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The WordPress theme industry is growing at a rapid rate, there is no denying the fact that a it’s a profitable business market to venture into. Professional theme marketplaces are getting crowded with designers, and new themes get released every day.

But, taking into account the amount of free WordPress themes that are available to the open source community, what is the point of purchasing or even considering a premium WordPress theme for your blog? I guess the number one thing is the quality, with support of the developer falling right behind, in the second place.

It’s easy to fall for the trap that’s called: “I paid money, so I get what I want!”. During my research, I was unable to find anyone discussing the myths of WordPress premium themes, and what are the common pitfalls that a lot of consumers fall for.

1. WordPress.com = WordPress Experience

Unfortunately, having used a pre-hosted blogging service like WordPress.com, does not entitle you to even a tiny percentage of the experience that is only possible to achieve once you begin using a self-hosted WordPress installation.

You can purchase premium themes on your WordPress.com blog, but you’re not able to fully customize them, or have access to the full potential of custom features. With a self-hosted blog, you get full access; in exchange for having knowledge on how to work with code.

2. What You See is What You Get

It’s a term that’s taken from a different context, but it fully applies to the myth of getting more features, or attention by investing more money into the business that you purchased the theme from.

I’ve worked with several developers / designers in the past, purchased their premium themes, and I was never granted the ability to pay more money to get special features just for myself; that’s a completely different niche market, goes by the name of freelancing.

3. Premium Themes are Expensive

This is the one I cringe to every time I hear it. If you really think that $40-50 per one premium theme is an enormous amount of money, you should try and purchase a custom built theme from either a business, or a freelancer.

I will give you a hint, it will cost you roughly $1500-2500 to have it done, and even then – you’re not guaranteed to get all of the features you want. With this in mind, stick with the ‘cheap’ premium themes, and order custom features trough freelancing websites.

4. Single Theme License vs. Annual Subscription

In the recent years, a lot of theme businesses are taking the approach of providing annual subscriptions for all of their themes. What this means is that you’re paying an extra %10-25 on top of what you’d pay for a single theme.

But, you’re instantly granted access to all of the themes that the given business is supplying, which in the long run might actually be of benefit to you.

The way I look at this is quite simple, you never think of trying something new before you actually can have access to it, and if you know that you’re paying for an annual subscription, you also know that you’ve got plenty more themes to try in case the one you bought doesn’t work out.

TeslaThemes does this, and by investing only $10 more, you’re granted access to the full collection of premium WordPress themes, it’s not a deal: it’s a steal!

5. SEO is Not a Concern

It definitely should be. While developers are catching up with the technology, it’s not very common to see WordPress themes that have fully integrated professional SEO features, which could replace things like popular WordPress plugins for SEO purposes.

We’re not there yet, and so when ordering a premium WordPress theme, always consider the fact that SEO is still a concern, and should be looked at separately.

6. Premium Themes are Security Proof

The disadvantage of using free themes from 3rd party sources is the fact that they’re either:

• full of security flaws (both purposefully and not so)
• usually contains fish links to scam sites
• use encoding like base64 to hide things

whereas a premium theme is going to guarantee you, that none of the above are true, and you’re paying for a safe installation of a new theme.

With the exception of occasional security bug here and there, which does not happen very often, but happens often enough to be considered for this list.

7. All Themes are Equal

Each business, each developer and each designer sees the World trough his own eyes. It’s simply not true that every single premium WordPress theme is equal or the same as the next one.

Yes, the feature panels might seem quite similar, because that’s just how things are, but when we begin to look at theme within, we realize that not only the code is different, but most of the time – the approach on how certain things were achieved is different.

This is important, because every developer should deserve good feedback and appreciation for what he does best.

8. Regular Theme Updates

This is also sort of an trend you see in the community, whenever a new theme is published; someone is there to write the big comment – full of his desires, suggestions and ways of trying to correct the developer.

When in first place, the developer had a plan of his on how to make the theme look, and work. This is common, and should be ignored. If a theme of your choice does not do what it wants you to do, and it has been out for a little while already; the chances of getting an update are very low. Just look for alternatives, surely there is something else that will better suit your needs.

The bottom line

These do not just apply to the average customer, but also the developer. The developers are the ones who get it the hardest, because there is such huge demand for ‘fixes’ that sometimes, simply cannot be done or achieved.

Creativity has its limits, and so does the amount of time that each developer has on his hands, but we should always try to treat the customer well, just like customers should treat the theme authors with respect.

About the author: “Alex has been working with the web for nearly ten years, his experience ranges from single tasks like managing a website, to full blown web development, mostly within his own projects. Find more of his writeups on CodeCondo.”