If you’re not aware yet, Elegant Themes has completely put the kibosh on third party child theme markets. ET recently released the “Divi Design Initiative”, which is a brand new design department dedicated to creating world-class Divi layouts with original photos and graphics. And the best part of this all, these layouts are delivered on a weekly basis absolutely free ?! In addition, they are giving customers access to their library of stock photos.
Now I asked myself, “Why would any business purchase a Divi child theme package when Elegant Themes is giving them away?”. And the answer that makes most sense is not very many. Simple math deduces 52 child themes per year. Who the hell is going to compete with that. And having a reputation for delivering quality products, it’ll be very difficult to knock them off the top.
Now I know what you’re thinking, I’m hating right? Wrong! I think it’s absolutely brilliant and wondered why it took this long to execute.
So what does this mean for the future Divi Dezigns? Do we wave the white flag in defeat? You bet your ass we do. But that doesn’t mean we’ll fade away quietly and not develop another theme. It just means we shift our priorities and pursue other Divi avenues (like develop Divi third party plugins). And to ET’s credit, as their user base grows so will new opportunities and demands.
And one last note. For all my Divi Dezigns customers who purchased our “All Access Package”, they will receive our first plugin absolutely free. And trust me, this undisclosed plugin will prove useful and hopefully fulfill a need. So keep us on your radar as we do not accept defeat, we turn it inside out and wear it proudly on our heads.
Fortunately they’re not giving away child themes. They’re just giving away layouts. There have been free layouts for years. Any child theme that’s not much more than a layout will be difficult to sell, but many child themes provide far more features than a layout would. I hope this will make child theme developers step up their game, making this a great time to develop websites with Divi.
Hi Randy.
To your point, it depends on what is defined as a child theme. If they are going to release layouts that are specific to a business, wouldn’t that be technically a child theme?
The first theme they released seem specific to me (e.g., wedding theme). But I agree, if we want to compete, we’re going to have to step-up our game, BIG TIME.
Thanks for sharing.
I appreciate your honest writings here. I would love to see what plugins you develop and can be sure I’ll buy it (I always buy the next Divi plugin haha).
Hi Nelson,
Sure thing and great! We appreciate your support.
I still will buy Divi Child themes because the designs are vast and endless, keep on designing themes.