Elegant Themes Review 2020: Should You Invest in a Theme Club?

Are you looking for affordable WordPress themes and plugins for your new WordPress blog? Sometimes you need a premium theme or tool for your WordPress website to make it stand out from the competition and give your site the look and functionality you’re after.

But premium WordPress themes and plugins can be expensive, especially when you purchase them all individually from different marketplaces.

That’s why today we’re taking an in-depth look at the WordPress theme shop Elegant Themes. They offer WordPress users a sweet package of premium themes and plugins, such as Divi, Extra, and Monarch, all of which are designed to help you create a unique website that generates traffic and revenue depending on your goals.

And to help you out, we’ve created a table of contents so you can skip ahead
if you want:

About Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is one of the most popular WordPress theme
shops around. It was started by Nick Roach (in
his college apartment!) and over the past 11 years has grown into a
well-established company full of WordPress enthusiasts trying to give site
owners the ability to create and manage their websites and businesses with
ease.

This popular theme shop boasts an impressive 601,772
customers and counting. Not to mention, they are a fully distributed company
with employees spanning 20 countries across the globe.

The team behind Elegant Themes has released around 87 WordPress themes and a number of plugins too. However, in an effort to fine tune its products, Elegant Themes now offers users 2 flagship themes – Divi and Extra – as well as three powerful plugins, Monarch, Bloom, and Divi Builder.

Now, let’s see what this WordPress theme club has to offer you.

Standard Theme Features

Each Elegant Theme comes with standard features you’d expect from any high-quality WordPress theme. For instance, SEO optimization, advanced customization options, advertisement integration, color and layout settings, and so much more come built into both Divi and Extra.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the additional features you’ll get in either
theme:

General Settings: change the typography, color schemes, layouts, and much more using the drag and drop interface. Plus, what you see is what you get when editing your website. Lastly, you can enable/disable the Divi Builder for posts, pages, and custom post types.
Responsive Design: in this mobile age, responsive design is a must. Luckily, Divi and Extra give you full control over how your mobile site appears to site visitors.
Inline Text Editing: to make a change all you have to do is click and start typing. As you edit on the front end of your site, you’ll see customizations in real-time.
SEO Optimizations: manage all your SEO settings in the theme editor. You can even optimize your homepage, single post pages, and index pages separately.
Integration Tab: easily add third-party scripts such as Google Analytics code that you would normally place in footer.php right in the theme customizer instead.
Website Elements: tap into over 40 website elements (e.g., CTA button, galleries, forms, etc.) to build any type of website you can imagine.
Pre-Made Layouts: access over 800 pre-designed website layouts packaged right inside the Divi Builder, along with royalty free photos, icons, and illustrations.
Ad Settings: manage all your site’s advertisements, even the un-widgetized ones. And if you use Google AdSense, you can add the code here too.

Of course, this is just the beginning. Each of Elegant Themes’ flagship
themes are unique in their own ways. So, let’s take a closer look.

Themes: Divi and Extra

Divi Theme

Designed to be a truly multipurpose theme, Divi was first launched in 2013 and continues to give people the ability to create any type of website imaginable. From blogs to online businesses to eCommerce shops, Divi is one of the most versatile WordPress themes in the market.

Take a look at some of the unique things you can do with Divi:

Create stunning hover effects and turn every website element into an engaging and interactive experience
Tailor your website to appear a certain way on any kind of mobile device; all changes are independent of each other
Choose from hundreds of web fonts or upload you own, plus customize the color, size, letter spacing, and line height
Add custom shapes and effects to your webpages by creating dynamic transitions between blocks of content
Control the borders that appear around every element by changing the sizes, colors, and styles
Create depth by adding drop and text shadows
Add animations that trigger when users scroll to certain elements

Additionally, you can save time by multi-selecting elements on one webpage and editing similar elements all at once.

If you want to make sure you can promote your brand to your target audience, don’t worry. Divi has an email opt-in module that comes with email provider support (think Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, and ConvertKit). And it comes GDPR compliant too.

Want to make sure your pages are
reaching their potential? Access Divi’s built-in split testing tools and
see which webpage converts the highest.

You can test anything you want with using this powerful feature. Plus, you
can view detailed results so you can make data-driven decisions about your
website and improve the things that will make the biggest difference.

Extra Theme

Extra is Elegant Themes’ magazine theme, which is also powered by the Divi Builder. This WordPress theme takes the Divi Builder framework and extends it so that you can create an engaging website full of content that people will continue to read.

With Extra, you get a built-in review system so you can ask users to rate your site’s content and help encourage others to engage with your content. If you want to make more money online, you can always open up an eCommerce shop because Extra integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce. And to really grab people’s attention, you can pick from any number of customizable Extra headers.

Perhaps best of all is Extra’s extended Divi Builder
functionality.

Now extending to categories, the Divi Builder comes with
modules designed specifically for bloggers and online publications:

Post Feed: create a simple feed of posts and sort them into groups such as Most Recent, Highest Rated, or Most Popular.
Tabbed Posts: create a simple standard blog feed.
Post Carousel: add all your photo-centric posts into this element and let site visitors scroll through them horizontally.
Post Slider: if you prefer, add your photo-centric blog posts to this element and let it display for readers.
Advertisements: plug ads right into your category feed manually or using Extra’s code module to add third-party scripts.

Elegant Themes Plugins

When you invest in Elegant Themes, you don’t just get the two themes. You also get these WordPress plugins:

Divi Builder

The Divi Builder plugin comes built into the themes, this page builder plugin comes with a drag and interface for creating advanced page layouts without having to mess with any code.

It also comes with over 40 content modules for endless customization options. Some of the best ones include an email opt-in box, countdown timer, CTA button, social follow, and pricing tables.

Monarch

This social media sharing plugin lets you add custom social sharing buttons in 5 different places: floating sidebar, above/below content, on images/video, as an automatic popup, or an automatic fly-in.

You can choose from over 20 social networks and enable triggers on your popups so they appear at just the right moment and get people to convert.

Bloom

If you’re looking to grow your following, Bloom is the perfect email opt-in plugin for you. With six different display types – popup, fly-in, inline form, below content, widget, required opt-in – you can display a message to the right people at the right time.

And since Bloom integrates with your favorite email service providers, building a bigger email list is easy.

Support and Updates

If you’re going to have access to so many premium themes and
plugins, you’re going to need to make sure you have access to support. Luckily,
the team at Elegant Themes has you covered.

To start, they offer 24/7 live chat, whether you’re an
Elegant Themes customer or not. And thanks to the intuitive dashboard, you can
easily manage your products and your account.

In addition, you can access the Community Forum to get your questions answered. Of course, support staff doesn’t answer any questions in the community forum. However, sometimes talking to other Elegant Themes users is helpful.

If you’re a developer, you can read the Elegant Themes Developer Documentation and get a more in-depth look at what the Elegant Themes products can do. And don’t worry, for those that aren’t as tech savvy, there’s a standard Elegant Themes Documentation too. Here, you can check out articles based on the product you’re using, which is helpful.

Lastly, when it comes to updates, Elegant Themes always makes sure its themes and plugins work with the most recent version of WordPress. Plus, as an Elegant Themes member, you’re privy to every update that is released, so you’re products are always improving and remain super secure.

Elegant Themes Pricing

Elegant Themes offers two comprehensive plans:

Yearly Access ($89/year): this plan gives you access Divi, Extra, Bloom, and Monarch, as well as hundreds of website packs, product updates, and premium support. And you can use all the products on an unlimited number of websites.
Lifetime Access ($249 one-time fee): this plan gives you access to Divi, Extra, Bloom, and Monarch, as well as hundreds of website packs and lifetime updates and support. And you can use all the products on an unlimited number of websites.

No matter which plan you choose, you also get a 30-day money back guarantee.
If for any reason you aren’t happy with your purchase, you can get a full
refund, no questions asked.

Elegant Themes Pros and Cons

Before you make a decision about whether to become an Elegant Themes member, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons. Luckily, we’ve done this for you to make your decision easier.

Pros

Feature packed premium themes and plugins for affordable rates
Flat rate pricing (no unexpected renewal fees)
Unlimited site usage for all products
Tons of support – live chat, forum, tutorials, and advanced developer documentation
Front end page building with real-time viewing
Over 40 website elements (that can be applied globally)
Hundreds of theme templates for inspiration and saving time
Divi Builder and other plugins work on all WordPress themes

Cons

So many features mean there’s a higher learning
curve for beginners
No individual products for sale (must purchase a membership)
Migrating content to another theme can be tough

Wrapping Up

In the end, there’s a lot of choice when it comes to the
premium WordPress plugins and theme you can use on your website. And making the
choice is not always easy.

That said, Elegant Themes gives plenty of value for your money. And with Divi being one of the most popular premium WordPress themes in use right now, you can’t go wrong with becoming an Elegant Themes member.

As a member, you get two high-quality themes and three powerful plugins designed to help complement your growing website so you can be a success. And with a 30-day money back guarantee, there really is nothing to lose by trying it out and seeing if the Elegant Themes theme club is right for you.

As an exclusive WPHacks reader, you’ll also receive an additional 20% OFF an Elegant Themes membership using this exclusive coupon.

If you’re ready to create a stellar website using Divi or
Extra, make sure to check out our guide
to creating custom post statuses so you can manage your site’s
content and authors and stay consistent for the loyal following you’re
building.

How do you feel about the Elegant Themes theme club? Which theme or plugin being offered are you most interested and why? We’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!

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