Add built-in Coming Soon / Under Construction page mode or starter site template

Impact: 55 · Confidence: 85 · Complexity: 45

Description

Problem: Users launching new sites with Neve need a quick way to show a Coming Soon / Maintenance page while building their site. Currently, they have to seek out third-party plugins (like LightStart).

Desired behavior: Provide a dedicated Coming Soon mode setting or pre-built Coming Soon starter site template in Neve to let users put their site under construction with a single click.

Acceptance criteria:

• Provide a built-in Coming Soon / Maintenance toggle in Neve options, or add dedicated Coming Soon pre-built starter page templates to the Neve Starter Sites library.
• Allow custom text, logo, background image, and social links on the coming soon page.
• Provide an option to restrict view access to logged-in administrators while showing the coming soon page to public visitors.

Customer Context

1 feedback entry from a user who deactivated Neve after 1 day stating 'I want a coming soon page'.

Root Cause Analysis

Users evaluating Neve during their initial setup (day 1) hit friction during site launch: (1) free tier users find the catalog of free pre-built starter templates insufficient for their specific site niche, leading to quick abandonment, and (2) users setting up new sites want an integrated way to display a 'Coming Soon' page to visitors while building out their website, without needing to install additional separate plugins.

Reasoning

Across the 2 uninstall feedback entries, 2 distinct filable feature requests were identified:

1. Entry 1 requests more free starter templates ("starter template free"). Users deactivating after 1 day feel the selection of free starter sites in the free theme tier is too limited to get started quickly.
2. Entry 2 requests a built-in coming soon / maintenance mode page capability ("I want a coming soon page"). While Themeisle offers LightStart as a standalone plugin, users expect basic coming soon / under-construction functionality built directly into Neve or easily selectable during site setup/starter import.

Neither request matches an existing GitHub issue or documentation indicating the feature already exists natively in Neve as requested.

Source: automated uninstall feedback — neve, 2026-09-02
Generated by feature-request-triage workflow (ID: feature-request-triage_6a98ff3f600288.01022229)

Start by reviewing Neve options and the Neve Starter Sites library to understand the existing entry points for site modes and starter templates. Define the chosen approach against the acceptance criteria: customizable text, logo, background image and social links, plus administrator-only access while public visitors see the coming soon page.