Are WordPress Custom Post Types Useful? Benefits and Things to Know Before Using Them

WordPress has a feature called custom post types, which lets you create your own types of content in addition to the standard Posts and Pages.

For example, if you want to manage content such as products, portfolio items, or staff profiles separately from your blog posts, custom post types allow you to organize each of them as an independent content type.

I have created and used custom post types many times since around 2018, and I have also converted some of them back into regular posts. I still use them on several of my websites today.

Based on that experience, I will start with my conclusion: custom post types are useful, but I do not recommend them for WordPress beginners.

Creating one is not necessarily difficult. The real challenge comes afterward.

What Are Custom Post Types? How Are They Different from Regular Posts?

WordPress includes two standard post types: Posts and Pages.

A custom post type lets you add another content type alongside them.

When you organize regular articles with categories, they all remain inside the same “Posts” section.

With a custom post type, however, you can create a separate section and manage it independently from regular posts in the WordPress dashboard.

Custom post types can work especially well for content such as:

• Product information
• Portfolio items
• Staff profiles
• Event information
• Content that serves a clearly different purpose from regular blog posts

On the other hand, if you simply want to organize blog posts by topic, regular posts and categories may be all you need.

Custom Post Types Are Not a “Set It and Forget It” Feature

You can create a custom post type with a plugin or by adding code to functions.php.

Back in 2018, I tried both methods: using a plugin and writing the code myself in functions.php.

Once I started using them in practice, however, I found that features I had taken for granted with regular posts often required additional setup.

At the time, I ran into issues such as:

• Custom post types not appearing in the sitemap
• They did not appear in monthly archives
• Some plugin features were unavailable on the editing screen
• Breadcrumbs did not display correctly
• Permalink settings caused problems

For the sitemap, I installed another plugin just to display the custom posts, and then customized the appearance of the resulting sitemap myself.

My impression at the time was that getting a custom post type to work as smoothly as a regular post was more difficult than creating it in the first place.

Moving a Site Can Also Require Extra Work

Even in 2026, I encountered another issue that was specific to custom post types.

It happened when I tried to move content from one WordPress site to another.

Regular posts can be moved with WordPress’s built-in export and import tools, but my custom posts did not transfer quite as smoothly.

I currently use a plugin called “Custom Post Type UI” to create my custom post types.

In that setup, I needed to enable the custom post type for export.

On the destination site, I also had to create the same custom post type first so there would be a place to import the articles into.

In other words, using custom post types can add extra checks and steps to tasks that would normally require very little thought with regular posts.

It is also worth considering the possibility that you may eventually move your site or transfer the content to another WordPress installation before deciding to use custom post types.

Think Carefully About Permalinks from the Start

Another thing to consider before creating a custom post type is its permalink structure.

I once converted articles from a custom post type back into regular posts.

Because the permalink structures were different, simply moving the articles also changed their URLs.

As a result, I had to set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones, and at the time I created a separate redirect for each article.

When setting up a custom post type, I recommend choosing the URL structure with the possibility that you may eventually stop using that post type or move its content elsewhere in mind, rather than thinking only about how it will be used today.

I Once Stopped Using Custom Post Types

In 2018, I used custom post types quite extensively.

Over time, however, I found myself making more and more individual adjustments for features that worked automatically with regular posts. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it made sense to go to so much trouble just to manage ordinary blog content as a separate post type.

In the end, I moved the articles I had been managing as custom posts back into regular posts.

That was not because custom post types are a bad feature.

In my case, the problem was that I had separated content into its own post type even though I wanted to use it almost exactly like regular posts.

Why I Still Use Custom Post Types Today

Although I stopped using them for a while, I now use custom post types again on several websites.

The difference is that I now reserve them for content with a clearly different role from regular posts.

If I simply want to organize ordinary articles, I first consider whether categories can do the job.

Only when I decide that there is a real reason to manage the content as a separate post type do I use a custom post type.

For Beginners, I Recommend Regular Posts and Categories

Custom post types can be extremely useful when they suit the purpose of the site.

However, once you create one, you may need to handle things yourself that regular posts normally take care of automatically, including theme and plugin compatibility, archives, permalinks, site migrations, exports, and imports.

For that reason, I do not recommend custom post types to people who are just getting started with WordPress.

If regular posts and categories can achieve what you need, starting with that approach will usually make both day-to-day management and future site moves much simpler.

If you decide to use a custom post type, do not think only about how to create it. Before you begin, also consider whether you will still want to use that post type several years from now and what you would do if you ever needed to move the site.