---
title: Why Joining the WooThemes Theme Club Was the Smartest Decision I Ever Made
date: '2011-04-20'
tags:
  - business
  - web-design-1
  - web-development
  - woothemes
---

![](/images/why-joining-the-woothemes-theme-club-was-the-smartest-decision-i-ever-made/wordpress_laptop_vert_Titanas-e1303321068775.jpg)

*Photo by Flickr/Titanas. Used with permission under Creative Commons License.*


I first dipped my toe into the [WordPress](http://www.wordpress.org) ocean a few years ago.

My first experiences in the late '90s with [LAMP-based](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_%28software_bundle%29) systems with popular bulletin board system [phpBB](http://www.phpbb.com) gave me a pretty solid foundation for my introduction to WordPress.

At first, - like many other probably - I didn't have any idea what I was doing, but I had this idea that if I learned the WP core and how themes worked to expand and enhance functionality of a WordPress installation, that the sky would be the limit. It was.

And so I started off like many others have, with a skeleton theme and a lot of curiosity. I soon found though that at its vanilla state, WordPress is pretty darn complicated. This realization led me to look for a good solid framework. That's where [WooThemes](http://www.woothemes.com) comes in.

_Disclaimer: I'm a WooThemes Theme Club member (and evangelist) though I'm not affiliated with them in any way and you'll never see any affiliate links on my blog._

The thing about WooThemes is that they've been at it a few years and they've got their ducks in a row. And their framework is consistent.

What I'm talking about with "framework", is how they handle in-theme functionality and element display across the board. Their code is organized, well-commented and documented. And the format is pretty much the same throughout their entire theme library.

So I do some WordPress design [here and there (shameless plug)](http://www.drewapicture.com/web/) and for most of my projects I turned to WooThemes for inspiration. I think it's just that I've grown accustomed to the ease-of-use and functionality that comes with a WooThemes design, so when I branch out to other companies and discover the same level of quality doesn't exist in most other frameworks / themes, I'm disappointed.

So for more than a year now, I've been a member of their theme club. It's definitely an investment at the outset. The pricing starts at $125 up front to join the club, with a $15 monthly maintenance fee after that. I decided having PSD's was worth it from a development point of view though, so I sprang for the Developer subscription. With a $200 up-front fee and $20 monthly maintenance, it is the best investment I've made since I started working with WordPress.

WooThemes' support is unparalleled and you'll always be in good hands with co-founders [Magnus Jepson](http://www.jepson.no/), [Mark Forrester](http://www.markforrester.co.za/) and Adii Pienaar. They've also got a host of "WooNinjas" helping in the forums to make sure everybody is taken care of.

And because I design themes that stay largely in the vein of WooThemes' bread and butter (magazine, business, personal and portfolio themes), I've come to rely on their monthly new releases. It's always a pleasure to see what they come up with next.