Since I started working my way back into WordPress, and the community, I have noticed a number of blogs talking about ‘Premium’ themes. I have no idea what that means, so I decided to find out.

Premium has always seemed to me to be one of those annoyingly meaningless marketing words designed to separate normal, from not as good as it should be. Perhaps I am just a cynic, but does the existence of ‘Premium’ themes mean themers are deliberately hobbling their non-‘Premium’ themes? or is it just a reference to cost?

Nathan Rice takes the view that Premium Themes are those of “higher quality and customization potential”. Although he doesn’t explain exactly what he means his post makes it clear that in his view part of the role of a premium Theme is to extend the potential of WordPress. More of a feature set than a theme by itself.

That’s the kind of concept I can buy into, unfortunately while that view seems to be repeated regularly on theme sites, and blogs, it often precededs a host of surprisingly ordinary themes (although they are sometimes very nice looking and possibly worth the money on that alone).

It isn’t even the fact that a lot of these paid-for themes are calling themselves premium while seeming to deliver very little extra. While searching for Premium Themes I have found free premium themes that don’t deliver very much either, and free premium themes that do deliver.

It seems to me that the label is being used differently by different people. Some use it to refer to the features of a theme, some use it to refer to the cost, and some use it to refer to the effort involved, either way it isn’t really a useful label any more for someone who is looking to buy, if it ever was.

My conclusion, or at least my feeling about it, is that a premium theme should be something special. It should be something like News Pixel, News Theme, Revolution, or Showcase. It should give you the tools to redefine your blog, not just pretty it up a bit.

A premium theme should give you so much scope that you never need another theme again. It shouldn’t hold you back, but equally shouldn’t be something you can easily throw away. That may not be a useful definition, but I’ll stick to that in future.

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