Premium WordPress themes and plugins in my collection

When we started using WordPress in early 2007, we never imagined we will buy a WordPresstheme or plugin. But when we started freelancing in 2009, we needed to distinguish myself from the competition and started offering premium theme designs as part of the packages we provided. This turned out to be very attractive for my prospective clients. Since then, we started collecting themes from various theme clubs.

We look for beautiful designs, well coded theme frameworks, reputation of theme makers and excellent support. Life time theme club membership and affordable yearly renewals are two important factors for my purchase.

Towards 2011, we applied the same promotion strategy using premium plugins. ScribeSEO and WP Touch Pro were two attractive features for clients. Later, Gravity forms turned out be a must have for the flexibility it offered in developing custom websites. There are also few plugins which were bought for the specific needs of a client.

Nowadays, we are very choosy about projects and don’t need that many themes and plugins. Still, we continue to collect them as a habit. It also helps me to learn what’s happening in the industry and become of part of those communities. Sometimes, we end up purchasing few items just because we admire the maker

So, here is my collection. we better document it lest we forget

Premium WordPress Themes

StudioPress

Genesis powered StudioPress themes are my go to themes 90% of the time. we like their extendable code, SEO friendliness and ecosystem of plugins, developers and tutorials. All my clients love StudioPress’s ease of use. Their Pro Plus pack with a life time membership is a no brainer purch

WooThemes

In the early days of WooThemes, they offered a lot of variety. The designs were great looking and the theme options were user friendly. Since the introduction of WooCommerce, they have redefined their focus towards Business themes and eCommerce themes. We have a standard club membership but we renew the monthly subscription only when we need them.

Thesis

Thesis was one of the very first popular theme frameworks We bought. Around 2009, most of the top sites ran on it and gave rave reviews. We found it good for SEO but it had a very steep learning curve to customize. Now, Thesis has gone out of favor with the WordPress community. The latest 2.0 version is a total mess.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes has the most beautifully designed WordPress themes ever. Their pricing is phenomenal. But, somehow we lost interest in using them often. The code is bulk and all the themes are heavily dependent on images.

DevPress

DevPress had an ambitious launch with a great team. The 5 dollar yearly membership was a no brainer. Because of their partnership split, we got access to AlienWP also automatically.

Press75 and Theme Hybrid are two themes we bought because we admire their makers !

Headway Theme core and  iThemes Builder are my recent purchases from the Black Friday sale.

Premium WordPress plugins

Gravity Forms

we love the Gravity forms UI and ease of use. we load it even when we just need a simple contact form. Having this plugin makes you think innovatively to design your functionalities. It is great for conducting surveys too. It is the best example to illustrate that seemingly trivial functionality could also be a killer product if you do it right.

Pluginbuddy

Plugin club subscription from iThemes is a steal for all WordPress developers. We useBackupBuddy and Displaybuddy all the time. The LoopBuddy can be handy too.

Dynamic Website Builder and Genesis Extender

These are two valuable tools if you are working with the Genesis theme framework

WP Touch Pro

We used it extensively an year back. But responsive design has made it obsolete.

Premise

We bought it just for the love of Copyblogger Media products. We are yet to find a good project to use it.

We bought Artsy Editor and Relevanssi for a client project and rarely use them on other projects.