Any startup that wants to attract attention from potential customers needs a professional website. Learning how to choose and install a WordPress theme can get you a long way towards that goal. However, finding the right WordPress themes for startups can be a challenge because there are so many options to choose from.
Your website’s design enables you to showcase your product’s unique selling points. With the right theme, you’ll be able to explain why customers should choose your brand over others.
In this article, we’ll introduce you to 14 of the best WordPress themes for startups. We’ll tell you what makes each theme unique and who should consider using it. Let’s get started!
Astra Stats:
- Downloads: 1+ million
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: lightweight, compatible with most page builder plugins, over 85 pre-built templates
- Best suited for: all kinds of websites
- Price: freemium (with prices starting at $49/one-year license)
Astra is one of the most popular WordPress themes in the market, and with good reason. It’s optimized for performance, which means that it can make your site load blazingly fast.
With Astra, you get to customize your website using any of your favorite page builder plugins, including Elementor and Divi. It also comes with dozens of pre-built page templates. Therefore, you can build almost any type of website, even if you have zero experience in web development.
However, many Astra templates are only available with a premium license.
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Storefront Stats:
- Downloads: 200,000+
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Notable features: built for WooCommerce, built-in store customization options
- Best suited for: eCommerce startups
- Price: free (with premium extensions available)
If you want to sell products or services through your WordPress website, you’ll probably end up using the WooCommerce plugin. This eCommerce plugin enables you to transform WordPress into an all-out online store. There are a lot of WooCommerce-friendly themes that you can use, but Storefront should be among your first picks.
Storefront is the so-called official WooCommerce theme, and it gives you a lot of flexibility for customizing your store. The theme works seamlessly with the WordPress block editor, and it offers several built-in features for tweaking your store’s style.
If you’re not planning on building a website for an eCommerce startup, Storefront can be somewhat limiting. You’ll be better off using a multipurpose theme for other types of projects.
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Zakra Stats:
- Downloads: 60,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: lightweight theme, over 10 pre-built website templates
- Best suited for: all types of startups
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $48.30/year)
Zakra is a fantastic option for startups that want to launch multilingual websites. The theme fully integrates with translation plugins such as Polylang and WPML. Additionally, it’s designed to work with Elementor.
This lightweight theme will help you create a fast-loading website that’s available in multiple languages. Plus, it supports Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) out of the box. However, many of Zakra’s pre-built templates are only available with the higher tier of premium licenses.
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Hestia Stats:
- Downloads: 100,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: compatible with popular page-builders, one-page designs available
- Best suited for: landing pages for startups
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $69/year)
If you’re still not ready to launch a full-fledged website for your startup, Hestia can help you create engaging one-page designs to drive up interest.
One-page websites can be powerful tools to help you collect leads before your website’s official launch. However, for more complex projects, you’ll want to combine Hestia with a page builder such as Divi or Elementor.
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Sydney Stats:
- Downloads: 100,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: custom Elementor blocks, pre-built website templates for different types of businesses
- Best suited for: agencies, Software as a Service (SaaS) startups, and app websites
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $69/year)
Sydney’s main selling point is that it comes with a large number of pre-built templates for multiple kinds of business websites. You can customize these templates with Elementor or the WordPress block editor, so they fit your business’ needs.
Sydney includes designs for SaaS websites, app startups, and finance companies. However, to access the full range of templates, you’ll need to opt for the premium version.
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Customizr Stats:
- Downloads: 60,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: live previewer, optimized for mobile devices and WooCommerce
- Best suited for: eCommerce startups with a focus on mobile shopping
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $49/year)
Catering to mobile users is critical for any startup’s success. If your website doesn’t look good on mobile devices, you risk alienating a large base of potential customers. Fortunately, Customizr offers a mobile-first design approach for startup websites.
The theme comes with several pre-built customization options and layout designs. You can preview every change you make live to see how it’ll look on mobile devices. Plus, the theme is designed to work with WooCommerce.
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Hello Elementor Stats:
- Downloads: 1+ million
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Notable features: lightweight, designed to work with Elementor
- Best suited for: businesses that like to work with Elementor
- Price: free
If you’re a fan of Elementor, you’ll want to use a theme that plays nice with the page builder plugin. Hello Elementor is a lightweight theme that acts as a blank canvas for you to build your startup’s website.
One advantage of using this theme is that it’s fully compatible with all of the Elementor templates that come with the plugin. The theme itself is free, but some advanced templates are only available if you have an Elementor Pro license.
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Colibri WP Stats:
- Downloads: 50,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: custom drag-and-drop page builder and blocks
- Best suited for: all types of websites
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $79/year)
Colibri WP comes with a custom page builder that offers a great middle-ground between using the WordPress block editor and more comprehensive options such as Elementor. The Colibri page builder gives you access to several custom blocks and elements, and it enables you to re-arrange and customize them as you see fit.
If you pay for a premium Colibri WP license, you get to use its cloud platform. This enables you to save designs and share them between sites and with third parties.
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Kadence Stats:
- Downloads: 50,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: compatible with page builders, membership, and learning management system (LMS) plugins
- Best suited for: educational startups
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $59/year)
Kadence’s main selling point is that it’s compatible with several page builders and LMS plugins. With Kadence, you get support for Elementor, Beaver Builder, LifterLMS, LearnDash, and Tutor LMS.
These integrations make Kadence a fantastic option for educational startups. The theme also ships with a large number of website templates that you can customize.
However, if your startup is not focused on the education market, you can skip the premium version and use the free Kadence theme.
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GeneratePress Stats:
- Downloads: 50,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: lightweight, available in over 25 languages, compatible with most plugins
- Best suited for: all kinds of websites
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $59/year)
GeneratePress offers some of the best performance among WordPress startup themes (and all themes in general). The theme prioritizes compatibility, which means that it plays great with most plugins, including page builders. It also works with the GenerateBlocks plugin, which is a custom page builder designed to work with GeneratePress Premium.
With this theme, you get access to a broad library of page templates. However, if you’re a fan of building websites manually or using WordPress core tools, you might be better off with a different theme.
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Customify Stats:
- Downloads: 50,000+
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Notable features: compatible with most plugins, custom header and footer builder
- Best suited for: all kinds of websites
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $59/year)
Customify lives up to its name by offering compatibility with almost every major page builder plugin, including SiteOrigin, Divi, and Elementor. The theme also comes with a custom plugin that you can use to import full website templates.
With Customify, you also get to use a custom header and footer builder. This uses custom elements and offers drag-and-drop functionality. However, it works separately from any other page builders that you may be using. This means you may need to do some tweaking to adapt the headers and footers to the style of those page builders.
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Blocksy Stats:
- Downloads: 60,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: built for use with the Block Editor, compatible with most page builder plugins, ready for translation
- Best suited for: all kinds of websites
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $49/year)
Although Blocksy works with most WordPress page builder plugins, it shines when used alongside the default WordPress block editor. With Blocksy, you get to use several new custom blocks, page layout types, and more.
Blocksy enables you to import starter site designs that are perfect for several kinds of startups. You have options for gadget-focused websites, car services, web agencies, and much more.
However, many of Blocksy’s advanced customization features, such as conditional headers and footers, are only available with a premium license.
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Phlox Stats:
- Downloads: 50,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: built for use with Elementor, a large collection of starter website designs
- Best suited for: using with Elementor
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $39/year)
Phlox is, by all accounts, an Elementor theme. It adds several new modules to Elementor, and it comes with a massive library of almost 200 page templates. If you’re not a fan of the page builder, this theme will not be a good fit for you.
With Phlox, you can use ready-to-go templates for all kinds of startup businesses, including consulting firms, green companies, web agencies, corporate sites, and much more. Moreover, all of the Phlox templates feature modern designs that will make your website stand out.
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Page Builder Framework Stats:
- Downloads: 20,000+
- Rating: 5/5
- Notable features: compatible with most page builders, lightweight theme
- Best suited for: all types of websites and white-labeled projects
- Price: freemium (with premium licenses starting at $58/year)
If you want to use a single theme that works with almost every page builder that you can imagine, look no further than Page Builder Framework. This theme integrates seamlessly with Divi, Elementor, SiteOrigin, Beaver Builder, Brizy, and many other options.
However, Page Builder Framework doesn’t offer page templates. If you want to use ready-to-go designs, you’ll need to look at the options offered by your favorite page builder.
The theme offers a broad set of add-ons that you can use to customize the design experience. You have options for white-labeling functionality, advanced WooCommerce features, and more.
Finding the best WordPress themes for startups can be a challenge. The right theme for your business will depend on its niche, the features you’re looking for, and the style that you want to achieve. In most cases, we recommend choosing a WordPress startup theme that’s as flexible as possible, so you’re free to customize it in any way that you want.
As far as customization goes, Sydney and Astra are great options if you need a professional and unique website. When it comes to the best free WordPress themes for startups, you might want to consider Storefront and Hello Elementor, especially if you’re using WooCommerce and you’re a fan of Elementor.
Keep in mind that all of the WordPress themes for startups that we’ve talked about offer free versions. Before you buy a premium license, we encourage you to test the theme to see if it’s a good fit for your business!
