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How WooThemes beats custom design & development
13. Jan, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Interactive
In times when the financial going gets a little tough (I think the media has recently been referring to this as an economic recession of sorts), it’s wise to cut costs without compromising your business goals & objectives. So in an industry (web design & development), where there’s an ample amount of top-notch skills available (at differing prices to suit different budget constraints), why would you consider going with one of our themes vs getting a custom design?
I think that everyone would agree that a custom WordPress-built site will cost you lots more than any of our individual themes or subscriptions, right? The reason in this is purely in the time that a designer / developer needs to spend servicing one client, whilst we can spend that same time but then give multiple clients access to the same development. That’s just the way the two different business models work and both will bring their own pros & cons to the table.
Now, I’m not suggesting that custom design / development beats getting a template (since I also own a thriving custom design / development agency), but a template – when used correctly – can offer you great value-for-money; especially in times like these… When I browse around our showcase of WooThemes modifications, I see more and more great examples of how our themes were used as a framework and not an out-of-box solution. Looking at examples like Brad Ruggles, Anne Jackson, GoMediaZine & Resume Bear – it is hard not to see the value in customizing one of our themes. So why doesn’t everyone do it?
Another great example (to prove my point) is the recently redesigned ThinkVitamin website from the Carsonified crew. Even though I’d have loved for them to customize the theme more, it’s still great to see such a respect company using one of our themes; instead of having to develop one from scratch. So why would Carsonified (an established and hugely succesful company) use a WooTheme, when they could’ve done this on their own? Here’s why I think they did (and why others are doing this too):
- At $70 a pop, our Single License themes are a steal and a fraction of the cost of a custom WP theme;
- Our themes already have a bunch of non-standard WP functions built-in;
- Maybe they didn’t feel as comfortable with WordPress as they do with other platforms;
- Their design + CSS skills are top-notch, which is all they’d need to deploy to customize one of our themes.
- They wanted to launch the redesign ASAP and didn’t have the time to develop a custom theme; and
- They knew that we’d provide them with fast and efficient support on any queries they might’ve had whilst installing / tweaking the theme.
I know that for designers / developers using a template as a basis of their projects seems like “cheating”, but even Magnus is using one of our themes (modified though) on his own blog. So why when our themes offer you a fast, efficient and value-for-money solution, would you decide to go custom? For me the bottomline is a “horses for courses” approach in terms of going the custom route only when you need to; if you can however service all your needs with a modified WooTheme, why look elsewhere huh?
13 January 2009 at 3:10 am #
There is a reason why Woothemes has made the impact it did. I use the themes and they are easy to modify. With great functionality and great color schemes bundled with most of the themes, it easy to adapt a “download” way of web designing. Lots of times projects don’t grant enough money or worth to start from scratch.
13 January 2009 at 8:51 am #
So why doesn’t everyone do it? Because not everyone is a top notch designer / coder therefore have to outsource the work anyway. Yea they could save a bit of money, but for that bit extra they could have as much freedom with a theme as they wanted.
13 January 2009 at 9:11 am #
Great pitch their Adii, you bring some valid points to the table. Although I highly respect the quality and calibre of the themes that come from the Woothemes stable, I’m quite surprised that ThinkVitamin chose to go with an out of the box theme despite their own obvious talents.
13 January 2009 at 9:43 am #
@Rowan – It isn’t surprising. Carsonified has other projects they need to worry about. Projects that clients are paying them to complete. ThinkVitamin isn’t exactly the reason they are in business. They wanted to launch a new design and they wanted to do it quickly with as little work as possible. I’m not surprised at all. ThinkVitamin’s content is what is important. Not a custom designed template.
13 January 2009 at 10:24 am #
As a partner in a small, 3 man firm, I can tell you that WooThemes has been an invaluable resource for us. Why do we use these themes instead of custom designs? It’s simple. Our clients need services quickly and within their limited budgets. Many of them are small businesses and are focused on running their operations not how cool their website is. With WooThemes, we can focus on the actual design changes to the already built theme and code as opposed to going through a costly development process which could increase our hours on a project. Plus, we can still give them the functionality and “coolness” that they really didn’t expect to get within their budget.
For us, it’s all about satisfying the customers needs and it’s paid off for us because of WooThemes and the approach to development we’ve taken.
So, thank you Adii, Magnus, and Mark for being such professionals and producing such quality work. You’re not only running a great business but you’re helping many others striving to reach higher levels as well!
13 January 2009 at 1:10 pm #
Thanks for those inspirational words Matt!
13 January 2009 at 5:23 pm #
Woo has caused our business at JTW to improve, it fills in the financial gaps when we are not working on larger projects. I can’t say thanks enough. Typically, we start with discussions of a wootheme, then they end up wanting to hack away at it for ages.. all the more business in the end.
Kudos!
14 January 2009 at 1:56 am #
@Matt & @Justin – Thanks for confirming our feeling in this regard; we definitely think that our offerings are extremely valuable to designers / developers who decide to take on smaller projects (especially considering the budget constraints from their clients).
@Carl – I think you hit the nail on the head there. ThinkVitamin was in need of a recharge, but Carsonified couldn’t prioritize enough time to justify a custom design.
14 January 2009 at 11:57 am #
About five years ago I realized there were two sets of designers in the world:
- Group A felt design was about hand-crafting everything so it all was their own. They were focused less on getting things done, but more on ensuring they were overcome with the artistry of building it all.
- Group B was able to accept that there is a world of sensational resources out there, and your ability to know of them, choose from them, and put them together in inspiring combinations is the real art of design.
I’m a firm Group B designer. Do Group A’s create their own fonts for every project? Do they always shoot their own photos? Is scanning a texture that is “yours” that much more important to the success of your project? Is custom development beneficial to the business owner who just wants to see things get done?
That is why I love WooThemes. You provide a sensational foundation for a rockstar website. Thanks guys.
14 January 2009 at 3:29 pm #
I think a lot of designers, myself included, have waited a long time for wordpress theme resources that are well made and inexpensively priced. For example, the sandbox theme and it’s themeshaper modifications are widely adopted as quick starting points for wordpress development because of their cost and well designed code base.
Some people may say design with a theme isn’t design at all. However, I don’t consider using a theme “cheating” any more then I’d consider using a “paid stock image”, “Wordpress as a CMS”, or “PHP as a scripting language” as cheating.
Websites have grown up from their static html based forms into something beautiful – a merge of all types of dynamic web technology. Especially for small time studios, the time to cost ratio for “from scratch design” would make developing complex wordpress sites for their clients a minuim wage job at best.
Also lets be realistic, a lot of the basic coding behind many of the current generation of Wordpress themes is quite similar. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to?
Granted, I expect anyone using these themes to create divergent sites to have at strong grasp of the basic wordpress codex and wordpress site structure. Designers jumping in blindly to any CMS will not get very far – theme or no theme.
Thank you for the themes.
16 January 2009 at 2:07 pm #
Great article!! I Just want to say that I love to read your posts! Keep up the good work.
17 January 2009 at 6:27 am #
Thank you very much your articel helpt me a lot.
4 February 2009 at 9:37 am #
wow these look so awesome.
25 April 2009 at 3:16 am #
I think it depends on the objectives of a project and its use.
So, I’m deeply convinced that personal blog, fan site, or small project may look quite good with your themes. But great projects with perspective future based on profound ideas require only custom work.