One of the major benefits of WordPress is the ability to use themes and plugins to add design and functionality to our website. This is a benefit which most of us would otherwise be unable to create ourselves.
Now, in some cases the free options available work fine – but they can be hit or miss. Going premium is the most reliable way to find themes with the best designs, quality, and functionality. Unfortunately, this can be expensive.
One of the most cost-effective ways to get access to premium WordPress themes and plugins is to join what’s known as a WordPress club.
By joining a WordPress club, you’ll gain access to every theme and plugin designed by a particular WordPress developer, all for an affordable monthly fee.
Joining some clubs will gain you access to almost 100 themes, and with memberships starting as low as $19 per month – compared with spending around $45 for a single theme from a marketplace like ThemeForest — this is highly reasonable.
Today, I want to introduce some of the best WordPress clubs out there. Now, you’re probably already aware of some WordPress clubs – Elegant Themes and WooThemes as some of the biggest and most popular – so today I’m going to look at the clubs you’re less likely to have heard of.
Let’s get started.
Crocoblock
Crocoblock has been making significant strides recently, with its relentless addition of new themes for its club members — they are currently adding two brand new themes every week.
There are currently 90 themes available, including a number of specialist eCommerce themes, which allow you to easily integrate WooCommerce and JigoShop. My personal favorites include Pivot, Croconaw, and Internet Café.
Within the theme range, there is a strong emphasis on customization – each theme comes with an unlimited color palette and a wide range of typography options.
If you want complete access to all the themes, membership starts at $95, plus a monthly fee of $19. You can also pay a flat yearly fee of $249.
If you want to test the waters, Crocoblock offer some of the best free themes available on the market today.
TeslaThemes
You might already be aware of TeslaThemes, but a recent site upgrade indicated their intention to grow and expand their WordPress club.
If you want to access the complete theme collection, you’re looking at a competitive $49 per year.
This lets you access the 27 great-looking themes currently available, as well as any future releases – TeslaThemes plans to expand the collection at a rate of two themes per month.
All themes have a number of customization options, including colors, layouts, and functionality.
For a quick look at some of the best themes in the collection, check out Sportify, Sevenfold, and Design Portfolio.
WPEka
As well as developing their own themes and plugins,WPEka has made a number of high-profile acquisitions in recent months, in a bid to quickly expand the offerings of their Indian-based WordPress club.
For those of you not content with themes, there are also a number of premium plugins in the collection. Included in the bundle are a number of social media plugins, a contact form widget, and a plugin that adds surveys to your sales funnel to help you boost conversions.
Included in the themes collection are a number of specialist eCommerce, Adsense, and mobile app themes. For an idea of the quality of themes available to members, I recommend Euphoria, Captivate, and Metrolife.
There are currently 24 themes and 21 plugins available to club members, with WPEka promising to add four new products each month.
Membership is an affordable $27 per month, or $147 for the year.
Themes Kingdom
With some of the best designs of any WordPress club, I’d highly recommend looking into a Themes Kingdom membership.
Rather than creating generic themes that can be used by anybody, Themes Kingdom differentiates itself by developing highly specialized themes, including themes designed for restaurant owners, health and education institutes, and event specialists.
There are currently 37 premium themes in the collection, as well as six free themes. My personal favorites are Beautypress, WpHotel, and Immensely. Theme Kingdom will also be releasing new themes at a rate of one per month.
Annual membership is $129, or you can pay upfront for a lifetime membership for $329.
Themify
Themify is an awesome WordPress theme and plugin club.
The plugins included are “proper” premium plugins – highly valuable, well-designed, and great looking. There are only three at present, but they offer some fantastic functionality. The Themify Builder allows you to add drag-and-drop functionality to any premium theme, allowing you to adjust the layouts exactly to your liking (all Themify themes automatically include this function). You can also schedule site announcements and build conditional menus with the other plugins.
There are 43 themes available to members. All are SEO optimized, support WooCommerce, and come with a wide range of customization options – unlimited colors and backgrounds, plus over 600 Google fonts to choose from.
For a sneak peak at some of the best themes in the collection, check out Event, Flat, and Blogfolio.
Membership is available from $79 annually for all themes, but if you want the plugins (and some Photoshop files) it’s $139 annually.
Themeisle
Themeisle is a pirate-themed WordPress club, founded on the beaches of Thailand.
However, despite the relaxed demeanour on the Themeisle website, they actually make some seriously awesome themes.
With only ten premium themes in the collection, this is one of the smaller clubs. Included are number of specialist blogging, business, portfolio, and magazine themes. My personal favorites are Caresland, Music Band, and Zerif. There are also 14 free themes, for anyone wanting to test out the themes.
Access to the premium themes is available from $85 per year, which also includes VIP Skype support.
RocketTheme
With a growing collection of 70 themes, RocketThemes is one of top best WordPress clubs around.
There are some seriously impressive themes available in the collection, making a membership at $99 per year looks a steal.
RocketTheme is committed to releasing a new WordPress theme every month, and will be looking to add some plugins to the collection in the near future.
Their themes are very stylish, intuitive, and highly customizable – check out Paradigm, Epilson, and Stratos to see what I mean. All themes support the major third-party plugins, including BuddyPress.
ThemeFuse
Finally, we have the ThemeFuse WordPress club.
There are currently 29 themes available, and the developers have plans to add new themes regularly, so this number will expand soon.
Club members also get access to VIP support, as well as an input into the type of themes they’d like to see developed next – there is a strong emphasis on a great user-experience for all club members.
At $195 per year, ThemeFuse is one of the more expensive WordPress clubs out there, but with a strong collection of themes, this fee still feels like a great value. All themes are responsive, retina-ready, and come with a great range of customization options.
For a glimpse inside the quality of themes available in the collection, my personal favorites are Freelancer, Collective, and Kiddo Turf.
Wrapping Up
If you like the style of a certain theme, there’s a good chance you’ll like other themes designed by that developer. From this perspective, being able to access every item in a developer’s repertoire seems like a great idea.
By being part of a WordPress club, you’ll be able to switch themes, at no extra cost, until you find one you’re happy with – this is especially useful for the indecisive among you! And with developers often taking into consideration the suggestions of club members, the new themes are likely to be developed with you in mind, meaning there is always something new for club members to take advantage of.
With so many out there, it was impossible to include every club. If we didn’t mention your favorite, feel free to tell us about it in the comments section below!
Shaun Quarton is a freelance blogger from the UK, with a passion for online entrepreneurship, content marketing, and all things WordPress.
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