I’ve been using WordPress to build my websites for almost 7 years now. I have tried hundreds of different themes, some were great and some were horrible. However, recently I stumbled upon a “theme-gold-mine” and I have switched all of my websites to these themes.
I have already written about this resource in a previous blog post; however I’ve had quite a few folks ask me the same questions about the Elegant Themes so I’ve decided to write this detailed review to help you make a decision.
What is Elegant Themes?
Elegant Themes (ET) is a collection of 87 different premium WordPress themes. All of the themes have a beautiful and professional design. I must admit that I was sold on the design when I initially purchased the themes from ET. The 30 days satisfaction guarantee also contributed to my decision. Knowing that ET has over 220,000 customers is also comforting. Can you say Social Proof?
How Much Does It Cost?
ET comes at 3 different price points:
- Personal: $69 per year
- Developer: $89 per year (LIMITED TIME DISCOUNT! Get Developer license for $70!)
- Lifetime Access: $249 for a lifetime access (Developer license)
I opted for the Personal license at the moment.
The price is another great reason to choose Elegant Themes. ET doesn’t sell separate themes, they sell a membership which gives you access to all of their themes as well as their support (more on that later). For $69 you get access to all 87 themes which means you are paying less than $0.80 per theme! You can download all of themes and use them on an unlimited number of sites. You can also use the themes on your clients’ websites.
At that price you have a full year access to the themes and support. If you decided to cancel after 1 year, you lose access to the download area, updates and support. However, you get to keep and use all of the themes you already downloaded for as long as you like.
The Developer license offers access to all themes, support, plugins and PSD files. What this means is that you get access to the “design” files. If you want to change something major within the design of the theme, you’ll need this license. You also get access to ET plugins.
Personally I am not all that great with Photoshop so I decided I do not need this license. I have read about their plugins and I don’t need them either. So the Personal license ($69) is more than plenty for me.
Lifetime access (Developer license) costs $249. This would be a great investment later on. If you have tried Elegant Themes and you completely love it – you should consider upgrading to the Lifetime.
Conclusion: Start with the Personal license for $69. You can upgrade at any time if you ever need to.
Elegant Themes Support.
ET offers members-only support forum. I have used their support many times simply because I am not a designer or a coder. Sometimes I want to add/remove something from the theme or change the look of a certain aspect but I’m not a techy. Usually I would search for my “issue” within the forum and most of the time I easily find my answer. If I can’t find an answer, I simply post a support request and most of the times it takes less than a few minutes to get an answer.
Here is an example. Kyle from Wealthy Affiliate was giving me a few tips about making this blog better. Here is the first message he sent me:
I guess I have never really paid attention to the font size and didn’t notice it might be too small for some people. So I went to Elegant Themes forum and searched for “Font Size”. Sure enough, someone already had the same question and I found my answer right away:
Then Kyle told me that he cannot see his comment while he’s typing it on my blog because the comment box makes the text color too light:
I hit the search button again with “Comment Color”. Once again, within seconds I found someone who’s already asked this question:
Please note that these questions were answered in great detail, explaining what exactly I need to change within the site to solve that issue. If it wasn’t for ET support I’d have become a coder, which I don’t have the time for.
User Friendly Interface
Every ET themes comes with a control panel (ePanel). This panel is very user-friendly and allows you to modify certain things on your site with ease and within seconds.
Within the ePanel you can control which pages show up in your menu. You can also add or remove categories from showing up in the menu. If you have a slider on the site (like on the home page of this blog) you can specify how many slides show up, if they slider should be automated or manual. You can manage ads (if you want ads). Set up your on-site SEO, change the color of your site, upload a header, etc. There is a LOT you can do through the ePanel.
Conclusion.
There hasn’t been one single thing that I disliked about Elegant Themes (so far). With the 30 days money back guarantee and only at $69 you simply can’t go wrong. Try out Elegant Themes, then come back to this blog and thank me for this recommendation.
– Alex
Affiliate disclaimer: If you buy anything recommended on this blog I might receive a commission. There is NO extra cost to you. Commissions are used to help pay for hosting, maintenance and other things required to run this blog. Thanks!
I tried ET back in 2008.
One thing I don’t like as a regular commenter is the comment field doesn’t seem to remember me at all. Even if I typed my details in there and comment then go to another post, I have to type those details all over again.
And threaded comments would be nice too.
Jay, I agree with you on this one. Threaded comments/reply would be nice. I will make the suggestion to ET team.
I’ve been considering implementing a new commenting system (like Disqus) but I’m not ready to make the move.
EDIT: Just looked at the Settings->Discussions within my WP installation and there is an option to have threaded comments. This wasn’t turned on, until now 🙂
Oooh nice! I thought it was a theme related thing but I’m glad its available now. Still have to type my details everytime though.
I can understand not being ready to make the move. I really prefer the native blog commenting system over third party ones like Disqus and Google Plus/Facebook etc.
I was happy to find that option 🙂
And I will be looking into WHY the form doesn’t remember your info. Actually, can you try to comment again and tell me if your info is there or not?
Thanks
It still doesn’t remember. Comment form cookie must be missing from your theme files.