Businesses succeed or fail based on strength of their processes. Choosing the right theme framework to use for your website design projects is as critical a choice as the hosting platform.
Today we are talking about a few different builders, the cost associated with them both in the short and long term. We’ll talk positives and negatives of sticking with a single theme and you’ll walk away from this episode with clear guidance on which approach is the most effective way.
Keegan 0:36
What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the side hustle to full time web designer podcast. And in this week, we’re going to be talking about choosing the right theme, and what the cost of making the wrong decision really is. So without any further ado, let’s jump into the first part. We’re talking strictly on cost. You know, if you line up some themes, you can go to Theme Forest. And you know, it’s been $50 per site, $59 per theme, for one site use. And obviously that adds up. Well, you know, the page builders, they’ve come out, and they’ve kind of changed the game when it comes to the way each individual site theme license is priced. And so if you look at something like Elementor, you know, they actually recently increased their price and completely eliminated their unlimited plan, which I think is kind of crappy. I think it’s a bad business move, I think it’s long term, probably not going to be a great thing for them.
Keegan 1:35
But currently, I say if you go after their highest plan, you get 1000 websites, or access to 1000 licenses, and it costs you $999 per year, every single year. So that’s the assumption that you’re going to have 1000 websites who’s going to use that no one. So the pricing Elementor never worked for me, never made sense for me, because the pricing per website just was was really silly. Now, it’s still a step in the right direction. When you look at, you know, Themeforest themes, elements are still a lot better, because you can use some some really basic themes. And, and you can just put Elementor Pro on top of it, and you’re good to go. But still not ideal for me.
Keegan 2:27
The next one is Oxygen Builder, Oxygen Builders $229 for the unlimited lifetime ultimate package, like everything they have added on all included one time payment 229. And you’re done. Unlimited sites, unlimited updates forever. So that’s a little bit different, right? That’s a whole lot better elemental on what they’re doing. But you still only have that one option, you’ve got to drop that, you’ve got to drop that price, you got to drop that that little 229 one time.
Keegan 3:03
The next one. And it’s the theme that I use to build every single client website that I’ve ever built. Well, that I’ve built since 2016, let’s just let’s maybe be a little more clear. And that’s Divi you got two options when it comes to Divi, you can pay $89 a year. And you can have unlimited websites, and you get their plugins, Bloom Monarch and a few of those others, which I really don’t use, but they are there, you’re really paying $89 a year for the for the theme and to get all of the updates which are fast, they they’re always making adjustments to Divi.
Keegan 3:45
But they do have this really attractive, really nice price of 249 lifetime updates never pay again, unlimited websites for forever, just like Oxygen does. But the difference is that Divi is a much more user friendly page builder. It absolutely works unlike really really well. I mean it’s it’s it’s what always said is that it’s like if Apple built a theme they would have built divvy because it’s pretty it’s easy to use and it works pretty well you know there It has its quirks and they all do because I’ve tried I’ve tried all of them no builder no theme, no platform and really across the board is perfect.
Keegan 4:31
But Divi is the one that is as close to it as I’ve found and I’ve tried a lot over the years. So you know those are those are three that talk just pure cost, you know, depending on how long you do it and how many sites you build with Divi. Divi can be a ridiculous steal. I have built so many websites with at the cost per site is basically nothing but but you know, along with that there there has to be some benefits to sticking to a single theme. And it’s something in every conversation I have with anybody who will listen, I talk about sticking to a single theme, and how important that is, for a few reasons, we’ll talk about those now.
Keegan 5:16
The first one is really just a cost savings, you’re buying in bulk, or in some of those cases, you’re getting the lifetime access, and that’s huge. The more sites you build, the longer you do it, the less each site costs, that’s just great. I mean, you can get it to where it’s essentially nothing for an individual site, if you build enough sites, and you’ve got that lifetime. So the cost savings is huge. The other part is from a business standpoint, your standard operating procedures can be really flushed out, you can have SOPs, for building a site and every single part of the process for your site building, which will allow you to easily offload projects to freelancers, scale your business make more money.
Keegan 5:58
Standardized training for your clients. This is something that I’ve implemented in redefined creative, we put that together so that whenever a site launches, an email goes out to the client, and it links them to a page, a hidden page on our website. And that page walks them through the basics of things that they can do on their website and ways that they can update content ways to create new pages and posts and you know, just this, those kind of things. And you can’t do that if you’re continually using a different platform. The other part is that troubleshooting becomes a whole lot easier.
Keegan 6:33
You know, if you have different websites, that means you got different processes, you’ve got different website themes, you got different processes, you’ve got different, different things that could happen. And troubleshooting becomes a whole lot easier. Whenever you know, the theme inside and out, you know, the builder inside and out, because you’ve continually used it, you just get better at it, you understand it, and you know how to do all the things you need to do some other really good benefits of that, like you start building up these these tricks, you start building up these efficiencies, you spend less time doing it, which means that even without raising your rates, you again get to get paid more per hour, you get to raise your rates without raising your rates. And that’s awesome.
Keegan 7:14
But you know, there are some downsides. And, you know, the one, the one major downside I can think of is that if there’s a major bug that gets introduced into that theme, you’re gonna have to update every single site, you’re gonna have to do it really quickly. And that can be a little bit frustrating. But I think, in my personal opinion, in my experience, the benefits far outweigh that downside. So I stick with Divi, always have, and unless something comes out, that is just mind blowingly. Amazing, I don’t see me shifting my entire business model into anything different. Just because it’s so it’s so incredibly useful. It’s a great product, that’s a great community, and there’s so much positive around using that theme. And I really wanted to drive home. The fact that, you know, if you continue to move around, just not even financially, the upfront cost of a theme. But the time that’s saved and or wasted if you make like saved if you if you choose right, wasted if you choose wrong.
Keegan 8:25
I wanted to really finish this episode, stressing that point is that the upfront cost of the physical dollars that you give to a product, you want to do your research and you want to make sure it’s right for you and then stick with it. Because the cost of switching is huge in time. And that’s that’s major some people look at it and say there’s no way in the world I can spend $249 for a Divi lifetime license. And for me, I look at it and I say In what world could I not spend $249 if you take you know four or five, I guess four and a half sites and you purchase the theme on themeforest that would have paid for a lifetime supply with Divi.
Keegan 9:12
So just fair like just to be completely transparent and wide open. What I did is that my first client that I that I was building that I was going to transition into Divi, I built the price of a lifetime license of Divi into the cost of that project. That project paid for divvy in its project itself, but it also allowed me to use Divi for every project after that. So I would highly recommend doing something along those lines. You say that, you know if you think that you can’t spend that money on that license, get crafty, find a way to do it because you will not regret it and I promise you, you’ll spend a whole lot more than $249 or 229.
Keegan 9:58
If it’s oxygen, you know, you’re going to spend a whole lot more if you continue to buy new licenses for every single site. And Elementor could be one of those options that does work for some of you, but for me Divi lifetime call it done, paid for by one client, move on. And every site moving after that is, is free. So don’t fall trap. Don’t Don’t fall into the trap of continually moving through different themes and chasing the shiny object, find the one that works for you stick to it, and I promise you, you will come out looking like a champion on the back end.
Keegan 10:36
And that’s gonna wrap up this episode. I hope that you go out there and create something really cool. Share it with us again, as we always say, you know, this episode is gonna go live on Keegan Linear.com. So go to Keegan Linear.com And let’s keep the conversation going and tell me which theme you use. Tell me how much you paid for it, how many sites you’ve built with it, and link up some of those sites because I really want to check them out. I hope you have a great day and amazing, amazing week, and we’ll see you in the next episode.