the initial layout, adapt it or reuse individual starter patterns elsewhere.

If you already have a theme you like, you can keep it. Starter Site is an option for a new build or a planned redesign, rather than a requirement for using raffleWP.

Two styles, using the same editable layouts

The theme includes Light and Dark variations. Light uses pale backgrounds and blue accents; Dark uses deep backgrounds with lighter accents. Both keep the focus on prize imagery, entry information and clear routes through the site.

Choose a variation during setup, then use Appearance → Editor → Styles to customise it. Your logo, colours, typography and spacing can make the starting layout feel like your own brand.

Edit your site in WordPress

Starter Site uses Gutenberg, WordPress’s native block editor, and the Site Editor. You can rewrite a heading, rearrange a section or change a prize image without introducing a separate page builder.

• Pages: edit your homepage and other imported content in the normal page editor.
• Templates and navigation: change headers, footers and site-wide layouts in the Site Editor.
• Reusable patterns: insert starter layouts, then adapt their content and order.
• Competition settings: continue to manage your prizes through raffleWP and WooCommerce.

Explicit raffleWP Design settings can override component defaults. If a block does not match the selected style, check those settings as well as your theme styles.

Six example prizes to help you get started

The optional example import includes Sports Car Prize, Ultimate Tech Bundle, Big Cash Prize, Gaming Setup, Weekend Escape and Shopping Prize Bundle. Each comes with a prize illustration and sample information so you can see how different competitions fit the layout.

These are protected demo products. They cannot take entries and do not create real tickets, orders, entrants or winners. They are there to help you explore presentation and settings while you build.

To turn an idea into your own competition, choose Create competition from example. This creates a separate draft. Add your actual prize details, dates and entry requirements, then complete the normal launch checks. Keep the original examples as demos or remove them using the addon’s cleanup option.

How to set up the starter theme

For the first release, you need WordPress 6.7+, WooCommerce 9.9+, raffleWP 1.5.3+, PHP 7.4+ and a current raffleWP licence. Your hosting also needs WebP image processing support.

1. Download the Starter Site addon from My licences, upload it through Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, and activate it.
2. Open RaffleWP → Starter Site, choose Light or Dark and install the bundled theme.
3. Choose layouts only, or layouts with six demo competitions, then select Install demo content.
4. Review the imported drafts and the listed changes. Choose Apply starter site when you are ready to activate the theme, publish those pages and assign the homepage and navigation.

Activating the addon alone does not replace your active theme or homepage. The separate Apply step gives you control over when the new site takes over. On an existing website, make a backup and work through the change on a staging copy first.

Existing assigned WooCommerce cart, checkout and account pages are reused. Missing commerce pages are created through WooCommerce’s standard setup tools. You still configure your payment provider, real prizes and site content for your own business.

What you will see in our live demo

The public demo now uses the released Starter theme, so you can browse the customer pages and compare its two appearances. It also shows ticket-selection and bundle previews, instant-prize examples and a read-only administration tour, including WooCommerce Product data.

Those extra demonstration controls keep exploration separate from real commerce. The demo uses fictional records and local checkout totals, and cannot accept payments or reserve tickets. Its sample winners and read-only admin sessions are specific to our demo; the normal Starter Site import does not populate your website with customer or winner records.

A starting point you can keep developing

Once the starter site is applied, you can keep refining it through WordPress. Addon updates do not rerun the import or overwrite database-saved Gutenberg customisations. The addon also handles updates for the bundled theme using your existing raffleWP key, so keep it active for that update route.

For a build you want to manage yourself, Starter Site gives you layouts and examples to work from. If you would prefer help shaping and building the whole website, our competition website design service is available too.