Changes Coming to Single Theme Purchases
The Themify team has been incredibly busy lately: we celebrated our three year anniversary, we released the beautiful Magazine theme, and we released the Themify Builder, a powerful tool that gives the power of design into the hands of anyone who can drag and drop their content. We’re very proud of what we’ve released and accomplished lately, and we continue to work hard to bring more and more changes and features that make it easier for you to build beautiful WordPress websites.
One of those changes is a business decision: Themify will no longer be giving lifetime updates and support for those who purchase single themes, including both Standard and Developer versions of a single theme purchase. There will be no changes to the Club memberships, and existing members who have made a single theme purchase will not be affected. This only affects brand new single theme purchases.
Themify is doing this to ensure that we can provide the best support possible for those who have recently purchased themes - we want to focus our small team’s development efforts towards improving and fixing the themes that are being purchased instead of spreading ourselves thin and delivering a lackluster experience. As mentioned earlier, the Themify team is working hard to bring even more changes and features to give you more power when building your WordPress websites, and this is a step in that direction.
We understand if there are concerns around this change, so please don’t hesitate to contact us or comment on this post!
Thank you for your support!
September 23, 2013 @ 9:08 pm
What type of support now comes with single theme purchases? Is it 1 year, 2 year, none?
September 23, 2013 @ 11:42 pm
Support and theme updates is 1 year.
September 24, 2013 @ 10:21 pm
Oooh, too bad… just wanted to buy a theme, but it’s too expensive to buy it every year… :-(
I like the way formidable contact forms works: you still get the updates, but only 1 year support. http://formidablepro.com/pricing/
So just pay for support, not for the updates!
September 25, 2013 @ 11:42 am
I agree with Marjet.
Let updates be free for life and charge for support.
You can even lets us purchase priority support tickets.
September 25, 2013 @ 11:47 am
I agree with Marjet and Morten.^^
September 25, 2013 @ 7:17 pm
Okay, if anyone is needed to second Marjet and Morten… I’ll second that! :)
Now single theme purchases seem to getting a bit more unattractive in comparism to paying for club memberships. Especially for those ones of us with only one or two single websites project, not the multi site developers.
I really like the idea suggested by Marja, particulary thinking of important security and framework updates! And yes, maybe I would agree in paying one or at most two hands of extra bucks for thes updates only thing…
But the idea of purchasing the same theme or even half the theme again each and every year leaves a little sour aftertaste, at least for me.
Thanks for giving us the chance for feedback.
September 26, 2013 @ 11:53 am
39$ per year is too high a price for the GPL and unlimited website usaged? See what prices they have other developers. The prices of these themes are too low.
September 27, 2013 @ 9:42 am
I would prefer a single (!) theme, single purchase, single website & lifetime updates combination for the current price tag. Developers and creatives would take the club membership…
September 27, 2013 @ 3:17 am
Another voice for the Formidable model.
September 27, 2013 @ 6:16 am
Like Marjet proposed, a pricing model baed on how Formidable does things seems the best way to go. As Uwe mentioned, not updating themes or plugins poses a security risk in the long term. Agreed, even a smaller fee just for updates would be a reasonable compromise.
In theory, providing updates to 1000 customers doesn’t cost more than for 10 — it’s the support costs that are an issue.
September 27, 2013 @ 8:29 am
Hi,
I was just about to buy “Metro” — a heads up to your current customers (maybe a week or so) would have been nice. :-(
September 27, 2013 @ 9:00 pm
We apologize for the short notice.
September 27, 2013 @ 5:29 pm
Re new pricing. You have essentially moved to a membership model for all theme purchases.
So, with a single theme purchase, will the Themify Builder still work after one year? Or is it disabled until membership is renewed
September 27, 2013 @ 8:58 pm
Yes, the theme/plugin will remain fully functional when the membership expires, however, you won’t have access to updates and support.
September 28, 2013 @ 2:44 pm
Despite the change in pricing policy, I would like to give kudos to the Themify team for grandfathering old purchases, at the very least.
September 29, 2013 @ 4:05 pm
Yes, I appreciate this too! (Kudos, Themify!) And in terms of customer service, theme features and framework Themify still is my number one! But the new pricing model seemingly just doesn’t meet with my personal purchasing behavior… Unfortunately. :-(
October 2, 2013 @ 5:59 am
With the features that Themify offering, I think it is pretty cheap. Have you guys checked the other theme companies’ pricing (WooThemes, iThemes, StudioPress, cough cough)?
October 2, 2013 @ 9:51 am
You’re completely right, Jesse! I would even pay a bit more for just one(!) of Themify’s themes!
But I personally not like recurring payments – I’d like to buy a thing and then it have to be mine, with no strings attached. Raising the single theme price, not giving an additional 2nd theme or introducing a 5-10 USD updates-only-update-fee were just a few things that came to mind for not losing customers who maybe think similar. With this new model the option to purchase single themes seems nearly (!) redundant to me. Its now just attractive for club subscriptions.
October 2, 2013 @ 1:53 pm
I appreciate Themify hardwork and wonderful themes.
The current pricing for single standard theme which is USD39 already fair and good enough with free 1 extra theme. So, there is no problem to make it available for 1 year.
Standard Club is USD 69 per year, it is fair. But, hopely please do not charge price like Woothemes do.
The way Woothemes do their pricing is quite not fair and user tends to get illegal copies.
Hopefully, I suggest the Builder Plugin should be include in the Developer Club with fair price.
Anyway, Themify effort and support is great. Keep it up, guys!
October 2, 2013 @ 7:09 pm
Yes, I’ve been wanting to purchase a theme or more, but needed to save up due to expenses and the economy. Now I feel penalized for not purchasing one earlier! Theme updates and support ending in one year? That is very disappointing and makes it harder to budget. I check the website often, and there should have been a 30 day notice of the change to give people an opportunity.
October 3, 2013 @ 1:12 am
Base on my experience with themes, you are likely to switch to another theme within a year. Themes are like fashion, you need to change the look once a while. If you do end up keeping the theme longer than a year, then it is worth to pay for another year. Sounds like a fair game.
October 6, 2013 @ 11:13 pm
I am not happy with this decision, like woothemes and others.
I suggest one thing: why not to pricing themes cheaper without support or updates, and other price for one year suscription and all that stuffs.
a question:extra free theme stil remain?
October 7, 2013 @ 11:11 pm
Thanks for all the comments (we are listening). It was a very tough decision. In case you’re not aware, we’ve extended our weekday support hours plus the weekend support. We’ve made this decision to ensure that we can provide the best support possible for those who have recently purchased themes.
October 7, 2013 @ 11:20 pm
I’ve been a Themify member for a while and quite happy with their services. I used to use ElegantThemes, which is extremely cheap (if you count the quantity of themes). But their support is nothing like Themify. I would rather pay $39 per year to have good support.
October 8, 2013 @ 8:53 pm
The quality of Themify is worth every penny just for the products. I believe they could now and will most likely charge more as they seem to be cutting edge with regards to frontend design, support and open to the vision venerating from the users themselves. But after 6 years of working with WordPress, I’ve come to accept that most in the community want to pay as little as possible for anything. I feel sorry for some of the great plugin and theme developers who gave everything they had to WP and received nothing in return.
Thanks Themify for all your hard work!
October 15, 2013 @ 6:42 pm
Hi, I think its really a bad move. Try to make all updates free for lifetime and charge for support you are offering.
October 24, 2013 @ 4:42 pm
Her Nick…
Three questions…
1: As this “news” is already a month old, has there been modification to the new policy based on the overwhelming feedback?
2: ls there any other way to revive support for expired theme subscriptions other than a repurchase?
3: What about coupon offers for expiring themes ( to sway our decision) with renewal purchase discounts?
October 24, 2013 @ 5:26 pm
Hi Jason,
1) No.
2) Theme updates and support go hand in hand, so we don’t have separate support renewal.
3) You will receive a 30% discount for renewals.
October 25, 2013 @ 3:56 am
Well, I think the renewal coupon discount is both a good offer and compromise….so good on ya Themify !
December 14, 2013 @ 11:30 am
Hi Nick, I just noticed this post. Is the discount only valid within certain period? If a theme expired more than a year, upon renewal do we still get 30% discount.
December 18, 2013 @ 2:18 pm
The renewal discount is only valid prior the expiry date.
February 7, 2014 @ 2:24 pm
Hi Nick,
Is the forum consider support? Am I still able to login to the forum to view those threads to get help after one year?
If not, does it mean that I would need to pay $69 on the second year (as I was planning to purchase all themes) just to renew my member login. If there is really a need to pay, can I just pay $39 for the member login?
February 10, 2014 @ 9:34 pm
You would need to renew the membership in order to access support again. We offer a 30% discount for renewals. The support and theme updates go hand in hand, thus they can not be purchased separately.
February 21, 2015 @ 6:51 pm
I was thinking of buying a new Magazine theme or possibly a membership.
After I came across this post, that you charge even for updates, I changed my mind. Not to buy.
If you charge even for updates, the majority of sites using Themify sites will be vulnerable. It’s not a nice move.
Instead you could have charged for support. Not for crucial ones (updates).
Cheers.
November 4, 2018 @ 8:40 am
Hey, I wanted to ask that when you are going to offer discounts. I want to buy annual subscription, waiting for black friday discounts.
June 3, 2019 @ 3:45 pm
Right now I’m using thrive for Landing Pages but I would like to try your themes out on behalf of my clients. Is there any support deal and a special discount code available?
June 4, 2019 @ 6:20 pm
Hi Christian,
Please copy and paste us an email here: [email protected] and we’ll get back to you with a little something!
June 22, 2019 @ 11:15 pm
Cecilia sounds great. I will write you an e-mail because we need a new and better solution (WP system themes). This to scale our market for webdeisgn in the Southern Spain. A lightning FAST solution! I guess we then need the lifetime and then pay some support fee as well per year? Do you have a niche based On-click solution we can replicate by using IFTTT? We have a offagore team of native writers to write all the content, but we need a system to scale super fast. In other countries we sell more advanced WP solutions where all are costumized exactly as our client request. The budget is also total different in those countries co.pared to southern Spain. We need a fast and easy to go system to sell and scale by just replacing some photos or video and write some killer content together with Rich Media around it. Btw. We have our own high end dedicated server at Hetzner in Germany and it could be cool if we could automate the process between our server setup and the wp theme setup We want to deliver quality solutions for less. Super fast.