We were disappointed when we were looking for our WordPress theme… There were many beautiful looking themes available but from a marketing perspective, they were horrific. In general, themes are built by programmers without a background in marketing. Therefore, the website lacks a conversion-focused structure. This hurts your business massively. Therefore, it was about time to make a Thrive Themes Review!
After two intense days of searching, we came across Thrive Themes. As a digital marketing agency, we immediately recognized the marketing vision behind Thrive. But Thrive Themes is more expensive than most themes. That begs the question: is Thrive Themes worth it?
In this review you will learn about:
- Can you only buy a Thrive Theme Membership? And what does that mean concerning the price?
- Breakdown of the different tools and plugins Thrive offers
- Is Thrive Themes worth it? From results to pricing, now you will know the complete truth!
Enough chitchat, let’s dive into this!
Thrive Themes Membership explanation
Thrive Themes offers a wide variation of tools. You either have the possibility to buy a specific product or buy a Thrive Themes Membership.
With the Thrive Themes membership, you get access to the entire software package. This includes: Thrive Theme Builder, Thrive Architect, Thrive Quiz Builder, Thrive Leads, Thrive Ovation, Thrive Comments, Thrive Optimize, Thrive Ultimatum, Thrive Apprentice (inhales oxygen). The tools are complementary to each other, meaning together they cover everything you need to build an online business.
Keep on reading to find out how the tools work exactly, and if they are worth the pricing you see in this chapter.
If you want to make use of one specific plugin, you can buy a license for that particular plugin. For instance, you already build your website but want to make use of Thrive Quiz Builder. You can pay a one-off sum of $67 to buy the license.
Don’t kill your website!
Thrive made their products compatible with most plugins, so in most cases, it will work smoothly. However, as a digital marketing agency, we aren't fond of using too many plugins from different developers. There is always a chance your plugins won't work properly together. This can hurt your website's performance substantially!
In general, the rule is: use as few plugins as possible and use as many plugins from the same developer. Every developer writes code differently and doesn't necessarily work with others. You can literally kill your website with this. Furthermore, Thrive uses clean code which means it is easier readable by Google plus it will speed up your website.
Tip: Thrive Themes made a tool package that is complementary to each other. If you are considering buying one of the plugins of Thrive Themes, take a look at all the plugins you have right now. Can they be replaced by products of Thrive?
Buying a Thrive Theme license vs membership
So you have the option of buying a license or a membership. But what is smart? As we've discussed before, you can buy a license with a one-off $67 purchase if you want a single product, or buy the entire software package with a membership of $19 monthly.
Besides the number of tools you get, there are two important reasons to consider in favor of the membership. Firstly, with the license, you get one year of support. With the membership, you have unlimited support. The support team is fast, effective, and very friendly. We had some questions with our own website but that was all fixed with a heartbeat.
Secondly, Thrive Themes puts a lot of time and effort into education. They provide members-only courses which are on its own worth more than $19 per month. If you keep reading you will find more about the education side of Thrive Themes in the chapter: free courses with Thrive University.
Alright, so this is the honest story about the financial side of the Thrive Themes Review. In the upcoming chapters, we will talk about the most popular tools of Thrive Themes. Are they worth it from a result point of view?
Build with Thrive Theme Builder
With Thrive Theme Builder you can visually make the marketing machine you desire. Theme Builder is easy to use and doesn’t require any coding whatsoever. Everyone can do this. What we, as Mark’d Agency, like about Theme Builder, are the premade theme elements. You can easily add premade landing pages, blog post structure, and lead generation forms. Those elements look very professional but aren’t necessarily ‘your style’. You can fix this by using your own brand colors (which you can automate within Theme Builder) and fiddling with customization options.
Thrive Themes claims the following about Theme Builder:
- You can launch your site within 15 minutes
- Update your brand in seconds
- Personally designed with conversion in mind
If you want to know what a theme from Thrive Theme Builder looks like, check out our own website:
https://markdagency.com/What is Thrive Architect?
Thrive Architect is the flagship of Thrive Themes. Architect is a WordPress page builder, it's designed to be fast and not take time away from you because as an entrepreneur time is precious. With drag and drop, you can add elements to your page and design it the way you want it to be. Think about adding videos, lead generation, or a code converter (this is great for affiliate marketing banners).
So what’s the difference between Theme Builder and Architect?
Theme Builder builds the overall structure of the website. Think about the header and footer, your branding colors, and whether or not you add lead generation forms standard into every page. Thrive Architect is the tool you use to write and customize specific pages or blog posts. Architect is for the content and Theme Builder for the overall look of the site.
Thrive Architect example
Do you want to know how Architect looks like on a real business website? We use Architect to customize our pages and blog posts. By adding buttons and lead generation, we achieve higher conversion ratios. Check out our resources page as an example: https://markdagency.com/best-branding-tools/
Get more quality leads with Thrive Themes: Leads
Did you start with building your mailing list yet? If not, or if the results are disappointing, you might want to look into Thrive Leads. Thrive Leads is a lead generation and conversion plugin. It has a simple to use design and deploy editor. We’ve used many different lead generation forms for our business and Thrive Leads had them all.
But that alone wouldn't be worth the money. There are free themes that can do that job too. The real value of money is the A/B Testing Engine. With A/B testing (or split testing) you can test different lead generation forms on your audience. For instance, use lead generation form A on 50% of your audience and lead generation form B on the other 50%. This way you can test which one works the best and this will increase your conversion ratio exponentially.
WOW, a 238% increase in conversions when I switched to Thrive Leads. This is the most powerful list building plugin I’ve used and the team behind it is ON FIRE!
Analyze the data from Thrive Leads
You can analyze the data you gathered within a dashboard of Thrive Leads. It's really nothing too fancy. You get to see the most important metrics and how your lead generation forms perform. Personally, I would have liked a bit more in-depth analysis tool but it does the job.
Boost engagement with Thrive Quiz Builder
Thrive Quiz Builder is one of the latest additions to the Thrive Theme arsenal. To be completely honest, at first, I was skeptical about Thrive Quiz Builder. What could I possibly do with a quiz as a digital marketing agency?! But after educating myself with the Quiz Builder course, I found out there are great opportunities within the concept of quizzes. Let me show you what I learned.
Quizzes are fun but there is strategic reasoning behind it. In general, people will take a look at your home page and leave after 10 seconds. But what if we could keep their attention, add them to our mailing list, AND have them share your website with their friends?
With Thrive Quiz Builder you can build your own quiz without spending hours creating it. It will help your mailing list, interact with visitors, and give you valuable data! With the info you gather, you can recommend content to improve on the areas for which your visitor scored badly. In this way, your content feels very personal. With Thrive Quiz Builder you can convert visitors into fans.
Free courses with Thrive Themes: University
As we mentioned before in the chapter about memberships, Thrive Themes focuses on education. They want to help you build a great online business. And the good news? There are FREE COURSES! Yes, you read that correctly. There are free courses for everyone. So make sure to check out Thrive University and make use of their knowledge.
For the members of Thrive Themes, Thrive made member-only courses. These courses tend to go a bit deeper into growth hacking. I have finished at least 5 courses now, and as a digital marketeer, I am impressed by the quality of education. It's to the point and it will make your business a lot of profit.
Shane Melaugh: your teacher
When you buy a Thrive Themes Membership, you don’t only buy Thrive Themes. You also buy Shane Melaugh. Shane is the co-founder of Thrive Themes and has been very successful for 10 years in this sector. What I like about Shane is that he thinks and makes his software like an entrepreneur instead of a software developer.
Now, why is this important to you? Shane will be the teacher of most of the courses on Thrive University. Shane puts all his knowledge from 10 years of successful entrepreneurship into his teachings. It's to the point and you will get results rapidly if you do the work!
If you want to know more about Shane, here is his website which he uses as a case study for one of the Thrive Themes courses:
Thrive Themes Review: is it worth it?
We now know both the financial and the result side of Thrive Themes. So it's time to conclude. Is Thrive Themes worth it?
Pros
Cons
Thrive Themes Review Conclusion:
The answer is: yes if you meet certain characteristics. Thrive Themes has created amazing tools to grow a vastly profitable online business. But you need to put in the work. Thrive Themes isn't some magic potion that will turn everything into gold. When you are digging for gold with a shovel, Thrive Themes is the excavator. It will help you get results way faster than any other theme but without you fully committing to your business, it will never work.
So if you take your business seriously and you want to make an amazing online business, Thrive Themes is right for you. If you are just trying things out and you are not sure whether you really want this business, then you are better of nothing buying Thrive. The truth is that you invest every year in Thrive, so you have to be sure that you make use of all the knowledge and powerful tools Thrive Themes offers.
Thrive Themes 100% satisfaction guarantee
If you are not sure yet whether you want to buy Thrive Themes or not, maybe this will help you. Thrive Themes believes in their products and therefore offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. This means if you don't like the membership, you can easily refund your purchase within 30 days. In my opinion, this is a very generous time to test the product. Below you'll find a screenshot with their promise.
Curious About Online Branding Tools And Generate More Profit?
On our website, we show the exact software we use daily to build profitable online brands for our clients. These partners are selected on getting results and value for money. Check out our branding tools page to find out about our trusted partners.
There are two tools that are the basis for online success:
Email marketing: it has the highest ROI (return on investment) of all online marketing solutions. Check our Sendinblue review and ConvertKit review.
SEO tools: seo is a long-term game but if you do it wisely, your website will make you profit without you actively working on it. The best seo tool for beginners is KWFinder. The costs are low and the value very high. If you want to know more about this tool, please read our KWFinder review.
We would love to hear from you! So feel free to leave a comment down below. For business related questions, please send us a message at info@markdagency.com