If you’re thinking about themes, you are either about to embark on building a site (exciting), or you’ve realized that you screwed up and need to change your site’s theme (been there).

Either way, you’re thinking about the future of your website: how it looks, how users interact with it, and what it needs to function. This alone puts you ahead of at least half your competition.

WordPress themes are what define all of these things. Some look similar, but every site should look unique.

To keep you from hastily building or changing your site, I’ve compiled a list of the best marketplaces for WordPress themes according to industry needs.

What are WordPress themes?

In WordPress, a theme is a collection of pages and stylesheets used to create the display of a website. These include all the pages that a user will see, and—depending on the template—will include pages for blog posts, testimonials, menus, event announcements, contact forms, etc.

Different industries have specific needs in terms of functionality. Depending on your industry, you will find some pages critical to have, and others an irrelevant waste of space. Theme developers have taken this into account, and have shaped industry specific themes to help your site succeed, no matter what your site’s purpose is.

Themes are great. And, like most things, they aren’t perfect.

There are many advantages to using themes, especially as a beginner. Themes allow you to:

• Save time: All your pages are pre-built, so the only thing you need to do is choose one and start customizing. Building entire pages from scratch can take eons, and an unbelievable amount of patience.
• Save money: Some themes are free, and most premium ones aren’t too expensive, either.
• Ensure device compatibility: One of the most irritating things about custom WordPress pages is that they are not responsive. They don’t automatically optimize to accommodate any device.
• Ensure a clean design and standardized format: Custom built WordPress sites aren’t inherently ugly. They’re just…usually ugly.
• Project credibility: Nothing says “I’m a fake business” like a messy, broken website.
• Industry specific: Whatever industry you’re in, you’ll find the theme for you. (Even if you sell something super weird, WordPress themes have your back.)

Admittedly, WordPress themes are not for everyone. They do have some major limitations, in areas like:

• Freedom to customize: Themes are pretty dead set on page format, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for customization. It’s not impossible to change formatting, but WordPress is nothing if not resistant to it.
• Plugin compatibility: You may want to integrate plugins to enhance your site’s functionality. WordPress themes don’t offer the kinds of advantages that email subscription, analytics, ecommerce and notification services do.
• Personalization and branding: Several themes look very similar. Many have similar functionalities, so this is to be expected. It takes work to differentiate yourself from the competition.
• Security: Some templates, especially those from third-party developers, could be embedded with malware.
• Coding bugs: If a theme is coded poorly, then trying to add to or change your theme will be time consuming. It may also make you grind your teeth, so look out for that.

Many of these issues can be resolved by getting themes from reputable WordPress theme marketplaces.

Related: How to Change a WordPress theme (Without Breaking Your Website) because it’s not too late for any site.

17 Best Marketplaces for WordPress Themes that Turn Websites into Online Homes

For simplicity and speed:

1. StudioPress: For quick and cost-effective themes and web hosting
2. ThemeIsle: For fast and simple site setup and management
3. Organic Themes: For those who aren’t interested in websites, but need one

For a huge variety of choices:

1. ThemeForest: For the largest, most well known repository of themes
2. TemplateMonster: An all-in-one online solution for all your design and functionality needs
3. Elegant Themes: For themes that have overcome the limitations of themes
4. Codester: For low cost, original, highly compatible themes and plugins
5. WordPress.org: The O.G. WordPress marketplace

For aesthetically pleasing site themes:

1. Press75: For industries that strongly depend on visual and audio content
2. Creative Market: Find creative themes for several fields in this open source marketplace
3. Graph Paper Press: For photographers, artists, creative service and digital product providers
4. VisualModo: For brand and legacy building as an individual, business or organization

For niche themes:

1. PremiumPress: For small business owners
2. InkThemes: For very niche topics, from scuba diving to hot water storage tanks

For cost-effective options:

1. CompeteThemes: For clean, basic, free themes
2. ReadyTheme: For a wider variety of free and extremely low cost themes
3. aThemes: Get lifetime access to free themes and easily upgrade when you want

StudioPress: Best marketplace for WordPress themes, site hosting and SEO capabilities

Most web builders feel one of two ways about StudioPress: they love the simplicity, or they hate the limitations. It’s hard to have one without the other, at least with a bare bones, out-of-the-box website.

StudioPress is the creator of the Genesis Framework, which is essentially a WordPress theme with a basic design and appearance. It is enhanced by installing one of the themes that have been designed for it. The Genesis Framework is the solid foundation on which other themes are built. You need the Genesis Framework to use any StudioPress theme or plugin.

It’s best understood like this: Imagine your website is like a house. A house always has the same foundation, same framework. But it’s how you build upon it, how you decorate the outside of the house and what you put inside it, that makes a house your own.

In the end, though, a house is still a house. You can’t really make it any more or less than it is without it being so over complicated that you should just move.

It’s the same with themes. It isn’t worth trying to find the perfect theme in a marketplace where the themes are all too simple for a large and complicated project. You should just move into another marketplace.

The Genesis Framework is great for beginners and simple projects though. The simple configuration of StudioPress themes means that less time needs to be taken to make choices and tedious customizations. Because there is no bloat from unnecessary features (meaning, there is literally less code), your site will load extremely fast. StudioPress also puts an emphasis on security, so your site will be safe.

If you need something inside of your home, like a dishwasher, you just get one and install it. Similarly, StudioPress offers many plugins that you can install to meet the needs of your site.

Related: Is your WordPress site missing something? Something like email newsletters or slick image galleries. Those come with plugins, which are tools that go within your WordPress site. Come to the WordPress equivalent of Ikea and get whatever your site needs.

If you still need hosting, then StudioPress may also be the marketplace for you. They have partnered with WP Engine, a powerful WordPress hosting provider, to offer both the Genesis Framework and 35 themes for free if you sign up for one of WP Engine’s hosting plans.

Related: “What the hell is web hosting,” you say?  Glad you asked, welcome to my Ted Talk about web hosting for WordPress sites.

If you already have hosting, then you can purchase the Genesis Framework and any theme for a one time fee. If you find you really love StudioPress, then consider upgrading to Genesis Pro, which is $360/year. You get access to all the StudioPress themes and one year of free hosting by WP Engine (but again, if you already have hosting settled, then you don’t have to change).

StudioPress is the best marketplace for WordPress themes for beginners and lighter projects. The user experience is streamlined and all themes are clean and professional, so that beginners won’t actually look like beginners.

ThemeIsle: For WordPress themes that are simple to set up and manage

ThemeIsle was born out of the desire for freelancers and passion projects to find their way online quickly and easily, but without looking like trash. Beginners wanted easy “starter setups” that streamlined the process of site building. This way they could focus more on their work than the tedious WordPress site building process.

This is why ThemeIsle focuses largely on their “starter sites,” which are built from the foundational framework themes that ThemeIsle offers. The Neve theme is super fast, user friendly and packed with several starter site templates that can be customized. The Hestia Pro theme can be used to create one-page sites for any business venture. The Zelle Pro theme has a one-page layout that works with several page builders, which allow you to customize your theme. Shopisle Pro is an excellent theme to showcase your visual works, videos and products.

Start by purchasing one of these foundational themes, either annually or for a one-time payment and lifetime access, and then start designing. Choose a starter site and tweak it, or make sweeping changes with ThemeIsle’s several web builder capabilities.

There are general and highly niche starter sites to choose from. There are even some free ones. (We love free things here.)

All starter sites built using a certain foundational theme are free when you purchase the foundational theme it was made from. So, if you feel you need a change, and quickly, you can simply choose another starter site and start over.

ThemeIsle is the best marketplace for WordPress themes that make for easy setup and launch. This is also a good solution for those who just want to test the waters of themes, plugins and web building in general, and don’t want to commit to one single theme yet.

Organic Themes: For someone else to do theme setup and site upkeep for you

Organic Themes tries to make website setup and management (you’ll never guess) organic. The company understands that the purpose of having a website is not to run the website, but to do something—like promoting, booking or selling—through it.

With that in the forefront of their minds, the developing team at Organic Themes has designed industry specific themes that have all the capabilities needed for your venture. They have also created versatile themes, but guide you in the right direction in terms of how to best use them.

All themes are customizable, SEO friendly, responsive, retina optimized, widget ready, WooCommerce compatible and have social media capabilities.

Organic Themes has further simplified the site setup process by partnering with Pressable to offer you a low rate on web hosting plans that are scalable, reliable and designed specifically for WordPress users.

You can simplify further by purchasing the theme setup install service for $199. Organic Theme’s team will—within 48 hours—build you a complete website. They install your theme, add custom menus and demo content, and install essential plugins like Google Analytics, Yoast SEO and Akismet Spam Protection.

If you want your website up stupid fast, and want to put in zero workl—it doesn’t get any better than this.

And if you thought Organic Themes couldn’t do anything more to get your site optimized, they recently added the “One Change” service. For $99, you can have a developer make changes to your core theme that give your site the slightly different layout or added functionality it needs. If there’s something that really bothers you about an otherwise solid website, send in a request, see what happens.

Organic Themes is the go-to WordPress theme setup and site maintenance provider. It’s for those who want to exert little to no effort in any part of the web building process, and who have the money to be this impressive level of lazy.

ThemeForest: Largest third-party marketplace for WordPress themes

ThemeForest dominates the third-party theme provider sphere, with over 12,000 WordPress themes available to choose from. With that many options, you are bound to find what you are looking for. Each theme has been submitted by an independent designer and approved by the ThemeForest team. You can be sleep at night knowing that you’ll have an interesting theme that works well.

Themes are sold individually, and cost anywhere from $13-$70. You can also add on 12 months of technical support for $18.

However, Envato Elements, the parent company of ThemeForest, offers a subscription plan for individuals priced at $16.50/month. The plan includes access to all WordPress material, including themes and plugins, stock photos, graphic templates and other creative assets.

If you only need one theme, a subscription would be overkill. But, if your project or business requires more than this, functionally and aesthetically, this might be the best pricing plan for you.

For broke students and teachers: Get 30% off your subscriptions now.

If you haven’t found a host for your site yet (which you definitely need to get online), then ThemeForest has the deal for you. They have partnered with SiteGround, a popular site hosting service, to offer their users 60% off SiteGround managed web hosting (as of the time I am writing this. Hopefully this is still true for you all in the future times.)

ThemeForest is the marketplace for WordPress themes if you want a huge selection of themes, compatible WordPress plugins and other creative assets at a good price. It is definitely one of the best WordPress service providers for you if you don’t have a hosting service yet (take advantage of that sweet deal).

TemplateMonster: For high-quality WordPress themes and web development options

TemplateMonster is also on the rise. While it’s behind ThemeForest in quantity, they may have beat them in quality. Themes on TemplateMonster undergo a more rigorous verification process than those on ThemeForest.

You can apply industry, color, feature, functionality, WordPress compatibility, and WooCommerce compatibility filters (and these are only the basics) when searching for themes. While a lot of options are great, design and functionality filters narrow your choices down to those that you know will work with your site.

Included with every theme are various plugins that are specific to the industry your site is categorized under, such as blogging capabilities and product galleries. Most themes also have several widgets and other compatible plugins to further expand the capabilities of your site.

Themes are sold individually, at around $70 a pop. There are several add-ons available at checkout to get your site off the ground quickly and easily. These include other must-have plugin bundles, installation and setup, and an all-in-one website development service through which you are delivered a completely custom branded, SEO optimized site in 5-8 business days.

I would pay a lot for this convenience. I don’t know if I would pay $599 for it. This is a great option for business owners who have no desire to build a website, but can’t deny that they need one, and fast.

You do have a second option in terms of pricing, and it’s a pretty good one. TemplateMonster’s All-in-One Ultimate Web Development Kit comes with access to most of the site’s available themes, plugins, presentation templates, stock photos, graphic design capabilities, and visual and audio assets.

You could also just buy lifetime access for a one-time fee of $599.

Note: There are some products that are not included with this plan. Check to be sure everything in your cart is included in the membership, unless you really love it.

Having access to many themes is good for those who have to build many websites, and for those who want to use multiple WordPress templates in their site for any reason. I will warn you, though: slamming together WordPress themes might end up looking less cool than you think it will.

TemplateMonster is the absolute best marketplace for WordPress themes that are high-quality. This theme provider is also the best option for those who are going to have big projects requiring several creative resources. The All-in-One Web Development Kit is a very cost-effective solution for all your web design needs.

Elegant Themes: For WordPress themes that have overcome the limitations of WordPress themes

If you find your problem with themes is that they are all, in some way, limiting, then Elegant Themes has just the (single) theme for you.

Divi Builder is the one and only theme offered by Elegant Themes. But within that theme is a powerful visual builder that allows you to fully customize your site’s look and functionality. Combine any of the 800+ pre-packed designs with 40+ modules and the ability to customize any and all parts of those, and you have exactly the website you need. If you have a need that none of these options can fill, then Extra, an additional aspect of the Divi Builder, allows you to create anything you need.

You may be asking what the difference is between this theme and building a site from scratch. The answer: visuals.

Instead of having to build your site from the back-end, save it, and then view the live page, you build your site exactly as it would look to any live user. Design changes happen in real time, so that—even without a theme to visually guide you—you’ll see exactly what your users will see.

You can change literally every aspect of your site’s design: add fonts, change shapes, create branded color schemes, copy and paste your style onto every element. You can make sweeping stylistic changes over an entire page with the bulk editor. Divi makes it easy to get exactly what you want—in less time than you’d think.

Elegant Themes has made their pricing simple. Pay $89/year for yearly access to Divi Builder, Extra, their email optin service and their social media plugin, or pay a one-time fee of $249 for access to all of this and all the updates you need for life.

Elegant Themes is the best place to find the WordPress themes that need to do more than any single theme. It is also the best WordPress theme to cut down on different add-ons, branding challenges and extra plugins and widgets.

It is the absolute worst option for someone who will spend hours trying to get color gradients just right.

Codester: For themes and plugins that are unique, low-cost and highly compatible other site tools

You know how people really like “discovering” underground artists and TV shows and restaurants?

We like it because we enjoy the new. We’ve seen so much of the old, and anything new is refreshing. Anyone putting out new, undiscovered things is refreshing, and their creations are refreshing.

Codester is a great place for developers to sell their own creations. Codester products are refreshing. They have themes for a variety of industries and niches, and are one of the largest third-party plugin providers.

Themes and plugins on Codester have been developed so that—while they are unique—they integrate well with other WordPress tools. Themes are described in detail and you are given free support throughout the installation and management process. Themes usually come with plugins that work well with your theme and site needs. Themes are industry specific, and there are things every industry needs.

All products have been thoroughly vetted by Codester professionals, who are developers themselves.

Codester prices are low because the site’s content comes from independent developers who submit works, not a dedicated team of builders. You have the support of the independent developers who have built your theme.

Pay one flat rate for a license or extended license, download the theme and then immediately install it to start building (or changing) your site. Future updates are handled by Codester, so your product will continue to work well and be secure without you having to pay anything extra.

While Codester is simple to work with, you have access to all of the code involved in a theme or plugin after you make your purchase. You have the ability to change that code, and therefore change your theme. Be warned though: If you change your theme, Codester can no longer ensure that updates will happen as expected, and Codester developers may not be able to assist you.

If you have no desire to change code but need to extend your site’s functionality, I will remind you that Codester themes are very compatible with several WordPress products, plugins and third-party services.

Codester is the best marketplace for WordPress themes that are original, low cost and effective, and can be used in several industries and niches. It is the best marketplace to find WordPress themes that are both highly original and highly compatible with the rest of WordPress—it’s hard to find a balance, but Codester’s independent developers have managed it.

WordPress.org: If you didn’t think they were showing up on this list, you should probably just go.

WordPress.org is the O.G. WordPress marketplace and has been selling since before all these other sites had even been thought of.

And let me tell you, WordPress is good at selling. They’re pushing over 7,000 themes alone, some free and some paid. All of their themes are extremely versatile and are obviously compatible with other WordPress products.

That’s the best and worst thing about WordPress marketplace themes, though: the versatility. If every theme is stunning, and can be used in many contexts, and can be built upon with an array of plugins, how does one choose? Technically, you can really use any one, but that doesn’t mean that every one is the right one for you.

You can filter themes by layout, features and topics, but layouts and features are pretty standard, and while there are distinct topics, WordPress themes really are so customizable that you can technically use them for anything.

WordPress itself is the best and biggest marketplace for WordPress themes that are highly versatile and that are almost guaranteed to work well with the rest of the products in the WordPress sphere.

It is the worst marketplace for someone who is unable to make decisive choices and stick to them, because it is easy to decide to change and then end up ruining your site’s layout.

Press75: Best marketplaces for WordPress themes that handle visual and audio content well

If you’ve ever played around with a website before, you know that one of the top most irritating things about the layout is getting your images to format correctly, both on desktop and mobile. Your live site often doesn’t look like what you envisioned during the last three hours in your editor.

And if you’ve ever used a website at any point in your life, then you know that slow load times for videos is one of the most irritating things of the modern world.

Enter Press75, who has heard our complaints and did something about it. Press75 themes are geared towards optimizing multimedia with bulk uploads, easy embedding, and fast loading. All themes are highly responsive, with simple, sprawling layouts that let your content capture the attention of your consumers, not the site itself.

Press75 themes are easy to customize, are SEO friendly and have social media capabilities built in.

If you are looking for a single theme, you can purchase one for around $69. This includes a year of free support. If you want to access all 21 themes currently offered by Press75, and all future ones, you can pay a one-time fee of $99. That is an incredible price to pay for simple, stunning, multimedia focused themes.

Press75 is the best to go for WordPress themes geared towards multimedia presentations. These are not just themes for photographers, but for any industry that relies on visuals or content creation to promote their project or business. From portfolios to restaurant sites, bloggers to video producers, Press75 can and will handle all of your visual design and functionality needs.

Creative Market: Best open source marketplace for WordPress themes in a variety of fields

Open source products are another love-hate kind of thing: we love the creativity that comes out of the unstifled artist, but hate that there is literally no standard for what you are paying for. Creative Market themes are all open source materials, produced and uploaded by creators without going through any quality assurance process.

Creative Market is similar to Codester in that developers submit highly original, unique products. But it is different in that Codester themes are thoroughly investigated by the Codester team, whereas virtually anyone can sell their work on Creative Market.

This is not to say that everything you purchase in this marketplace is inherently full of bugs and will waste several hours of your life. There are several WordPress themes that are interesting, highly original and well thought out. Because there are so many contributors to this marketplace, which now offers over 3,600 WordPress themes, many niches have finally found a theme they can call their own.

Several themes are simply custom built themes that go on top of the Genesis Framework, or have been developed using Divi. Some themes are for one-pager sites, while others are fully optimized according to individual or business needs. Usually developers give a good description of the theme and tell buyers what the theme is compatible with.

Payment is simple: what you see is what you pay for.

Note: Be sure to ask the developer any questions you have before purchase.

Creative Market is the best marketplace for original WordPress themes that are  interesting and cater to an extensive array of industries and niches. It is also a great marketplace for creative assets like graphics and logos, and for tools to help brand a business.

It is the worst marketplace for someone who wants to buy thoroughly vetted, foolproof themes that they cannot possibly screw up (this is not a small number of people).

Graph Paper Press: WordPress themes for freelancers and creatives

Graph Paper Press hasn’t dominated the WordPress marketplace for creatives but they really should. Each and every of their 46 available themes and 16 plugins is designed for creative freelancers, artists and entrepreneurs to showcase and sell their work.

Graph Paper Press themes are minimalist and understated so as to neatly display content, which is king, right? Their themes are very much like graph paper—neat, clean layouts on which you sketch out your portfolio or creative business.

Their 14 plugins are also very much geared towards photographers, artists selling print media, and products sold as digital downloads.

Graphic Paper Press’s flagship plugin is called Sell Media (above).

It does exactly what it sounds like—it gives you everything you need to start your own ecommerce business. Watermark and password digital products to protect them from being screenshotted. Sell membership plans and run recurring sales. Send discount codes to customers using their newsletter integration feature. Take payments via PayPal or credit cards directly on your site. Ship prints directly to customers.

Sell…anything, really.

Note: Some features are paid upgrades. But they are very worth it if you want a simple, all-in-one solution designed specifically for selling media.

While I’m on the pricing thread—you cannot purchase individual themes and plugins. Graph Paper Press runs on a subscription/one-time fee pricing model. Pay $299/year for all themes, plugins, automatic updates and tech support for one website.

When you buy a subscription, you can download as many tools as you want. If you decide not to renew, you get to keep everything you’ve downloaded and use them for life, with no extra fees. You do lose the automatic updates and support, though, and those are key to keeping your website up and working.

Or, you can buy all current and future products, automatic updates and tech support for an unlimited number of sites for $399. This is a one-time fee that gets you access to the entirety of Graph Paper Press and all its services for life.

If you’re planning on creating long-term, take advantage of this one-time fee. Businesses are an investment, and this is the best purchase creative freelancers, business owners and content creators can make.

Graph Paper Press is the best marketplace for WordPress themes geared towards creative ventures. They are an underrated company that provides everything you need for selling, for life, at a good price. The price is an investment, the up-front cost a little steeper than others—but worth it in the long term.

Related: Starting a digital product or webinar hustle? Start with one of these store builders designed for digital ventures.

VisualModo: Best marketplace for WordPress themes to build your brand

Industry specific themes with very specific layouts are great and terrible. You can have a site up quickly, but you don’t have the space to really build your brand.

VisualModo has provided highly flexible, variable themes for several industries.There are also some site builders that are more general, and can therefore be used for any purpose. They don’t have an overwhelming amount of options, but themes have more building capabilities than themes offered by other sites.

VisualMOdo themes are a middle-ground between regular theme providers like ThemeForest, and highly customizable providers like Elegant Themes. Your themes are somewhat organized, but it’s easy to change the look of your site.

All themes are responsive, automatically updated and can be quickly installed, customized and published. They offer many plugins to increase the functionality of your site, including Visual Composer, which acts much like Divi in that you have front-end editing capabilities that allow you to see the end results of changes before publishing.

This powerful plugin allows you to change every element you add to your page, from color to spacing. Every element is already optimized for mobile.

Choose custom blog post formats, menus, video embeds, and testimonials. Add CTA buttons and icons,  and mobile optimized logo uploads. All sites are translation ready and retina optimized.

Plugins that automatically come with the purchase of a membership plan include:

• Visual Composer (which offers several elements to enhance your site)
• Social media plugins
• Contact forms
• WooCommerce ecommerce plugin
• Google fonts
• Google Maps
• Scheduler

Clean, industry specific themes combined with fast and customizable editing capabilities allow you to quickly build your business’s brand. General themes help you to build a branded personal site with ease. All themes are either designed for or capable of being an ecommerce site.

But the real reason VisualModo is a gem:

It’s pricing structure. All plans include theme updates, access to all plugins, automatic care and security updates, and fast support for:

• $59/year for a single theme license to use on one domain
• $99/year for access to all current and new themes for an unlimited number of domains
• $259 for access to all current and future themes and plugins and updates for an unlimited number of domains for life

Membership options do not renew yearly, so if you’ve downloaded every theme and plugin you want to use, then you can keep them forever and choose not to renew. Again, forfeiting a membership means no product updates or added security, which can leave your site vulnerable to viruses and breakage.

Obviously, the one-time fee membership is the most cost effective for long-term, multi-site owners. If you only need one theme, though, a single license membership will do.

VisualModo is the best marketplaces for WordPress themes that are highly customizable for individualized, original sites. But they can also exist within a loose framework so that you’re not totally starting from scratch. It is an excellent median between suffocatingly strict and overwhelmingly free-form web building capabilities.

PremiumPress: Best marketplace for ecommerce and video content creators (and weird niche online businesses)

Do you see yourself creating the next Groupon, PeoplePerHour or Ebay? If so, this is probably the only theme provider who also sees this for you. PremiumPress offers niche online business templates and some powerful general ecommerce themes.

Their powerful Shopping Cart theme in particular was designed with small business owners in mind. It’s the all-in-one solution for ecommerce store owners.

It includes a built-in shopping cart, which includes tax and shipping calculation. Sell by weight, flat rate, regional, international or offer free shipping. Install any of the 20+ free payment gateways (including PayPal), use their built-in email and newsletter system and offer discount codes and coupons. Set up an advertising system for when your site inevitably grows to the point that advertisers will want to be on your pages.

Management of your site is easy with built-in admin features like Google Analytics, order and stock tracking, and user activity. If you have picked a niche site theme like a job posting site, there are tools to measure activity, such as the number of jobs posted, on those fronts.

Another popular general theme is the Video Theme. Video content creators will find it has everything they need to be successful in their field, whether that’s free or paid video tutorials or training. It includes an easy-to-use YouTube import plugin, membership capabilities and user upload capabilities.

Each theme has 20+ pre-made templates that can be customized to get your site up quickly. Customization options give you the opportunity to add your own flavor to your site.

PremiumPress offers great pricing for themes and plugins.

But everything comes with some kind of cost. In PremiumPress’s case it’s the lack of customer support. They only offer email support during the 9-5 workweek, and only for 6-12 months. You can purchase priority support, theme update support and theme installations at flat rates, but these are also only for 6-12 months at a time. If you want to cut costs on your end, PremiumPress has a member forum that might be able to help and a support page with tutorials for theme setup and updates, troubleshooting and admin.

PremiumPress is the best marketplace for WordPress themes that offer extremely cost-effective ecommerce and video content capabilities. Several built-in theme features keeps you from having to buy and install individual plugins. Their one-time payment structure is also cost-effective.

This is not the ideal marketplace for those who want continued support for theme installation and upkeep. PremiumPress is not for the weak of heart.

InkThemes: WordPress themes for just about any purpose you can imagine (and some you can’t)

InkThemes currently offers 2380+ WordPress themes and 347+ highly valuable plugins. They offer more niche themes than other large scale theme providers. Just type a keyword related to your project or business in the search bar, and you are likely to find a theme designed specifically for that topic.

Themes are SEO optimized, responsive and compatible with all the latest browsers. They include social sharing icons, customizable widgets like contact forms, product categories, and blogs. Access to themes is available for life, whether you buy one ($79) or get an All Products Plan ($15/month for one year, or $499 all at once).

Purchasing an All Products plan gives you access to all themes and paid plugins for an unlimited number of sites. Get support for themes and plugins, and access to new themes and plugins, for 2 years.

InkThemes is the best marketplace for WordPress themes for niche topics. It is also a great marketplaces for high-quality plugins. And their All Product plans are hard to beat pricewise.

CompeteThemes: One of the best places to find 100% free WordPress themes

CompeteThemes offers clean, easy-to-use general themes for bloggers, small ecommerce ventures, authors and for other basic projects.

They are all free to download, which is obviously their selling point. They are easy to use and work for individuals with very minimal expectations in terms of capabilities.

Themes are very bare bones—and that’s to be expected, because you always, always get what you pay for. You can add paid plugins that are on CompeteThemes that allow for greater customization.

But if you’re going to pay for customization, then you haven’t really been sold on the free shit premise. Just go buy a theme.

The site does offer many tutorials and advice on how to start and grow your site, including a free course on how to turn a basic theme into a professional and profitable one.

CompeteTheme is one of the most decent marketplaces to find free, easy-to-use themes. It is not a great marketplace if you’re looking for customization features.

ReadyTheme: For a wider variety of free and extremely low cost WordPress themes

If you’re looking for a large selection of free and very low cost (I’m talking $10) themes, ReadyTheme has 78+ available themes to choose from. They offer way more selection than CompeteThemes.

But be warned, these templates are all extremely bare bones. I mean, you get the layout and the ability to customize color, but that’s pretty much it. There isn’t much in the way of support.

Essentially, ReadyThemes is the best marketplace for those who are willing to do a lot of extra work to cut costs. You can find free plugins and widgets for most things you need for a standard site, but this can quickly get complicated.

If you have a lot of time and no money—go to ReadyTheme.

aThemes: Best place for free but upgradable WordPress themes

aThemes believes in you—they have since the beginning. This is why they offer users free themes as well as upgraded “Pro” versions of them. Build your site from scratch using their theme web builder or use a premade template and customize your site’s colors, fonts and elements. Each theme has blogging capabilities and specific ones, like the Health and Fitness theme, offer special elements like course catalogs. They have a few free WooCommerce store themes as well.

Convert any free theme into the Pro version of it to gain access to new layouts and extra industry specific widgets. Any theme that is not a store can be turned into one with the addition of a WooCommerce plugin.

A single paid theme is $59/year for an unlimited number of domains and a year of support. $99/year gets you access to all themes for unlimited domains.

Pay $249 for lifetime access to all themes and plugins, along with lifetime support and updates, for an unlimited number of domains. Many flat rate all-access purchases do not offer lifetime support, so this is very attractive for beginners and those with little tech knowledge (and no desire to learn).

Note: All yearly subscriptions will renew automatically if you don’t cancel, so be mindful of that.

aThemes is one of the few marketplaces for WordPress themes that start off free and can remain that way, or can be upgraded with ease. Despite being free themes, there are many customization options. Entry level bloggers and business owners will find everything they need for a functional, clean site.

This is not the marketplace to find highly individualized, original, unique themes.

Themes are like houses. Take the same amount of consideration when making your choice.

The biggest mistake you could make when buying a house is impulsivity (that and mortgaging one in 2008, but who saw that coming?) Smart buyers take the time to consider their current and future situation. How much work are you willing to put into it? Will it support you in the future? Is this the place you imagine spending a large portion of your life?

Can you even afford it?

It’s the same with WordPress themes (although hopefully there’s no WordPress theme crisis lingering up ahead). Smart buyers consider their current and future resources, needs and abilities.