The demand for premium WordPress themes increasing rapidly. New theme developers coming to the market promising blazing fast speed and a lot of features. But free themes are still popular because of their trust level and cost.
New bloggers always have doubts about whether they should use free or premium WordPress themes.
Paid themes offer a wide variety of features with annual or one-time payment options.
While free themes are free always and can be changed without risking money.
There may be many confusions in your mind about whether you should use a free or paid WordPress theme.
Let’s find out what are the advantages or disadvantages of free and paid WordPress themes.
Advantages of Free WordPress Themes:
Free:
You should understand what free means.
Free WordPress theme means theme available in the official WordPress theme directory.
Themes available anywhere are not the recommended free WordPress themes.
Some reputed theme builder also offers free themes which are safe like free genesis themes but not in WordPress directory.
The biggest advantage of a free WordPress theme is its cost that is it's free.
Starting a new website involves many expenses starting from the domain name, hosting, and many other things.
Now here if you could save theme expenses that can help a lot.
Easy to Use:
Theme available in WordPress directory is very easy to use and made for beginners in mind.
These themes are fast as they don’t have many fancy widgets and premium features.
They are also compatible with almost every plugin available on WordPress.
Assurance of WordPress:
WordPress themes available in the WordPress directory are tested and have a strict process for approval.
Themes that do not pass that strict approval process do not get approval.
WordPress is very popular today and sometimes does not allow premium themes if they do not comply with their standards.
According to SEJ, WordPress once suspended the Astra theme for five weeks for violating its terms.
So, any theme available in WordPress respiratory is authenticated and hassle-free to use.
Disadvantages of Free WordPress Themes:
Limited Features:
Free WordPress themes are not designed for specific purposes. You can expect standard WordPress but lack some advanced features like shortcodes etc.
Lack of Support:
Free themes are made for WordPress and not for specific customers. So, they are not obliged to provide any support. If you feel difficulties in the functioning of the free theme either you have to change the theme or spend time in forums.
Security:
Even though WordPress themes have to go through a strict approval process their updates solely depend on the discretion of the author. WordPress got updated very frequently and if WordPress themes do not get updated that may lead to security vulnerability.
Advantages of Premium WordPress Themes:
Support:
Support is one of the most powerful features of a premium WordPress website.
You may require support many times initially for installation or for some specific modules. Support is usually given for 6 months to one year and can be extended by paying more.
Advanced Features:
Premium themes are used because they offer more advanced features which free themes do not offer.
The competition between theme shops and marketplaces plays a vital role in providing advanced features to users. If we compare this with free WordPress themes, they do not have any competition so they lack advanced functionality.
SEO:
SEO is the most important thing for any website owner seeking traffic from Google.
Premium themes come with inbuilt SEO options like schema. But free themes hardly offer these options.
Premium themes also offer fast speed which can be added advantages to SEO.
Disadvantages of Premium WordPress Themes:
Difficult to Customize:
A lot of theme developers add so many features to beat the competition. Sometimes it is very difficult to customize those themes to make the website looks attractive.
Theme developers provide support but you have to renew support on a regular basis which makes them more costly.
No Strict Review Process:
To show the theme in the WordPress directory theme developers have to follow strict guidelines. But paid themes are not available on WordPress.
So, they don’t have to go through that process but yes there are some guidelines that need to be followed.
In this case, they may follow poor coding standards to make themes fancy. It can make them incompatible with some plugins.
Conclusion:
Premium themes may have some disadvantages but as there is a business involved so they keep making them better for the future.
Initially, if you can’t spend money buying premium themes you can start with free themes.
But use only those themes which are available on WordPress. Never use any theme downloaded from untrusted sources. As those themes may contain some encrypted links.
Even themes available on WordPress contain footer credits which are difficult to remove.
So it’s up to you if you feel that now you can go with a premium theme it's better to buy one.
