Comments on: What Do You Think of Premium WordPress Themes?

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:15:01 +0000

@ Steffan – Great points! It sounds like we are on the same page.

@ Will – Yes, plugins require a LOT more work and are often more important than a theme. I think a lot of people would gladly pay for a plugin that will really help them (especially if buying gives you a unlimited use license). I use both of the premium plugins I’ve featured here and they were some of the most helpful plugins I use. Also, due to the nature of the plugins, they paid for themselves right away.

By: Will

Will — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:51:17 +0000

Clearly there is a huge divide in the community on this. But ‘premium’ themes are here to stay and I think the market will keep growing with the popularity of WordPress.

I completely agree with Steffan’s points.

I think it the future of ‘premium’ themes will move away from selling indivual themes to offering theme clubs. Just look at the joomla community for example. Rocketthemes was created by a joomla developer.

I also expect to see a boom in ‘premium’ plugins being released and Im all for it if they raise the bar and offer features I need aswell as great support.

By: Steffan Antonas

Steffan Antonas — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:40:44 +0000

@Kyle

The growth and evolution of the premium themes marketplace is a great thing for the the WordPress community. People should expect entrepreneurship around open source as a rule, and accept it as a driving force of innovation. I wrote a lengthy post in response to a similar discussion on ThemeShaper and Adii’s blog saying so much – the focus of the post is on entrepreneurship around open source, but I think you’ll agree it’s in agreement with all the main points you touched on here. The link to the post is in the website field.

Great post, Kyle.

By: Kyle Eslick

Kyle Eslick — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:59:13 +0000

Great discussion everyone!

Yes, just like a free theme, I like to hack premium themes to look and work the way I want them to, so code is important. One of my favorite parts of the Revolution themes is the excellent code setup. It is incredibly clean, the stylesheet is organized, and it has made making adjustments to the code VERY easy.

Premium theme authors have to make a balanced theme that works right away without help, but is easy to make adjustments to. That is a talent some of them do have, but others do not. People forget they were designed more as “templates”, but people buy them with the intention of using them without any modifications. That appears to be the separation between the various premium theme authors. Some get it and some don’t.

By: Milan Petrovic

Milan Petrovic — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:22:35 +0000

I have been working on a WordPress theme for a month with intention to create very advanced and user firendly theme by adding admin control panel with a lot of options for customization. This way even blog users with no programing skills can modify the way their blog looks like. There’s still a lot to do on it, but you can see the directon I am taking.
I have been looking at various premium themes expecting to see something like that to justify the price, but I have found that configuring ‘premium’ themes is very painful, because in the end you must edit php like with all the free themes out there. In many instances such ‘premium’ themes look much worse then some free themes. And to be honest I am still to find a single ‘premium’ theme I really like.

By: DameryWorld

DameryWorld — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:45:05 +0000

Here is my 2 cents:
1) I have seen some “premium” themes that in my opinion are not worth $10. I have yet to see a really valuable premium theme but that may because I am a bit of a hacker and piece together whatever I want in a theme. I know someone out there must have come up with a list of whats required to be a “premium” theme. Just because its complex to use doesn’t mean anything to me…premium to me, means its easy to use and complex(powerful) in programming processes. If I am adding code snippets to other code snippets then its crap.
2) On the other side of the coin, if you get paid for peddling crap. Good for you and shame on the WP community for not exposing your crappy ways.
I am a newbie to WP and jumped here from the crappy Joomla CMS. I am slowly building the pieces to make a quality powerful theme, but quality takes time. Will you pay for it? you tell me…

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:36:23 +0000

Thanks for the link and discussion. You actually pretty much wrote my follow-up post if I ever decided to write one.

I’m not entirely against premium themes as there is a place for them. Good theme developers keep innovating, which makes the rest of us try to keep up.

I fully support premium theme authors that are out there innovating and supporting their products 100%.

@Thud, I’m constantly trying to offer tutorials to advance WordPress themes, but that doesn’t necessarily stop some of the crappy themes being released for money. I still do think I could do more, and I’ll take your advice and write more tutorials on advanced techniques.

By: jbj

jbj — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:51:58 +0000

If people want to pay for a theme, why not.
Personally, I’d prefer to use a quality free theme (There’s many!!) or pay for a real custom theme, designed only for my project.
Or even better: Reading hackwordpress every day and learn how to create the theme of my dreams

By: Thud

Thud — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:43:41 +0000

I understand Tadlock’s frustration, but I don’t see the Premium market going away any time soon. People want to pay for themes. Of course, he’s right that the themes should be quality work if people are going to be asked to pay for them, but you can say the same thing about software in general. There’s thousands and thousands of poorly-written, poorly-supported, barely-functional software packages out there people are expected to pay through the nose on. (a lot of shareware, but see also: Windows Vista.)

Tadlock might have more actual effect on the practice of releasing cruddy themes if he (and those like him) did reviews or teach the techniques premium themes use (for free) rather than insisting that developers stop making premium themes or change what they call premium themes. (“Pay per use” rather than “premium?” Why? What does that do?)

By: Richard H

Richard H — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:37:16 +0000

Kyle, my opinion has recently changed regarding premium themes.

I feel there’s a wealth of excellent free themes out there, that we can freely modify and use for whatever purpose we see fit. Given that, I personally don’t have a need to invest in a paid theme (right now).

If I was running a different site, with different needs, I may feel differently, then I’d have no issues paying for the right theme. But…

I’d expect the theme to be unique, meet my needs by way of adequate features, and be well designed and coded.

Good coding practices are important to me, because I’ll want the option of modifying my purchase without stumbling through messy or non-standard code.

There are some excellent premium themes available today, but personally, I feel that many of the other premium themes aren’t necessarily worthy of the name.