Wordpress has not enjoyed a large community of commercial theme designers. You can’t swing a dead cat on the internet without hitting a free Wordpress theme, and most of the successful bloggers who do use a commercial theme paid for a one-off design, or had one made for them gratis. More and more CMS style Wordpress themes are starting to show up, the majority of them are commercial.

Why pay for a theme when there are so many free ones? Why pay for a theme that someone else can purchase and use? I’ll tell you why after the jump…

There are an awful lot of commercial themes out there that look no different or better than most free themes, and offer no functionality that can’t be had in a free theme. Forget about them.

The newspaper and magazine style layout is one area where you are getting more for your money, because they allow Wordpress site designers to do things with their content that a two or three column traditional blog design won’t do. I took a look around to see what was happening with Wordpress CMS style theme design, and while there still aren’t an overwhelming number of options, a few are popping up. I submit the following as 4 Exceptional Commercial Wordpress Themes:

1. Revolution Tech

   Brian Gardner’s Revolution newspaper theme made a big splash when it came out, and he has branched it out into a couple of magazine style layouts. The latest variant, Revolution Tech makes this list. Very clean and readable, with a good layout for adding the touches that seem to disappear in a sidebar. It’s $79.95 for a single website license, which also gains you free updates and access to the support forum.

   

2. BlackMaster

   Jesse Lee’s Blackmaster theme is an Ajax powered theme with nice javascript based menus, content sliders and Ajax comments, so no page reload is necessary. The color scheme is going to be dark for most, but it’s nothing a little CSS and Photoshop won’t fix. This theme is $58.80 and support is via a usenet group.

   

3. Shifter

   The Shifter theme is the first Wordpress theme I saw and thought wasn’t readily recognizable as being a Wordpress theme. This is a nice theme. Shifter contains 13 module positions, so content and advertising options are much more CMS-like than Wordpress-like. This is a very flexible theme that is skinnable for different looks, and your Shifter site will look like a million bucks without you having to be a design genius. This theme is $79.95 for a single user/unlimited website license, and that’s a bargain.

   

4. Essence

   The guys at Rockin Themes launched their new iThemes site, and Essence is the first theme they are offering through it, and a spectacular first effort it is. The Essence theme allows for a handful of color schemes, and utilizes a responsive CSS top menu navigation. Very clean. The Essence theme is $99.95 for a single website license.

   

Wordpress themes and theme designers are starting to compensate for Wordpress’ limited layout possibilities, and some very creative themes are starting to pop up. If you have big aspirations for your site, less than $100 for a look that will set you apart and above the competition isn’t such a big price to pay. I think these four themes are a step in the right direction. Give these themes a glance, and keep an eye peeled on the Wordpress design community this year. This is just the beginning of a new wave of Wordpress theme design. Your options for showcasing your content are about to expand dramatically, are you ready?