Today, we shall be reviewing another popular premium WordPress theme provider—CSS Igniter.
Founded by Gerasimos Tsiamalos and Anastis Sourgoutsidis, CSS Igniter currently claims to have over 11,500 customers, which is a pretty good number in my book.
CSS Igniter also has an affiliate program which offers an amazing 50% commission per sale. Not only that, you also get an additional 50% each time a referral of yours decides to renew his/her subscription. Since subscription itself is not the costliest one out there, 50% might not be a gigantic amount if viewed solitary, but if you do manage to send multiple customers to CSS Igniter, you can be assured of a good paycheck.
Note: Before going any further, I must clarify a minor point of confusion. CSS Igniter doesn’t seem to have a properly defined nomenclature—their logo reads “cssigniter” (all lower-case), while the footer says “CSSIGNITER” (all upper-case). The website uses “CSSIgniter” and “CSS Igniter” interchangeably (notice the presence and absence of space between ‘CSS’ and ‘Igniter’). Alright, maybe not everyone is as picky as me; so for the sake of uniformity, I have used “CSS Igniter” all throughout this article.
CSS Igniter
Theme Features
CSS Igniter currently has over 50 themes in their collection including a good number of free themes.
The themes, as such, cater to a wide array of users—portfolio, blog, magazine, corporate, and so on. Furthermore, most of the themes are localization ready as well as responsive and come with additional goodies such as custom shortcodes.
However, it is worth noting that CSS Igniter’s offerings do not seem to adhere to the extremely popular design practice of “minimalism.” Most of the themes employ a vivid assortment of color combinations (worth noting though, this is something that you can tweak via the Theme Customizer), barring the few odd exceptions, such as Magnifique. Thus, if you are looking for “clean WordPress themes with a content-centric design,” CSS Igniter might not be the first theme shop that you should check out. For all other practical purposes and requirements, CSS Igniter does not fail to impress.
Pricing
Perhaps the USP of CSS Igniter lies in their extremely competitive and simple pricing model.
CSS Igniter does not follow a pay-per-theme policy. Instead, there is just one club membership plan for $39 per year, which gives you access to all the themes in their collection, including all future new releases (generally two per month) and theme updates.
In fact, there is no differentiation between Standard or Developer membership either. You get PSDs as well as plain HTML5/CSS3 files with all themes by means of this single membership itself.
At $39 per year, CSS Igniter’s ever-growing theme collection is indeed a steal. Also, there is a 30-day refund policy as well.
Support
While pre-sales and other generic queries can be sent using the contact form on the website, all theme-related support is offered via the forums.
The support forums are accessible to club members. So if you are seeking detailed video tutorials for your themes, you are out of luck.
Beyond that, CSS Igniter also offers a good deal of WordPress-related services. For instance, you can opt for the preliminary installation and setup pack for $49 one-time fee (which includes WordPress installation, theme installation and setup, as well as Google Analytics setup and database backup). Theme customization services such as custom typography and language packs can cost $99 one-time, whereas specialized theme design and development services start at $49 per hour.
Verdict
So how does CSS Igniter fare?
Pros
- Terrific and budget-friendly pricing
- High number of themes (50+)
- Good quality of design
- Nice affiliate payout rate (doesn’t matter if you are an end user, though)
- Refund policy (30 days)
Cons
- Not many minimal themes
- No single-theme pricing
Considering the fact that the club membership is priced at a meagre $39 per year, if you do sign up with CSS Igniter, there is not much to lose. While certain themes in the collection might not appeal to everyone, overall, CSS Igniter’s themes are a wonderful collection in their own right. Even if you are a lover of minimalism, there are roughly four themes that can qualify as perfectly minimal—at $39, you are paying just $9.75 per theme, which is a decent bargain.
Plus, CSS Igniter is one of the very few theme shops out there who offer a properly defined and clear refund policy. Naturally, just in case if you do not like the themes after signing up, you can still cancel the subscription.
Add to it the fact that CSS Igniter is adding new themes to their collection at a very steady rate, and you have all the ingredients of a wonderful theme shop!
With that, we come to the end of this review. Just in case you missed the previous instalments in this series, be sure to read them here: ThemeFurnace, ColorLabs & Company, DevPress, Okay Themes, CPO Themes and Authentic Themes.
Also, if you are or have been a customer of CSS Igniter, please share your experiences with us using the comments below!
Sufyan bin Uzayr is a freelance writer and Linux enthusiast. He writes for several print magazines as well as technology blogs, and has also authored a book named Sufism: A Brief History. His primary areas of interest include open source, mobile development and web CMS. He is also the Editor of an e-journal named visit his website, follow him on Twitter or friend him on Facebook and Google+.
3 Comments