It’s time to once again time to take a look at the state of the premium themes market. I last did this in late October 2009, comparing some of the developing trends and looking at the future of the market. It has now been more than three years since the beginning of the premium themes craze started, and it is time once again to look to the future.
Overall, there have been more start-ups in the past year than recent times, although fewer of them have been as successful than, say WooThemes, iThemes, StudioPress, and a few others (which are still leaders today). However, since the market has expanded, some of the traffic has distributed amongst some of the smaller providers that are able to offer some of the same quality and features.
On the traffic front, there has been a decline across most sites of about 10% for the month of July, with up to a 50% drop in traffic since last year. Is this a sign of things to come? No one can say for sure, but it may simply be a sign that the market is more saturated – the people who wanted a premium theme have purchased them and are not returning as frequently to the sites to purchase them. Otherwise, it could also signify a larger slow-down in these themes as people look to save money – creating their own themes or using the existing frameworks rather than purchasing new themes.
Overall Trends
- I cannot say whether there was an overall slow-down in sales, but if traffic is any indication, there has been a shift in where people are purchasing their themes. Most are searching for theme clubs that offer more themes for cheaper rates, or else they are looking for themes that aren’t quite as pricey.
- This slow-down has been taking place since March of this year, although there were quite a few drops in the time period before this. I can only base this trend off information from Compete, although you will notice that the sharp drops aren’t exactly normal, especially for the more trafficked sites.
- With more than fifty theme providers, this drop may simply be a sign that people have more choice now. Simply comparing some of the top theme designers may not indicate the overall picture unless there is more meaningful information. For example, I don’t have any exact figures from these sites.
Traffic Information
You can see the trend in the image below. I have included all the relevant information for reference, the entire graph can be found at Compete.
More premium themes are being sold today than ever before. Since WordPress became popular, a rise in premium themes arose, as users wanted something that was both affordable, more unique than most of the free themes, and support for the themes. The top theme designers are raking in millions annually, and many have wanted to cash in on this growing market. Although the concept of “premium” themes is nothing new, the WordPress craze (since roughly 2007) helped increase the popularity of premium themes both for the platform as well as other growing platforms, like Blogger, Tumblr, and Posterous.
Now, this guide certainly isn’t for the well-established theme designers out there, as they have found what is successful, but it is for the new ones that may be looking to start their own theme club or site. These are just rough guidelines for pricing your themes, and you can certainly adapt them to suit the needs of your business. I am sure that additional tips could be included, so please feel free to share them in the comments area.
What Do You Plan on Offering?
This is the first question you need to ask yourself. Of course, you will be providing premium themes. However, you need to think beyond this. For example, some of the premium theme designers have branched out into “paid/premium” plugins, which offer more features and better support than many of the free plugins. This is only natural, since many of them have these features integrated into their own theme, but they can’t be ported onto other providers’ themes.
Basically, the more you offer, the more you will be able to charge. If you include one of your premium plugins or a theme framework, then you will be able to charge a little more than a provider that offers less features.
Along the lines of support, include support for all of your themes. Sure, customers expect a nice looking theme, but there is a good chance they are new to WordPress, they’ll abandon their site if they can’t solve the problem. If you price themes too low (generally less than ten dollars each), you’ll have a difficult time making a profit if you are spending all your time offering support.
How Feature-Packed Are Your Themes?
Although I briefly mentioned pricing appropriately for features above, this isn’t as big of a problem as when premium themes first became popular. Most themes now come standard with all the latest WordPress features, so be sure not to ever exclude these. For example, with WordPress 3.0, Custom Menus, Custom Backgrounds, post types, and more. Of course, implementing a better solution, building on the existing WordPress frameworks.
Here are some features commonly found in WordPress themes today:
- Parent-Child Theme Frameworks, which provide easier updating and better customization.
- Easier posting, otherwise giving your theme users the ability to post more quickly than using the default WordPress interface (as the result of the growth of microblogging sites like Tumblr and Twitter).
- Custom widgets are always nice to implement.
- Alternative color styles. Don’t make your customers pay twice for a simple CSS or image set change!
- SEO options and other implementations for improved rankings in search engines. You want your work to stand out too, right?
- Multiple page layouts. This feature is a must. With premium themes, people expect to have some of the work cut out for them. They shouldn’t have to search for an ideal plugin (unless they want to) for a contact form or archives page.
Assuming you are able to match what other theme providers offer and whether you are able to retain your customers (resulting in additional sales from recommendations), you should be set on getting your theme site up and running. Remember, there isn’t any clear path to becoming the “leader,” you just need to prove that you are able to consistently deliver a product that is both profitable and well-designed.
Disclaimer: I am providing this information purely for informational purposes. Please adapt the information to match the needs of your business. None of this should be taken as financial advice, so please consult a qualified adviser if you are setting up a business.
Theme clubs aren’t new. They’ve been around for a number of years for Joomla and other popular CMS platforms, offering users a way to get themes at discounted rates. This makes them attractive for people who want to take advantage of more of their themes, use them on multiple sites, or customize their website on a “monthly” basis. Theme clubs aren’t for everyone, and that’s why many companies offering these theme clubs still sell themes individually, although for rates slightly higher than when you purchase the themes in one package/through a themes club.
As more premium theme companies have launched over the past few years, a few problems arose out of competition. While there is a lot of competition amongst the popular theme designers, there is also a lot of steadfast loyalty among some providers. For example, if you purchase a theme from Designer X, you are satisfied with their offering, you are likely to either continue purchasing themes from them, or you will continue your membership. However, there are certainly some people who will jump from designer to designer to see which one offers the best price vs. features.
The Theme Clubs market could be considered more competitive, as each is trying to win the customer over to continue purchasing a membership – whether it be a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription. Generally, these theme clubs charge a rate about two to three times the cost of a standard theme (although this rate varies widely), then a monthly charge about two to three times lower than the standard price of a theme. This way, you’ll still be able to save money if you decide to change a theme.
Some of the problems I’ve seen stem around these main issues:
- Theme designers are over-promising and not delivering. For example, if you claim that you can pump our two new themes for your paying members, then deliver it. You shouldn’t have to apologize to them if you can’t meet what you promised. If it really gets down to it, prepare for the future with themes that are still well-designed, which leads into the next point.
- Some designers have simply released themes that aren’t as high of a quality as I would like to see them. Simply repackaging a theme and re-selling it with a new color scheme doesn’t work and you won’t be able to sustain this approach. Be innovative and don’t cut any corners. With these membership plans, make sure you aren’t rushed to release a theme to meet the “two new themes per month” deadline.
- Obviously, with these commitments, it is also important to keep in mind the other aspects of your business. If you want to be known for good support, there is also a high chance that you’ll need to reduce your workload for creating and designing new themes, otherwise you’ll end up with the desire to outsource your work (which often results in coding that doesn’t appeal to your tastes).
I would have hoped that some of these issues would have been resolved by now, but as I see more new theme clubs/designers opening their sites for business, the problem continues to exist. If you promise two new themes each month, deliver – don’t release a theme in April and a new one in August. That’s not what your paying customers want to see. It’s quite easy for someone to cancel a monthly plan and move on to someone (or a company) that offers what they are looking for.
While I regularly share new WordPress news and tips through Twitter, I decided to create a post with a larger collection of them. Please share your thoughts on them or feel free to share this post.
1. Redirecting Old URLs in WordPress
Learn the basics of using URL redirection with this tutorial using PHP to help avoid the common “page not found” error, redirecting older pages to the newer versions.
2. BuddyPress and bbPress
The core WordPress development team is focusing its efforts on a new initiative, dubbed “3.org.” They will polish the surrounding elements of WordPress through this effort, converting bbPress from a standalone platform into a WordPress plugin.
3. Building a Stylish Blog Design Layout in WordPress
Chris Spooner takes you through the steps of creating a fully functional blog design for WordPress. You can also find tutorials for doing this in Photoshop and using static HTML and CSS code.
4. 6 Reasons Big Companies Need WordPress
A look at six great reasons why big companies can use WordPress compared to custom solutions or other competing CMS platforms like Drupal. Check out the list for more details.
5. Why WordPress Doesn’t Have Built-in Persistent Caching
If you’ve ever wondered why the WordPress team doesn’t include some more advanced form of caching, your answer is in this post (WordPress is designed more as a blog system than a CMS that only sees a few updates).
6. Carrington Build
I like this drag-and-drop functionality and lots of other features, which mean you’ll no longer have to code these features in by hand. However, it is only available on premium themes (as expected), although I could see a similar functionality be added in the future to WordPress, giving it some of the same features as Squarespace.
7. Self-Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com Infographic
Having trouble deciding between the two platforms? Then this infographic will solve that problem, as it makes it easy to compare them for what they offer.
8. Use Custom Post Types UI to Manage Your WordPress Custom Post Types
A look at how to use this plugin to manage your Custom Post Types and taxonomies.
9. A WordPress UX Problem
It looks like (since this issue was given some more publicity) that it will be fixed in an upcoming version of WordPress. I encountered this problem both when trying to save a draft and when publishing, so I am glad that it’ll be fixed.
10. 16 Vital Checks Before Releasing a WordPress Theme
A good post for people who may be interested in releasing a free or premium theme, or even developing one simply for their own personal use.
ThemeForest is now one of the largest sites where you can find premium themes being sold by independent designers. With tough competition, the designers are driven to create better products for the community.
There are currently more than six hundred themes for WordPress users at ThemeForest, with many of them priced quite a bit lower than what you’ll get from the “main” premium theme designers (while the designers still provide support, updates, and have tons of features).
While we have been highlighting many great themes from ThemeForest recently, we want to showcase some of their best-selling themes over the course of the past week.
1. inFocus | Demo | $37.00
Powerful and featuring a lot of great aspects, this theme does it all! A number of color variations and customizable features won’t leave you asking for more.
2. Unite | Demo | $37.00
Unite features a layout that is ideal for business and magazine websites. Two slides show options and five pre-made skins are included.
3. Display | Demo | $42.00
Display features a design ideal for business and portfolio sites, with a fantastic 3D image slideshow feature on the home page (customizable), plus plenty of other options to help you create a website that is customized to your liking.
4. Innovation+Science | Demo | $37.00
This theme is clean and beautifully complex with very customizable features: fourteen custom option modules, twenty custom widgets and unlimited sidebars, ten customizable page templates, and so much more. Check out the theme!
5. Newscast | Demo | $37.00
Newscast is a magazine and blog-oriented theme, with three fantastic image and news slideshows, as well as multiple page templates to give you the customizability you need (and want).
6. Deluxe | Demo | $32.00
Deluxe combines three great templates into one professional package, and makes the process of customizing your theme easy with the custom back-end panel.
7. Bravissimo | Demo | $37.00
This theme includes a versatile set of features, as fifteen color schemes/styles have been included within a single theme package.
8. Studio Box | Demo | $37.00
This is a great theme for creating an online portfolio, as nine skins have been included, as well as a widget-ready footer, built-in contact form, and plenty of other options.
9. BigFeature | Demo | $27.00
BigFeature is a clean and flexible theme that focuses on displaying big article images and the theme itself is highly customizable, with three free color schemes included.
10. Flex | Demo | $32.00
Flex is a professional theme packed with lots of great features, giving you the option of creating a portfolio or blog. Twelve awesome color schemes have been included by default, although you can customize the theme to your liking. A number of jQuery features have been integrated into the theme.
Disclaimer: Please read our Disclosure Policy regarding content written in this post; we will be compensated for sales through this page.
Tumblr released some new premium themes today, which coincide with some of the other Tumblr themes we’ve shared with our visitors.
Each of the themes display impeccable aesthetic, attention to detail, and a specialization – galleries, long text, band sites, business sites, and so on.
Like the premium themes available for WordPress, you can expect to receive more from these themes than the “free” themes available.
Thirteen themes are available today ranging from $9 to $49, generally based around their functionality and set of features. You may even be able to recognize many of the designers: Matthew Buchanan, Jarred Bishop, Mike Harding, MetaLab/Pixel Union, Sleepover SF, Peter Vidani, and WooThemes.
All themes will be exclusively sold through the Tumblr Theme Garden. We’ve included screenshots of the themes for you to take a look at below. We’ll also be reviewing some of these themes in the future.
Clicking on the titles or the screenshots will bring you to the page where you can preview and purchase the themes.
Generate – $19
Scaffold – $9
Photofolio – $49
Note: This is a Tumblr theme from Pixel Union, where top-notch designers create beautiful premium themes specifically for Tumblr.
Solaris – $9
Wordographic – $9
Go Fetch – $19
Sonic – $19
Note: This is a Tumblr theme from Pixel Union, where top-notch designers create beautiful premium themes specifically for Tumblr.
Rockstar – $19
National Park – $19
Simplefolio – $49
Note: This is a Tumblr theme from Pixel Union, where top-notch designers create beautiful premium themes specifically for Tumblr.
Well Liked – $9
Rank and File – $49
Postcard – $19
Disclaimer: We are not associated with Tumblr, although we generate a commission on some of the themes sold by sites such as ThemeForest and WooThemes. No links in this post are affiliate links.
Today, ThemeGarden, a new themes club from Jason Schuller, was opened up to the public. While the premium themes market has been moving towards subscription-based services for some time, this one is completely subscription-based, making it ideal for anyone who wants access to more than one theme, as well as developers who may own and work on multiple domains.
Primary Features
- New Themes Every Month: At least one new theme will be provided to members every month. This will ensure you get the most out of each subscription. For example, if you have the three-month subscription, you’ll get access to three new themes in addition to the default set of themes.
- 100% Valid XHTML and CSS Coding: Every theme follows all standard coding practices, ensuring that your theme/site loads properly across all modern browsers.
- Built for Both Designers and Developers: The themes have all been built upon a solid theme development framework, which will be optimized and expanded to provide the latest features. Whether you’re a designer or a developer, you’ll be able to customize your website to your liking.
- Key Theme Options: Each theme contains a number of key features that many WordPress themes offer, including Gravatars, Threaded Comments, and automatic thumbnail resizing.
- Documentation and Support: Each theme will come complete with all the features and documentation required to help you get the most out of your theme purchase.
- Up-to-Date: All new theme updates will be provided, especially with new version of WordPress. Currently, all themes are compatible with WordPress 2.9 (the current version of the system).
Current Themes
One theme is currently available for use by members. A new theme will be released each month, but it is unclear whether the themes at Press75 will be “ported” over to ThemeGarden.
We’ll be taking a closer look at the first theme, and you’ll be able to find here when it has been published.
Leave your comments about ThemeGarden below.
By some estimates, WordPress 3.0 will be released about three weeks from now, while others place it in the May time period, or as much as two full months from now. Either way you look at it, we are quickly approaching the release of a major new version of one of the world’s most popular blog publishing systems.
While others have gone on and addressed many of the main features, in this post, I’ll stick to just three of them, and you can share your thoughts about these in the comments area below. There are certainly a lot of other changes coming, but for the most part, the new theme and the ability to change the password when you “manually” install WordPress don’t affect how I use the system on a daily basis, as well as for many others.
Much like the development of operating systems, which we use every day or other pieces of software, WordPress has evolved fairly rapidly over the past several years, quickly helping millions upon millions of people discover blogging and making the experience much better. In the world of blogging platforms, there are few solutions that can come near WordPress in terms of how it can be used. For example, I can run the most stripped-down site, while still using one installation of WordPress – you don’t need to install a “lite” version, and similarly, I don’t need to go out and download an “enhanced” version for a more complex site.
When one thinks about power, that flexibility may be it. WordPress has a much larger base of “personal” bloggers than say, Joomla, even though Joomla is touted as being able to run personal/family webpages. As WordPress becomes a much more powerful “CMS” platform, we’ll have to see whether the casual bloggers adopt the changes or simply continue using the core of WordPress, the area centered around the Posts panel.
The “Merger” of WordPress and WordPress MU
Implementing the ability to add subdomains and subdirectories to a single WordPress install (using the same WordPress version we are all familiar with) may result in one of the biggest changes to WordPress in quite some time. Typically, if you want to add an additional area to your site outside of the main installation, you need to create a new installation directory and install/setup a new WordPress install there. However, with the new change, that can all be done nearly “automatically.”
We may one day be able to install WordPress, then from the back-end specify to install a community or forum on a subdomain, eliminating the need for sometimes time consuming installs. The key will be how feature-packed these areas are, and whether there are enough users looking for these abilities.
WordPress 3.0 will come ever closer to becoming much more than just a simple blog platform. To add an additional blog to your site, you’ll simply need to go into the Tools>Network panel, which gives you the ability to either create an additional blog under “blog1.example.com” or “example.com/blog1″.
Three of the Main Benefits to the “Average” User:
- There will be less issues surrounding the ability to use more MySQL databases. Although many hosts are now offering 100+ databases per account, there was a time when this wasn’t the case. While not in the majority, there were some users who built sites with separate installs of WordPress for specific categories, i.e. example.com/category1 and example.com/category2.
- Some of the hassles surrounding the process of creating additional blogs will be solved, and we may see more people venturing into creating larger sites. One great use of this may be with the personal blogs. Rather than combining content from multiple people onto a single blog, we may see users create a “portal,” with a separately maintained blog for each person, while the main page is more of a landing page, directing one to those internal blogs.
- Finally, this will lay the groundwork for more features in the future. Despite the fact that all these new features are being added, a compressed version of WordPress is still at or under 3MB, or approximately 11MB uncompressed. Creating a powerful site with a basic install may not exactly be easy, but everything is definitely there for a basic blog. With the upcoming version of WordPress, we may very likely see additional improvements to how content is managed, so now is the time to get these major code changes done.
For more information regarding how to enable the Multi-Site option in WordPress 3.0 using a Nightly Build/SVN, please see this post.
Easy Menu Management
Currently, when you want to re-arrange the layout of your menu, you need to add plugins or carefully change the dates and child pages to give the preferred layout. It’s not something we change every day, but it would be nice if the whole process was made easier.
The new navigation menus will support both pages and categories, as well as the “child” categories and pages. This is heavily adapted from the premium theme designers’ navigation menus, but it is a much-wanted feature of the main version of WordPress.
My take on it is similar to how Gravatars/Threaded Comments were integrated into themes (since Version 2.5). Theme designers will need to integrate the code changes (or leave it up to the users to integrate it into existing themes) for the new menu system to work. It’s much like how widgets currently work – one can’t simply add new widgets to wherever they want without editing the theme’s code.
Better Support for Custom Post Types
More than anything else, the ability to create custom post types coincides with the merger of WordPress and WPMU. It simply gives more people access to the ability to create more powerful, feature-rich sites. I’m not quite sure how we’ll see this particular feature evolve, but it certainly looks promising in the content management sense.
Essentially, a user will be able to add a portfolio (for example) category to a blog, and an entire area within the sidebar will be devoted to this. To add a new item to the portfolio, simply click the “Add New” and the regular post writing area will display.
I haven’t taken a look too in-depth on this, but I am wondering how custom post/category templates can be integrated into this, and whether the tags, for these new post types will be separate of all other (the main) tags. A lot may be done with this feature, especially if theme/plugin developers can implement these for their users/customers.
Conclusion
As stated on the WordPress website, there isn’t an extremely long list of features, but what is listed are some fairly significant changes. It’s all a step forward for WordPress.
What do you think about these new features, or any of the others included within the next version of WordPress? Do you personally think this is the right direction/step for WordPress?
Envato, the company behind the wildly successful Tuts+ Network and the Envato Marketplace, has created the ideal environment for freelancers and designers looking for new clients to promote their work in a supportive environment. Continual improvements and additional features to one of the main sites, ThemeForest, have helped it stand out from other premium theme designers, despite the fact that everyone on the site is “independent” of the main company.
The Freedoms of ThemeForest (and other sites in the Marketplace)
ThemeForest takes out a lot of the work in building your own web presence. For example, while ThemeForest won’t promote each individual member or theme that gets submitted to or joins the site, they will feature the products that really stand out. The framework is intact to help you spend more time addressing support and updating or releasing new themes. You won’t have to worry about ensuring that your own site is still up and running.
While some would say that these aren’t necessarily freedoms, I would have to say otherwise. I don’t sell my work through the site, but have reviewed many themes featured on the site, and have seen how successful it has become since launch.
- You have the ability to price your products at nearly any price. Many of the themes currently sell in the $25 to $35 price range (assuming the customer has pre-paid). The top-selling WordPress themes are currently priced at $35, $25, $40, $25, and $25, respectively.
- The community decides what themes are the best. Based on sales, you can determine which themes have the most features and are the most value-packed for the price.
- Categorization makes it possible to target specific niches. For example, you can place your theme in the corporate/business category or the blog/magazine and you’ll be able to target specific needs of your customers.
- You’ll notice new clients trickle in, as you become more popular on the site. The designers on the site have a profile page, which can be customized to attract new customers.
The Downsides of ThemeForest
Despite the many positives of adding your work to the ThemeForest Marketplace, there are some negatives, which you should consider before you join. Again, some may look at these as facts of life, simply because you are in fact submitting your work to a site and enjoying the benefits of it.
- In order to become a member, you’ll need to take a quiz to understand how the marketplace works. This is basically used to help you understand the terms of the site (i.e. Agree/Disagree to “…buy a file from another site and sell it on an Envato Marketplace, provided I chance something about it.”
- Envato takes a cut of your earnings. If you run your own site, you’ll also be taking a cut of your earnings and setting it apart for time spent modifying your site’s theme, purchasing hosting, as well as other services integrated into ThemeForest. Depending on how many sales you create through ThemeForest, you’ll be able to keep anywhere from 40-70% of all sales. Some have commented on how you need to sell $300,000+ in order to reach the highest bracket, but as long as you have a “killer” theme, it may only take a few months to reach these higher levels. If you choose to sell through ThemeForest non-exclusively, you’ll be able to keep 25% of the earnings.
- You must use the license applied across the entire site. All themes sold must have the PHP distributed under the GPL License, but the design and images are not GPL-licensed.
How Much Can You Make
I guess the whole point behind this article is to expose how successful the premium themes market has become. The results certainly do vary, especially if you have just created a site to “profit” from the trend and make a quick buck. Many of the most popular designers on ThemeForest have quite a number of products and may also run their own web design business.
Although a cut is taken out of each theme sold, you can quickly see how sales add up into big earnings. The following themes have been showcased on this page, as an example of what you can earn!
— Display 3-in-1 Business Theme: The theme sells for $42, and has sold more than 1,500 copies. This results in earnings of an average of $28,000 per month.
— London Creative + Portfolio/Blog Theme: Introduced just four months ago, the theme has sold 700+ copies at $32 apiece. The designer makes $7,000 per month (average) from this theme alone.
— Twicet Business and Portfolio 5-in-1 Theme: Selling at $37, this theme has been sold more than 1,800 times, and brings in more than $7,000 monthly.
— ShapeShifter – One Page, Infinite Possibilities: This theme sells for $32, resulting in nearly 500 sales since first release about three months ago. Again, this results in more than $7,000 in income monthly.
— BigFeature: This theme sells for $27, with more than 1,500 sales to date. This results in monthly revenue of $5,500.
— Design Agency: This theme sells for $27, with more than 450 sales since first release four months ago. It draws in more than $4,000 in monthly revenue.
— Cubit 6-in-1 Business and Portfolio Theme: Selling for just $27, this theme has sold more than 1,050 copies, bringing in more than $3,200 monthly.
— Bluelight: Customers fell in love with this theme, as they purchased more than 875 copies at $27 apiece. The designer makes an average of $2,800 from this theme.
— Convergence Community Theme: At $27, this theme has sold more than 900 copies in about a year’s time. Since then, it has averaged more than $2,600 in revenue monthly.
— Photo Nexus WordPress Gallery 2-in-1: Again, nearly 900 copies of this theme have sold, each at $27. The theme brings in $2,200 monthly.
Conclusion
Each year, those who have a negative stance towards the premium themes market say that this is the year they will die. This hasn’t happened yet, and there are no signs that it will. Despite the GPL fiasco that took place, the support/package market for themes replaced the earlier licenses that were sold based on the number of sites you could use the themes on.
Times have changed, and the market is still extremely profitable, as shown above. If you are looking to test how well your themes will do, I encourage you to check out ThemeForest and see if the whole marketplace concept can work for you. Envato has setup one of the largest marketplaces (332,973 members and 40,267 items) for digital products, ranging from themes to audio clips to code.
