Which WordPress Theme Should I Use? – Free vs. Paid

Posted by Matt in Free vs. Paid | 0 comments

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The good news: You can get the exact design you want.

The bad news: You may have to pay for it.

There are 4 basic options when it comes to acquiring a WordPress theme.

1. Free – You can start with the thousands of themes at WordPress.org and that’s just the beginning.
2. Paid – Within the Paid realm you have 5 major contenders.
3. Customized – You can hire someone to created a custom theme specifically for you.
4. Personal – You can create a theme yourself.

Each of these options has its bonus, but they all have a downside as well. It really depends on your current situation.

Free

Well, the bonus here is obvious. It’s free. The downside though, in my opinion, is quite a big one.

First you are forced to sift through page after page and theme after theme, just hoping you might find something remotely resembling the picture you had in your mind. And really you want the theme you find to be as close as possible to the picture you had in your mind because free themes are definitely not easy to manipulate. They weren’t built to be manipulated, they were built to be used as is.

Worst of all, you will have an even harder time trying to find support for the theme if you have any questions about it.

You get what you pay for.

Paid

Paid themes get better. All the information you need is located in one central area (usually the theme’s official website). Paid themes are built to be customized. There tends to be very active, accessible support for these themes.

The downside here would be the cost, but this is another example of you get what you pay for. In my mind there are currently 5 major contenders in the paid theme arena (in no specific order):

• Affiliate Theme
• Elegant Themes – (full review)
• Frugal
• Headway
• Thesis

Customized

If you have the budget for it, this is definitely your best option.

To get a quality, one-of-a-kind theme that is easy to handle and made to your exact specifications will probably run you a couple thousand dollars. However, if you’re really serious about this or this is for your business and you want to promote your brand, this could be one of the best investments you’ll ever make.

There are great designers all over the place, but you can start looking at places like:

• 99designs
• Elance
• oDesk

Personal

This option is exactly the same as the Customized option. The only difference is that instead of hiring someone else to create the theme, you create it yourself.

So the bonus is that you get everything you want including the free price tag. The downside, well, you have to spend countless hours toiling over pages of code until everything works out the way you want it to. And that is assuming that you know how to program in HTML/CSS/PHP at the bare minimum. If not, you’ll have to add that to your list of things to do.

If you have the time and willpower this really could be the best option for you, but not many people are this motivated.

Summary

In the end I like to make a nice balance and take the middle road. I stick with the Paid themes. It will cost you a little in the beginning, but this is a one-time fee. Over time this fee becomes negligible.

As I stated in the beginning, it really depends upon your current situation, but I hope this helped clear up the picture for you.