Over the years of pro blogging, I’ve tested hundreds of WordPress Themes, many free and others fee-based. Although I’ve seen lots of posts about the best free themes, I rarely read any about premium themes.
Based on use for my own or client sites, these are my picks for the 5 best premium WordPress themes:
- Education (click here to see a modification for a prototype client site) $59.95
- Thesis (the ultimate in WP theme flexibility) $87 for single use, $164 for unlimited (I picked this as I use Thesis on many client sites)
- FastBlogger by RichWP $59.90
- Black Canvas by StudioPress (excellent for photo blogs – I’ve just started developing this client site) $59.95
- Life Series by iThemes (particularly suited to a showcase site) $79.95
Of these, Thesis offers (hands down) the most flexibility; move columns, resize columns, choose which pages and categories to display, plus you have an amazing ability to add images to the sidebars globally, or page-by-page.
I like FastBlogger for the graphical nature; we all love pictures, and the first thing you see on a site using the FastBlogger theme is a lot of colorful images. This one really grabs your attention.
The Education theme was incredibly easy to work with (as are all of Brian Gardner’s themes); it’s more convervative looking, but perfect for colleges or business clients.
I’ve been looking for a great photo gallery theme for a long time, and Black Canvas is the best of the breed. It’s easy to use, I love the black background – I feel it shows off images far better than white – and again, Brian Gardner simply designs some of the best, easy-to-use, professional themes.
Life Series (I especially like Grunge) has a clean look, great for minimal text, with a highly professional appearance. If your site doesn’t require a lot of words, I highly recommend all in this series.
Do you have a favorite premium theme? Let’s add to the list and get these great themes out into the hands of pro bloggers.
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themes are really nice and very helpful for we developers.