I dropped $400 on a Shopify theme and regretted it within a week

I build stores for clients and usually go with free or cheap themes, but last month I saw this premium theme from a popular developer and convinced myself it would save me time. Big mistake. The theme was super bloated with features nobody asked for, and the page speed tanked on mobile. I spent three days just cleaning out the junk code and optimizing images. Meanwhile a free theme I used on my previous project ran fast right out of the box. The $400 could have paid for a month of a good developer to customize something leaner. Has anyone else paid way too much for a theme that promised the moon but gave you a headache?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret5515d ago

Had a client drop $600 on one of those "drag and drop" builder themes. Spent more time undoing the bloated code than it would have taken to just custom build what they needed from a free base theme.

garcia.wren4d ago

Started pulling apart a "premium" theme last week and found it was just a fork of a free starter theme with a different color palette and a $200 price tag. Really makes you wonder who's actually paying for that stuff (besides your poor client, obviously).