A question that rises over the time again and again. I want to answer it from my own point of view. Let’s call it “Free and Premium WP Themes Comparison“. Answer matters here. It’s needed for each WordPress user to know; how this kinda stuff works!

What we usually think when choosing a WP theme is: why to spend 20-30$ on the contrary point you could get one for free (absolutely free), you could use that 20-30$ in other essential things. I thought the same … someday. When I started with my first blog, and transferred it to WordPress.

It always had been my step to choose the perfect theme that actually suits.

Though, there are very less free themes that look awesome and where developers care it’s theme users. Whoever, starts with WordPress or any other blogging platform usually get stuck at theme decision. I did too.

It was because, I did care about free themes … I supposed, premium themes a waste of money!

But now, I understand how premium themes are better than free themes.

Any user could be messed up with this stuff. There are excuses, myths, pros and cons of both free and premium WordPress themes. This is important, coz, what makes a blog stand out? It is the way it markets itself and how it looks.

Assume, you just searched on Google for anything your need e.g. WP themes and ended up on a messy website with beautiful WP themes. Would you stay up there for those themes or would prefer leaving, coz, the site didn’t meet your desires or choices?

When it’s about online, you get just a second or less than that to grab someone’s attention, else there are so much other sites that could do the same passing over you! You need a compelling WP theme to compel readers.

What captivates online animals?

It is design … then, content.

Content used to be a king … someday … but no anymore.

It is design that matters the most to a blog mostly to captivate audience.

Okay, let’s get to the meat here: to the pros and cons of the Free and Premium WordPress Themes.

Free vs Premium WordPress Themes

Free themes

WordPress themes that are distributed freely and WP users are not to charged for that are called: Free WP Themes. Several sources are there to get free WordPress themes, however, they sometime cannot fulfill the desires, properly!

Pros

they’re free.

no need to pay but to grab.

Cons

developers of free themes,  most of the times, don’t consistently update their themes with new features! It gets outdated that way.

it’s usual: free themes are not SEO optimized but chances are that they exist.

you don’t have fully control over your theme.

in case, you need any support help for any technical problem you’re facing with the theme, you don’t even get the support!

free themes, most the times, have useless/paid links in their footer and they’re called “credits”. Though, they might be credits or just a way to hurt your site’s SEO.

there  are premium themes that are distributed for free. Beware about them!! Why anyone would give you a premium theme for free? There’s a reason: those themes could contain malicious, vulnerable codes! and once, you install and activate any such theme. You might start facing hacking problems etc. Don’t use any premium theme for free. p

Premium Themes

They’re paid. There are many big companies that offer premium themes to WordPress users such as StudioPress, Thesis, themeforest, etc.

Pros

• full control over customization
• no footer links, if, are, no hurt to SEO
• premium themes are valuable (there’s a value for them), so do their developers work on the addition of more features  to them!
• constant updates
• technical support
• they look beautiful

Cons

Who wins?

Free themes are not bad always. They’re good only when developers work consistently on them for more features, flexibility and enhancement. As I see, newbies usually are afraid of spending money online even when it’s too little. I too was.

It is not that free themes are always bad … there are actually some free themes that even beat premium themes with ease.

But that’s not the always case. It’s now hard to find good free themes with constant updates, no encrypted themes.