2013 Edition – ThemeForest.net is powered by Envato, an online company geared to help individuals earn and learn online.
Envato is based in Australia and was founded in 2006, although their huge network of workers come from all over the world. They are a world class open source (PHP code) and a creative company committed to creating high quality products and services for their worldwide clientele.
The company’s CEO is Collis Ta’eed and the company was co-founded by Collis and Cyan Ta’eed. Some of their many websites include a host of Envato marketplaces where you can buy and sell digital goods: Tuts+, which is a wide network of online educational sites where you can learn online fields in graphics and development, audio and motion productions; FreelanceSwitch, an online freelancer community website; AppStorm, a site for the latest in computer technology; Creattica, a site showcasing online galleries, 3D works, advertising, business cards, web design and more; and Rockable Press, which is an online publishing brand for freelance writers.
Their most profitable and well-known site is ThemeForest – a marketplace for high-quality templates, themes (WordPress, Joomla, Magento etc), and more. Join us for this in-depth review of the ThemeForest marketplace including actual user feedback and ratings.
Theme Functionality:
ThemeForest is not short of world-class WP theme developers. If you are looking for excellent theme functionality, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.
Since they are pooling resources from hundreds of high-end developers from across the world, ThemeForest has the most extensive network of tools that will surely provide you with every single detail you should need.
The site is categorized into the following main categories: WordPress, Site Templates, Marketing, CMS, eCommerce, PSD Templates, and Plugins. Known best for their thousands of different WordPress Themes from hundreds and hundreds of different authors, ThemeForest is the largest WordPress Theme marketplace by far in existence today.
If you are relatively new to WordPress, it is first important to understand why this CMS (content management system) is so popular. They allow you to:
• Effectively manage a large number of contributed, shared, and stored web data
• Control and customize all access to data
• Help easily store and retrieve data
• Reduce duplicate input
• Improve report writing on your site
• Optimize traffic to your site
Before any file is listed on ThemeForest, it is reviewed extensively by the Envato review team. Known in the past to be very strict on what they allow, it is not uncommon for authors to have their first submission denied. Since WordPress Themes make up the vast majority of sales on ThemeForest, we will focus on this particular category as we dive deeper into this ThemeForest review.
Theme Graphics:
With over 2,600 different premium WP Themes to choose from, we can safely say that you will most definitely find the perfect Theme in this extensive marketplace. ThemeForest is somewhat comparable to Elegant Themes in such a way that both WP theme providers offer the most extensive array of premium WP theme graphics, however keep in mind that ThemeForest is a marketplace where numerous designers can showcase and sell their Themes while Elegant Themes is one company releasing their own WordPress Themes for sale.
ThemeForest has WordPress Themes from all the main categories: blog, magazine, creative, corporate, retail business, technology, non-profit, entertainment, miscellaneous, e-commerce, BuddyPress, responsive, html5 and many others.
Theme Pricing:
ThemeForest offers one of the lowest prices among the various WP Themes today, with the exception of those who offer them free of course. Their price for WordPress Themes ranges from as low as $30 to as high as $60 per Theme. The company doesn’t really offer any special deals or combos while most of their competitors operate on a 3-in-1, 4-in-1 or a special discount to buy all themes.
A few times each year, ThemeForest offers a “bundle” of different marketplace items (typically from many of their different marketplaces), and these are typically great values for consumers. The authors whose files are in each bundle receive a pro-rated amount of the sales based on the number of files they have in the bundle. Typically, ThemeForest only invites the highest caliber authors to include certain files in the Envato bundles, and if you happen to be the lucky buyer of the one you will get various files (themes, plugins, graphics, video files, etc) for one low price.
If you are a web developer wanting to use WordPress Themes for your client, you are allowed to use Themeforest’s Themes but you can’t take credit for the original work of the theme because the graphics and Javascript (if any) are copyrighted. If you want to put something like “Designed by (your company)” in the Theme that you customize for your client, we would recommend you to purchase the packages offered by StudioPress since all of their themes are released under 100% GPL.
This license debate is a relatively sticky situation that is under constant scrutiny by authors, users, and everyone with an opinion. To the best of our knowledge, there is no problem with a buyer purchasing a theme for a client, modifying it to their client’s needs, then putting a vanity link in the footer saying “Designed by: YOUR COMPANY NAME,” however to be 100% safe it is always good to check with the individual author.
To browse through their wide list of Themes and prices, visit their WordPress Theme Directory.
Theme Support:
Although ThemeForest’s support operates 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, the support of individual Themes is not handled by Themeforest’s staff. If you encounter any issues with the theme, you have to seek help directly from the developer directly. There are four main support channels:
Discussion Section – You can post your issues and the Theme developer will address them. The response time and helpfulness varies among different developers. We have seen quite a lot of developers not taking care of their customers well. Keep in mind that ThemeForest does not make the authors provide support. It is optional.
Theme Documentation – ThemeForest has requirements about what type of documentation is included so that customers can quickly get started using the file they purchased.
Forum – Many of the top authors setup their own private forums for customer help and support.
FAQs – Not every Theme has this section.
We feel the consistency of the theme support is very important. In ThemeForest, unfortunately, it is not possible due to the nature of the business and because you will be getting support from the individual developers, not ThemeForest itself. This is also a sticking point for some users as they get confused whose responsibility it is should they have any problems. ThemeForest’s policies state that the author does not HAVE to provide support (and you will not get any technical support from ThemeForest), however keep in mind that since ThemeForest is a marketplace, the “bad” authors won’t be in business long since people will go where they can get not only a good looking theme but quality support as well.
Theme License:
Split-GPL license
• GPL for PHP, XHTML
• non-GPL for CSS, Javascript and theme images