Paying for wordpress themes vs free in 2015 - your thoughts

Yes, I highly recommend paid themes over free themes. Regarding free themes paid themes come with great framework and also loads very fast. Paid themes also comes with great design.

I recommend you do what you are most comfortable with. I am not a coder and do not want to spend time tweaking free themes, so I buy mine. If you are comfortable working with WP and themes then do that.

al

It's hard to say of course and will depend on where you buy your theme, however in my experience paid themes have always been of much higher quality than free ones. They have proven to be a huge timesaver with much less coding customization needed. Easier to customize in the Wordpress dashboard etc.

That's at least my experience.

I've never need to buy premium themes because most free themes are decent now days. Some are even better then premium themes. It really depends on your needs and taste!

Paid themes are easy to deal with and usually the provider would provide support as well. You can find a lot of nice themes for just $40-$70.

Some themes are worth buying, but at the end of the day it's the marketing that matters. You can have the pretty Wordpress site but if targeted visitors aren't coming there on a daily basis.... then you might just run yourself out of business - and lose a ton of money in the process.

If support is important to you, paid is the way to go.

Paid theme has a lot of premium features
for marketing and business where
you can't get on free theme.

I personally like premium theme
specially themeforest theme
for my internet marketing.

Thanks

Paid of course.

But if it's possible for you, and have the money, go with a custom build theme, not one bought from themeforest or other marketplaces.

Just so you don't look the same as other sites. Be unique my friend!

If you want to have a real business then the only answer is paid theme. Why?

Because:

a) You have support
b) When there are bugs they will fix them. When Wordpress is upgraded many free themes will not provide support. Its free right?
c) The Paid themes framework always blown me away, only that pays 10x the price of the theme.
d) Paid themes are SEO optimized and SPEED optimized

For last but not least if you can´t invest 50 to 100 bucks in your business, probably you don´t have a business at all.

Morg

I like using the Genesis framework and then Thrive Content Builder or OP2 for my sales pages.

For websites, I think themes that cost money are better, if for no other reason than for the support. You might really need that support sometime, and some free theme providers disappear just like free plugin providers do (of course, the disappearing act happens with IM sellers as well, and that's why you should choose higher end tools and themes when you can afford it.)

You have a third option: Creating WordPress themes from scratch using modern, responsive frameworks like Headway!

Paid themes win every time for me.

Three observations:

1. Many times people that claim that paid is the only way to go, the only thing decent, the only thing for people that want a real business, etc. advertise free stuff in their sig. Makes you wonder if the free is junk thing applies there too. Comment isn't just about this thread but something that happens a lot around here - kind of a disconnect.

2. There are many paid plugins and themes that have little to no support or get abandoned. Just check the WSO section for complaints and you'll see. Whether a theme is paid or not has nothing to do with the quality of coding, size, or anything else. The point is to look for quality, look for what you need, don't throw up barriers about things that don't really matter such as basing a decision on whether something is free or paid. Get the stuff you need to do your job no matter who makes it or how much it costs or whatever.

3. Some free themes become paid themes just by adding a plugin. For example, GeneratePress uses this model. Other themes use a different model where there is a free version and a paid version. Typically the only difference is in features not underlying framework type issues. In other words, if I use the free Virtue theme and then I upgrade to the paid Virtue theme I get more features not necessarily tighter, cleaner, code.

Mark

PAID THEME IS GREAT! that's it!

and for great template i recommend avada!

I spent a measely $97 on my Thesis theme...I've had it for the last 5 years I couldn't be happier. Time is money,find a professional looking theme and be done with it.

I agree with extrememan, most of the free themes are decent now. So for me, it is more on the owners preference. Investing on theme is a choice, so it is not necessary unless you want to make an impact to your site visitors.

free themes are also very good but if your website contain highly qualified material or you use for skill purpose then you go for paid themes because they provide many benefits as compare to free themes.

hi, both theme has some problems and advantage. Look your requirement and choose the theme which is more advantage for you !!

Paid themes also often come with a level of support, which can be extremely helpful if you want to make changes.

I stopped using free themes for a few reasons:
1. lack of support
2. limited flexibility
3. lack of updates ==> potential security risk

Now I use the Avada paid theme and it is extremely versatile.

BUY YOUR TEMPLATES FOR PEOPLE. GO TO THEMEFOREST.


If you aren't a programmer. Support should be your number 1 priority. If you don't know how to do something, having a resource that will solve your problems will be everything to you.


Plus you want to be as pro as you possibly can be. Make things look nice. Don't be negatively greedy.

- plus premium theme style will always give out a better impression.

Sometimes free themes have limited functions and design is not as attractive as the paid ones.

I have great experience with optimize press :-)

The free themes look cheap in my opinion. Plus more sites will be using them by default.

I have a couple of sites that work just fine on a free theme. Then, because I wanted certain functionality that I just couldn't find with a free theme, I went ahead and bought a couple. I am very pleased with the results of the paid themes. Then again, my simpler sites are fine with free themes.

I must say I have tweaked the free themes a bit to get them to look right in a couple of places.

So it really depends on if you can find what you want with a free theme. If you really like it and it saves you fiddling and coding time, it is probably well worth it.

I'm all about theme forest, I have found some amazing templates for Wordpress and just about anything for under $50. Hate to limit the market but they have locked down for me right now.