For agencies offering WordPress website design and development, the right approach to providing themes for client sites is crucial. This choice significantly impacts production timelines, budgets, revenue, and the long-term scalability of projects. It can even shape your agency’s staffing and core services.

Whether you build from scratch or source and customize pre-built themes from third parties, you’ll need to make sure you can deliver the best experience possible for the client while working within the capabilities of your agency and any applicable time and budget constraints.  

Third-party, ready-made themes offer a quick, cost-effective solution with a wide variety of design options and built-in features. On the other hand, developing custom WordPress themes gives agencies full control over design, performance, and functionality. Each approach also comes with its own challenges for agencies.

So which solutions should your agency use? Should you rely on third-party themes, or is it worth investing the time and resources to create your own custom themes? Is a mix of both third-party and custom WordPress themes a reasonable approach? 

Here, we’ll explore these questions and discuss the advantages, challenges, and factors to consider when making decisions on how best to provide themes to clients. By carefully weighing your options against your agency goals, you’ll be better positioned to find the right approach for your business model and client needs.

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1. Pros and Cons of Third-Party WordPress Themes for Agencies
2. Use Cases for Third-Party Themes
3. Reasons to Build Custom WordPress Themes for Clients
4. Use Cases for Custom WordPress Themes
5. How to Choose Between Custom and Pre-Built WordPress Themes
6. Using Both Premade Themes and Custom Themes to Create Efficient Workflows

Pros and Cons of Third-Party WordPress Themes for Agencies

Before you commit to using third-party themes, it’s important to take into account both the benefits and downsides of relying on themes provided by other companies or individual developers outside your agency.

The Benefits of Using Third-Party, Pre-Made Themes:

1. They’re cost-effective and budget-friendly: Third-party themes, especially free options or reasonably-priced premium themes, can significantly reduce development costs.
2. There’s a wide array of themes to choose from: With thousands of themes available on WordPress.org and through independent theme developers, you can find a theme that suits nearly any specific industry and client requirements. Whether you need something relatively basic that you can extend with custom blocks, page templates, and patterns or you need something with extensive features out of the box, you can find popular themes that meet your criteria.
3. They allow for quick setup and deployment: Pre-designed layouts can allow for faster development, enabling agencies to deliver websites on tight deadlines or complete more projects in less time. 
4. There’s developer and community support: Premium themes often come with reliable support from developers and vibrant user communities that can provide guidance and assist with troubleshooting.
5. They receive regular updates: Many reputable themes are regularly updated to stay compatible with new WordPress versions and security standards.
6. Client’s may already have familiarity and preference to certain themes: Clients who have previously used a particular theme may feel more comfortable with the same or a similar theme. Some themes may also come with built-in support for certain site-builder plugins that clients are already familiar with and might specifically request as part of their site build.

Drawbacks to Using Ready-Made WordPress Themes

1. There are limited customization options: Pre-built themes may not offer the flexibility needed to meet unique client requirements, leading to compromises on design or functionality. Worse, an agency may have to implement more theme customizations and use various workarounds to achieve specific functionality that could take more time than simply building a theme from scratch.
2. There could be performance issues: Some themes come with excessive features or bundled plugins—often viewed as bloated code—which can slow down website performance and make the admin user interface cluttered and less efficient to navigate.
3. They could cause a dependency on site builder tools: Many pre-built themes rely on page builders or other plugins that might not be ideal for your clients’ long-term needs. These tools can make site owners feel “locked in” to a specific page builder framework and make it difficult to move to other solutions that better meet their needs. It can also inadvertently train your team to work only with a very specific set of tools, making them less flexible and efficient across varied projects.
4. There’s a risk of similar designs: Using popular themes increases the chance that competitors or other businesses will have similar-looking websites.
5. You have less control: With pre-built WordPress themes, you depend on the theme author for updates and bug fixes. If the theme is abandoned, sold, or altered by the developer in a way that negatively impacts performance, your client’s website could suffer. Delays in updates or bug fixes can harm their site and business (and your agency’s reputation).

The cons of using third-party themes may seem pretty heavy, but the pros actually can outweigh them for the right client or project. So what are some scenarios when using a pre-built WordPress theme is a better option than a custom-built theme? Let’s take a look.

Use Cases for Third-Party Themes

Third-party themes can be the perfect solution for certain types of projects, especially when resources and budget are limited or when speed is critical. Here are some ideal scenarios, from both the client and agency perspective, where agencies can benefit from using pre-designed themes:

Third-Party Themes Can Help Clients Who:

1. Are small businesses and startups: For clients who need a professional web presence but have limited budgets, third-party themes offer a cost-effective way to get a functional and attractive site.
2. Need basic informational websites: When launching a straightforward site for a local business, pre-designed themes can provide all the necessary features without requiring extensive customization.
3. Own a small ecommerce store: If a client is just starting an online store, a third-party theme can provide ecommerce functionality quickly and affordably. This allows stores with small initial budgets to test products, pricing, and marketing strategies before investing in expensive custom solutions that may or may not be critical for their particular store.
4. Have tight deadlines: When a client needs a website within a very short timeframe, using a well-made, third-party theme allows for rapid deployment without sacrificing quality.
5. Have limited branding or functionality requirements: For clients who don’t need highly-customized branding or complex functionalities, third-party themes can meet their needs efficiently.

Third-Party Themes Can Help Agencies That:

1. Are using value-based pricing for initial site builds: If you’re starting with high-quality themes that don’t require extensive customization for each client, you can move from one project to the next more quickly. If your agency uses value-based pricing for the initial cost for site builds, rather than hourly, reducing your site build time in this way could potentially boost revenue.
2. Have limited resources for custom development: If your team doesn’t have an adequate number of skilled developers contracted or on staff to develop and maintain custom themes, using third-party themes may provide better results.
3. Are just starting out: If you’re a new agency that’s building your client base, starting with a pre-made WordPress theme for your client sites can help you get through more site builds in your first few years, which in turn can help you generate more reviews for social proof, and build your portfolio more quickly.  

By understanding these use cases, agencies can make strategic decisions about when to leverage third-party themes and when to invest in custom development.

Reasons to Build Custom WordPress Themes for Clients

Custom themes offer agencies the ability to create tailor-made designs and unique functionalities that align perfectly with client needs. With optimized code and thoughtful development, custom themes can ensure high performance, exclusivity, and scalability. 

Agencies can also streamline workflows by crafting their own standardized base themes to use for specific project types, enabling faster deployment while maintaining quality and control. Of course, this assumes that the agency has the resources, time, and skill set to develop and maintain custom themes.

The Benefits of Creating Custom-Built Themes

1. They can be customized to meet client needs: Custom themes allow for precise, bespoke design and functionality tailored specifically to each client’s requirements, ensuring no compromises on vision or goals.
2. They can enhance performance and SEO: When coded well, custom themes tend to have cleaner, more efficient code, leading to faster load times and better search engine optimization.
3. Custom themes provide exclusivity and branding consistency: A unique design ensures that your client’s website stands out from competitors and fully aligns with their brand guidelines.
4. They provide complete control over code: You have full oversight of the codebase, making it easier to optimize, troubleshoot, and expand functionality.
5. They aid with faster update and bug fix turnaround times: Since it’s your agency’s theme, you’ll be able to respond much faster to issues reported by clients.
6. There’s a streamlined workflow with base themes: Developing reusable base themes for specific types of projects can speed up development while ensuring consistency across client sites.
7. Custom-built themes provide more monetization opportunities: Agencies can license or re-sell custom-crafted themes to other clients or developers, providing an additional revenue stream.

Drawbacks to Creating Custom WordPress Themes

1. There’s a higher initial investment: Custom development requires more time and specialized skills, which increases upfront costs.
2. There’s a longer development timeline: Building a theme from scratch takes significantly more time compared to using a pre-designed, third-party theme.
3. It requires expertise and maintenance support: Custom themes demand ongoing technical support and maintenance, which can strain agency resources. 
4. There’s more time spent on maintenance, less on new projects: Your team may end up spending more time maintaining client sites rather than working on new projects, potentially stagnating your portfolio.
5. It increases client dependency: If your agency closes or shifts focus, clients may struggle to find developers capable of maintaining or updating the custom themes you created. In contrast, third-party themes offer a fallback option for the client with direct support from the theme developer.
6. There’s a long-term commitment: Even if your agency decides to stop creating custom themes, you’ll still need to support existing ones or be willing and able to transition clients to new third-party themes.

Weighing these advantages and challenges will help you decide if custom themes are a strategic fit for your agency’s long-term goals and client relationships, but what are some practical use cases? Let’s go over a few different possibilities.

Use Cases for Custom WordPress Themes

Custom WordPress themes are ideal for projects where control, performance, and scalability are paramount. Here are some scenarios where agencies should consider creating custom themes:

Custom Themes Can Help Clients Who:

1. Are established brands: For clients with strong, specific brand identities, custom WordPress themes allow for full design and functionality control to ensure brand consistency.
2. Have complex or high-volume ecommerce platforms: Businesses with large product catalogs, advanced filtering, or unique checkout processes benefit from the flexibility and performance optimization of custom themes.
3. Have highly-specific website requirements: When a project involves unique functionality or design elements that cannot be achieved with pre-designed themes, custom themes provide necessary flexibility.
4. Are corporate, enterprise organizations that require high-performance, multi-language websites: Large enterprises or international clients often need websites that perform well across multiple regions and languages, which custom themes can facilitate.
5. Must follow regulatory compliance: Websites that need to meet specific regulations (e.g. HIPAA) may benefit from custom themes that are built to comply with these requirements.
6. Need custom integrations: When a website needs to integrate with external systems (e.g. CRMs, ERPs), custom themes allow for seamless and efficient integration. This can be difficult to achieve with third-party themes that aren’t intentionally designed with those integrations in mind.

Custom Themes Can Help Agencies That:

1. Have ideal clients who are higher-budget or enterprise-level: High-budget and enterprise clients often have complex needs, rigorous performance standards, and unique branding requirements. Custom WordPress themes allow agencies to deliver tailored solutions that meet these demands precisely. By offering bespoke designs and functionalities, agencies can position themselves as premium service providers capable of handling large-scale, sophisticated projects.
2. Want to specialize in custom WordPress theme development: Agencies that want to carve out a niche in WordPress custom theme development can benefit from building expertise in this area. Specialization allows you to attract clients specifically looking for custom solutions and can establish your reputation as a leader in high-quality, customized WordPress development. This focus can also lead to more rewarding and technically challenging projects.
3. Want to develop premium themes for resale: Developing custom themes for resale as premium products can create an additional revenue stream. This approach allows you to monetize your development skills and reach a broader audience beyond client-specific projects.
4. Are innovating in the WordPress website development space: For agencies focused on pushing the boundaries of WordPress development, custom themes provide the flexibility to experiment with new design trends, technologies, and functionalities. This innovation can set your agency apart from competitors and attract clients looking for cutting-edge solutions. Custom development also allows your team to build unique tools, complementary plugins and blocks, and specialized workflows.

By understanding these use cases, agencies can strategically decide when to invest in custom WordPress theme development to deliver the best results for their clients.

How to Choose Between Custom and Pre-Built WordPress Themes

Before choosing to use a third-party WordPress theme or create a completely custom theme, agencies need to evaluate several key factors. This decision should be guided by your agency’s capacity, client expectations and requirements, and long-term business goals. 

• Budget: How does your agency’s or client’s budget align with custom vs. pre-designed theme options? Custom WordPress themes often require a higher upfront investment, while third-party themes can be more budget-friendly.
• Timeline: Is there a need for quick deployment, or is there flexibility for a longer timeline? Third-party themes enable faster launch times, whereas custom themes take longer to develop.
• Technical expertise: Does your team have the skills to build and maintain custom themes? If not, relying on third-party themes may be the better option.
• Scalability: Will the theme need to accommodate future growth and functionality? Custom themes can be built with scalability in mind, while third-party themes may have limitations.
• Brand identity: How critical is uniqueness for your client’s branding? If exclusivity and brand consistency are essential, a custom theme may be the best choice.
• Support needs: What level of ongoing support and updates are you willing to provide your client (or that they are willing to pay for)? Custom themes require consistent maintenance, while third-party themes typically rely on the theme developer for updates and support.

Also, put some thought into how you want to position your agency in the marketplace. Do you want to be seen as catering exclusively to small businesses, enterprise clients, startups, or avant-garde projects? 

Is your preference to work with one specific industry such as apparel manufacturers selling B2B or creating websites exclusively for small mom and pop restaurants and coffee shops? Or do you want to reach a broader market and serve a variety of industries and client types?

Is your goal to become a custom theme seller and provide ready-made WordPress themes to other design agencies? 

As you consider your business strategy, you may find that your agency is better suited to work with third party themes or is better off creating custom themes for all client projects. But if your agency has a broad range of clients and project types, creating a balanced workflow that utilizes both custom and pre-built themes based on project needs and your available resources may be the ideal approach.

Using Both Premade Themes and Custom Themes to Create Efficient Workflows

No matter what approach you decide to take, you’ll need to develop workflows to keep the development process streamlined while sustaining flexibility for each individual project.

Below, we’ve outlined some basic points to consider when developing your workflow. They are by no means comprehensive, but should give you a good starting point:

1. Create or use starter themes: Instead of reinventing the wheel with each client project, develop a starter theme (or use a lightweight third-party one) that provides a clean slate with common functions already in place, reducing the need to build basic theme structure from scratch. 
2. Develop a reusable modular design framework using custom blocks, patterns, and page templates: Break down the theme into reusable components (header, footer, buttons, tabs, etc) and develop custom blocks, patterns, and template parts that can be used both in building page templates and in individual page and post designs. 
3. Implement child themes for customization: Creating a child theme for each project ensures future theme updates don’t overwrite customizations.
4. Follow a standardized workflow: Implement tools like Gulp, Webpack, or npm for task automation (minifying CSS/JS, compiling SASS). Use version control with Git, using tools like VersionPress for collaboration and maintaining code history.
5. Use a CSS framework or utility library: When creating a custom theme, using frameworks like Bootstrap or Tailwind CSS can speed up development time, improve design consistency and responsiveness, and avoid the need for custom CSS for every element.
6. Leverage custom post types and taxonomies: Utilize custom post types for specific content structures (e.g. testimonials, webinars, galleries), allowing easier management and better UI/UX. 
7. Maintain a design system and style guide: Create a style guide or pattern library for typography, colors, and UI components. This helps ensure consistency across the website and makes future changes efficient. 
8. Automate deployments: Use deployment tools like GitHub Actions or Buddy Works to streamline pushing updates to staging and production environments.
9. Regularly audit plugins: Ensure third-party plugins work seamlessly with the theme and avoid bloat by limiting plugins to essentials.

Final Thoughts on Choosing the Best Theme Approach

Selecting the right approach for themes in client projects is a balancing act between budget, timeline, technical complexity, and long-term goals. Both third-party and custom themes have their pros and cons, and the best choice depends on the specific requirements of each project.

Align Your Strategy with Overall Agency Goals and Client Needs

Your choice of theme should align with your agency’s capabilities and goals while meeting client expectations for functionality, design, and performance. Consider the long-term vision for both your agency and your clients when making this decision.

Assess Project Requirements on an Individual Basis

Take the time to thoroughly assess each project’s requirements. Use a detailed client onboarding form to gather information about budget, timeline, functionality, branding needs, and support expectations. This ensures you choose the right approach for each client.

Have Regular Team Discussions 

Regularly discuss theme strategies with your team. Review their capabilities, preferences, and workflow efficiency concerns. Develop a clear plan for handling custom and pre-designed theme development, including support processes and maintenance expectations.

Create an Appropriate Pricing Strategy

Review your pricing strategy to ensure it supports your chosen theme approaches. Custom themes typically require higher investment, while third-party themes can offer more cost-effective solutions. Ensure your pricing reflects the value delivered and covers ongoing support needs.

Every agency and client is unique, and theme decisions should reflect that diversity. By carefully considering these factors, your agency can create a streamlined, effective approach to WordPress theme development that delivers successful projects to satisfied clients, improves efficiency, and supports your business growth.

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