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What exactly is a "Premium" WordPress Theme?

by RyanLester
19 replies
From the perspective of someone who wants to create his own themes, can anyone answer the question above? Thanks
#premium #theme #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Greg McKenzie
    Originally Posted by RyanLester View Post

    From the perspective of someone who wants to create his own themes, can anyone answer the question above? Thanks
    It's not free - It's a theme that you pay for.

    Greg
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    • Profile picture of the author CodeBotics
      A premium theme is one that's better than the free one's available, and as a result of this costs money.
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      • Profile picture of the author TheArticlePros
        Originally Posted by CodeBotics View Post

        A premium theme is one that's better than the free one's available, and as a result of this costs money.
        You haven't looked at a lot of premium themes, have you?

        -- j
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        • Profile picture of the author iceapplez
          Originally Posted by JaRyCu View Post

          You haven't looked at a lot of premium themes, have you?

          -- j

          I just started our first Wordpress blog for our growing tumblr page, without realising just how many premium themes I'd have to search through to find a suitable theme to what we were looking for. Probably looked through like 2,000 premium themes (ranging from $20 to 60$), and ended up settling for a $50 theme with TONS of customizable settings. It looks terrific, however, and I have not the faintest clue of how to create such a nice theme.


          So, it's a paid theme where someone's done all the work of making it easy to customize for you. They generally look much more polished then free themes (for obvious reasons)
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      • Profile picture of the author hebsgaard
        Originally Posted by CodeBotics View Post

        A premium theme is one that's better than the free one's available, and as a result of this costs money.
        There are no guarantees that a premium theme is better, so if I have to be pedantic you can't really say quality is what makes it premium. You're right about having to pay for it though!
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  • Profile picture of the author Nics
    Premium usually means it has features that go above and beyond the basics. If your theme doesn't do a whole lot more beyond what Twenty Eleven can do other than change the look a bit then that is pretty basic.

    Premium themes, however, can take what your target audience wants out of a theme that a basic theme can't do and make it pretty easy to accomplish.

    For example. IMers need to create salesletters and squeeze pages all the time. That's pretty hard to do in Wordpress out of the box or with a basic theme without a lot of html editing. But a theme like Optimizepress (for example but there are others) makes this very easy to accomplish. That's why it's considered Premium.

    Of course, this is only generally true. There are some so called "Premium Themes" that suck and other so called "Basic Themes" that are awesome. Although I have not used it, I hear from many that the Flexibility theme is quite good and it's free. They also have a premium theme called Flexsqueeze as well. I haven't looked into it at great lenght but I hear that the free theme is plenty powerful enough and you should only get Flexsqueeze if you want to get rid of the theme advert at the bottom.
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    • Profile picture of the author scrofford
      Originally Posted by Nics View Post

      Premium usually means it has features that go above and beyond the basics. If your theme doesn't do a whole lot more beyond what Twenty Eleven can do other than change the look a bit then that is pretty basic.

      Premium themes, however, can take what your target audience wants out of a theme that a basic theme can't do and make it pretty easy to accomplish.

      For example. IMers need to create salesletters and squeeze pages all the time. That's pretty hard to do in Wordpress out of the box or with a basic theme without a lot of html editing. But a theme like Optimizepress (for example but there are others) makes this very easy to accomplish. That's why it's considered Premium.

      Of course, this is only generally true. There are some so called "Premium Themes" that suck and other so called "Basic Themes" that are awesome. Although I have not used it, I hear from many that the Flexibility theme is quite good and it's free. They also have a premium theme called Flexsqueeze as well. I haven't looked into it at great lenght but I hear that the free theme is plenty powerful enough and you should only get Flexsqueeze if you want to get rid of the theme advert at the bottom.
      This exactly. I actually just bought one through StudioPress with the Genesis framework last night. I was really considering going with Thesis, but I wanted to keep my cost down, and StudioPress has some really good deals.
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  • Profile picture of the author CodeBotics
    True, there are a lot of crap ones out there! And there are some really good free themes, I guess I should have said it's meant to be better! I think if there was control over how good a premium theme has to be, there would be quite a few less out there.

    So yeah, a good premium theme is better than the free ones :p
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    • Profile picture of the author hebsgaard
      Originally Posted by CodeBotics View Post

      True, there are a lot of crap ones out there! And there are some really good free themes, I guess I should have said it's meant to be better! I think if there was control over how good a premium theme has to be, there would be quite a few less out there.

      So yeah, a good premium theme is better than the free ones :p
      Exactly! I was being a bit pedantic though
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    • Profile picture of the author Trevor
      Originally Posted by CodeBotics View Post

      True, there are a lot of crap ones out there! And there are some really good free themes, I guess I should have said it's meant to be better! I think if there was control over how good a premium theme has to be, there would be quite a few less out there.

      So yeah, a good premium theme is better than the free ones :p
      That's true. There are free themes that are better than any premium ones.

      On the other hand, many premium themes are well-coded, highly customizable and offer a great variety of page layouts, colors, etc.

      So I think you should pick a theme that's suitable for your niche and then read a few reviews online about it. If the feedback is positive, go with it.

      Please be aware, however, that many of the "review sites" are made by affiliates who may exaggerate the quality of the theme, so take that into account.
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  • Profile picture of the author maywebdesigns
    Originally Posted by RyanLester View Post

    From the perspective of someone who wants to create his own themes, can anyone answer the question above? Thanks
    In a general sense premium themes offer more admin panel features than a free theme would.
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  • Profile picture of the author majes
    should be unique,high quality, and at least cost "something".
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  • Profile picture of the author Clark056
    It should do something the free ones lack. There seems to be a lot of opportunity in building themes that offer wider margins like web 2.0 sites, offer easier integration of plugins, etc. Studiopress is a good example of a great set of themes that still have some limitations, compare them to what you see with newish websites like mint, voice bunny, godaddy, and you'll see where the sweet spot might be.

    Clark
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  • Profile picture of the author source47
    I understand that a "Premium Wordpress Theme" often times is more "flexible" to meet specific needs of many different users. You'll most likely find an easy-to-use admin interface to change theme options, etc. Wordpress themes like this take more time and effort to create and therefore, cost money.
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  • Profile picture of the author JayParker
    It's a nice way to say you got to pay for it. Instead of calling them paid themes, it sounds better premium themes, it's the same thing.
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  • Profile picture of the author hugheseducation
    You upload the theme & you’re blogging that day with a theme that looks absolutely professional. You can focus on your content while tweaking the design to be more unique to your company or personality. Moreover, if you have trouble with a feature, theam support is a class act; they simply have the fastest support! I prefer to use their themes on all my current blog projects!
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  • Profile picture of the author Adie
    Regardless of the features, "premium themes" means "paid themes"
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  • Profile picture of the author Fadiz
    Responsive, easy to use and setup, multiple layout styles for example different slider types, color options, backgrounds etc...
    PLUS it's very important to have well documentation and even better support
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