While there are thousands of free WordPress themes available, these are mostly suitable for hobbyists and small-time websites.
Whether you are a food lover looking to monetize your passion or a business owner who wants to raise your company's profile, WordPress can help.
In this guide, you’ll discover five premium WordPress themes suitable for a wide range of professional users. By paying a few dollars, you’ll benefit from extra features such as displaying pictures in a slideshow or ecommerce compatibility.
- We've also highlighted the best ecommerce WordPress themes
X
X is a paid WordPress theme suitable for all types of websites.
The theme comes with four categories of built-in demos. Each of these themes cover a wide variety of potential projects. This means that no matter what you have in mind, X more than likely has a design suited to your needs.
X comes with Cornerstone, one of the most popular WordPress web page builders. The drag and drop feature is easy to use. Users are able to see exactly what their page will look like live as they are building. This enables users to change and edit while building their site.
There are a huge number of customization options, with which users can build a unique webpage.
X comes with a feature called ‘the customizer’. This is a handy tool as many premium themes come with their own theme options page that are not entirely compatible with WordPress. ‘The Customizer’ is highly intuitive. It integrates seamlessly with WordPress. It will help you to customize the look and feel of your website. There is also Dynamic Content, which comes in handy when building out content throughout your site.
The regular license for X is $ 59 (£44.4) which includes future updates and 6 months customer support. Users can opt to extend support to 12-months for an additional $ 17.63 (£13.3).
Divi
Divi is a multi-purpose theme. It has website options for most users and is highly customizable.
The theme comes with WooCommerce functionality. The drag and drop feature allows users to include pricing tables, video sliders, tabs and videos. A rating module is also available.
Users can access a variety of pre-built layouts. These range from creating a sales page, multiple blog layouts and a variety of portfolio types.
Divi is one of the few WordPress themes to include a front-end page builder tool with point and click editing. This gives users instant feedback on any editing that takes place.
Users can upload logos, choose a new color palette, decide how many posts are displayed on a page and setup social media integrations amongst others.
Newer users will find Divi particularly simple to use as you don’t need any coding skill or any former experience building websites. The user-friendly interface makes this process seamless. You can also optimize any page element to your liking with various CSS options.
Divi allows you to use multiple rows, columns and content elements. All layouts are fully responsive.
The theme comes with an impressive array of content elements which include audio player, bar counter, blog, number counter, shop, testimonial and contact form amongst others.
Divi can also be translated into more than 30 languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Czech, Russian and Spanish.
Users can try a demo version of Divi for free. Users can also purchase a one-year subscription to all of Elegant Themes’ products for $ 89 (£67.69). There is also a Lifetime option for $ 249 (£187.4).
Uncode
Uncode is a multi-purpose theme suitable for most users.
The theme offers users a huge variety of website demos. These include classic, portfolio, blog and ecommerce layouts.
Uncode’s images are fully adaptive so that they adjust automatically to whatever screen size they are being viewed on.
Users can edit their demos through the WPBakery Page Builder Plugin. They can also access to the handy drag and drop content editor. Uncode is compatible with most third-party plugins.
The themes large media library makes it easier for users to embed any type of media to your WordPress site.
Uncode has over 6 different menu types with advanced options. These include top right, justify, left, center, overlay, offcanvas and lateral.
The theme is WPML certified and offers RTL (Right to Left) support. The premium themes included are VC Page Builder, VC Clipboard, VC Particles, LayerSlider, Slider Revolution and iLightBox. In the recent update, new features are available like animated headlines and highlighting effects, among other things.
You can purchase for $ 59 (£44.87) and includes future updates and 6 months support. If you want to extend support to 12 months, an additional $ 17.63 (£13.3) is needed.
Some online commentators have expressed frustration over difficulties with customization.
The Core
The Core is a multi-purpose theme which requires no coding skills.
The theme has been built on the Unyson network to aid with customization. Users have access to the fully featured page builder. This allows you to edit the demos that are included or create new layouts to suit your needs.
The Core theme includes demo content install. Users can choose from three different sliders: Slider Revolution, Layers Slider and its own custom-built slider.
The theme is retina ready and fully responsive. Users can edit the colors of their theme using simple color pickers. The Core is also fully compatible with the WooCommerce plugin.
Users have access to Google’s free collection of fonts. You can also choose to use the sticky header to ensure your menu bar always remains visible no matter how far down you scroll.
The Core is translation ready and is compatible with WPML. Support is available through live chat 24/7 or email. There are also over 100 support articles.
Users can purchase the theme for $ 49 (£37.26).
Online commentators have lamented the lack of a front-end page builder.
Foodie Pro
Foodie Pro helps users to create a beautiful blog based around all sorts of culinary delights.
It is created by the Genesis Framework. This means your website will have a solid combination of this Framework along with WordPress. The theme comes with a huge amount of typography and color options.
Users can build their site using up to 3 homepage and 5 site wide widget areas. These can be customized to fit around your brand.
The theme allows users to upload their own logo with one click. There is also full support for text-based logos.
Foodie Pro’s ‘Theme Customizer’ allows users to customize the theme’s settings, colors and backgrounds images.
The ‘Foodie Pro Theme’ can be purchased for $ 129.95 (£98.85) for one year. This includes the Genesis Framework, Foodie Pro Theme, instant access, unlimited updates, supports, sites and access to detailed tutorials.
If this is not enough, users can avail of the ‘Pro Plus Membership’ for $ 499.95 (£380.22). This includes all the ‘Foodie Pro Theme’ has to offer plus access to every theme the company makes including future themes.
Top Image Credit: The Core
- We've also highlighted the best website hosting services